tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77018476562205263112024-02-20T01:45:57.938-08:00Qui scribit bis legitPaul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-79763060435132490582020-06-07T17:55:00.002-07:002020-06-07T17:57:02.441-07:00Artist BlockHello. How are you? You look great! Have you (gained/lost) weight. Well, it suits you! I’m well thanks for asking. <br />
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Let’s get to it. <br />
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So art block. For a little over a year I have been trudging through an expansive art block. It has been, in the words of Abraham Lincoln: “About as fun as a chapped ass”. It has very recently faded and slipped away, but it has been troubling.<br />
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Let’s go through what art block is and then some stuff to work through.<br />
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Art block isn’t one thing! Surprise!! I’m sure you are aware of this but just to be sure we start out with a good premise. It can include stalled imagination, lack of ability to focus, dissonance between expectation and skill, slipping into tedious habits, distortion in proportion, forgetfulness, and difficulty. <br />
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Let me address this last first. With any expertise comes ease. Even something like automation. You don’t need to think about it, it just happens. Here is a brief video about it:<br />
https://youtu.be/-nhRPVWM9A0<br />
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With expertise comes an expectation of ease. You go into projects with the ease of moving your fingers or walking. But like suffering an injury to nerves these ready actions can become shockingly difficult. This effect is called “the yips” in golf, but has other names in other sports and playing musical instruments. Your brain, amazing as it is, is a fallible, ever shifting, thing. It builds patterns based on repetition and value. It takes time to reconfigure, rewrite, and shift. At times it can get tangled and overworked. It can even propagate misreads. Visual art (ooph, I hate these terms but it will have to do) is a highly complex set of activities and unlike golf and single musical instruments isn’t quite as dependent on one family of interactions. The yips aren’t as likely to end a career in art as they are in golf. Fortunately, as part of the package an artist will have to reinvent physical and mental methods fairly frequently. But that isn’t to say it is a walk in the park. <br />
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A way to deal with the aspect of difficulty is changing media, study (without practicing-just look and solve), exercise, and deliberately breaking habits. Find a habit, break it. There won’t be immediate results. Creating new patterns and standards in your brain takes time, so just ride the disappointment and frustration as calmly as possible and proceed. What else can you do?<br />
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Stalled imagination: This can be related to “the yips”. None of the aspects of block is independent of the rest. But strangely the fix might be indirect. Sometimes when you draw a face the nose doesn’t seem right. So you redraw the nose about 50 times until the paper is compromised and tattered. It finally dawns on you every nose was acceptable, it was the eyes and mouth that were the offenders. Your point of focus is off-you are fixing what isn’t broken. Your attention lands on the thing that points out the problem not the problem itself. It is misattribution based on new awareness. Stalled imagination is much like this. The problem isn’t your imagination the problem is boredom, or a lack of new information to feed novelty and discovery. You have retread the alleys of your best art high too much, and need new things to learn. I don’t mean new art things to learn (though that may be a parallel part), I mean in your life. You need to do new things, face new challenges, difficulties, joys etc. Your imagination is dependent on your ability to be actually alive and subject to experience. Don’t believe in the “introvert” myth. To draw worlds you have to live in the world.<br />
Current events take note.<br />
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Lack of ability to focus: This one is rough and has many factors…and few fixes. So attention is an expansive issue. Some of which is chemical, or dependent on brain function that is highly variable moment to moment. Depression can affect attention, as can caffeine, sound, driving awareness (like thinking of the action of your fingers while trying to draw, or the actions of your hands or eyes while driving), among many other things. So what do you do? How do I know?! I’m not your dad! Wait…sorry, sorry, lost track of the convo…<br />
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Like that last sentence…divert attention in a completely different direction. As it is so variable and some of it out of reach for fixing, diverting and doing something else might be in order. If it is persistent there might be underlying physical or chemical issues to consider. Nothing interrupts attention, memory, and continuity like an overload of stress hormones. This may include living conditions, work conditions, or disorders. <br />
Shut off the damn news! Seriously-it is in made to sabotage attention and continuity to create addictive “watching” habits - eyes on screens and compulsive clicking. That’s why it is persistent cliff-hangers. It is herding to the next click. Read the news if you have to, but avoid attention destroying habits.<br />
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Dissonance between expectation and skill: Drawing is a complicated process. It incorporates many cognitive functions- subtle and overt. Some have to do with your ability to control and measure pressure and angle. Other parts have to do with projecting agency and “theory of mind”. Still others have to do with how your brain understands your body in space, motion, and angle. Recognition of these experiences is itself a cognitive set. These are at times competing cognitive functions or are uncoordinated. Your expectation of what you can do, or your standards, can jump ahead of your mechanical knowledge. But it will seem like you should know how to do it. But this is a misunderstanding. It may take a few tries to recognize the problem, but some intensive study will help. Again, don’t expect immediate results. It takes some time for your brain to process.<br />
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Slipping into tedious habits: Habits! Part of art is feeding the exploration and discovery of the artist. Without intention we are mapping and projecting our senses of space incrementally into new territory. Literally. But we are also satisfied and fulfilled by successes. It has been noted that addiction is a learning error. Drug addicts have been known to return to the place of their best high as if it magically holds some essence of the high and if they reproduce the ritual of their high it will come back. This learning error is mirrored in habit. Ritually returning to actions and sequences that had success becomes extremely tedious and stunts development. It is a learning error. Successful tactics become tools and can be incorporated into practice and are additive, repetitive rituals stunt, frustrate and create tedium. Break your habits and unnecessary rituals, but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, useful tools and recurring tactics are not habits.<br />
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Distortion in proportion: At times you may find that your sense of proportion in figures, faces or composition are surprisingly distorted. Sometimes the distortion will be consistent across images. Overlarge hands, long or squat faces, big torso and small legs, big eyes and small nose, etc. This might be a mapping problem or how you feel vision, and, in turn, how your experience of vision will contort to match the feel. When you recognize the distortion you can incorporate testing and adjusting this personal idiom in your regular work. But sometimes your work will suddenly shift, become distorted and messy and you can immediately recognize it. You may note this under the scientific phrase : “My work looks like crap”. And so it does! But exercise can help this as can study, as can anatomy study, especially novel study. Approach studying anatomy looking for a new angle or different approach, as you are likely fatiguing your patterns and entering habits.<br />
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Forgetfulness: Again this can have any number of causes. Sometimes the fix is a simple study session or review. But other times it can be systemic in drawing. The coordination and sequences you use to create the images can drop out, lose connection, and or stumble along too late. You actually have to think through what was previously automatic. It can be surprising, disappointing and frustrating to have to manually set up what was so easy before. Likewise, it can undermine confidence and exacerbate the issue. It can get so bad you question if you ever knew how to draw or paint. Again there can be real and serious causes for this. But barring the worst case scenarios, some fixes include the strange idea of starting over. Accept, briefly, that you have forgotten forever, or that you never knew and that things are broken. Then proceed to go study and learn as if starting fresh. Assume: 1. It won’t take very long to learn and 2. It’s not a big deal. With this relaxed premise in place go study. You will quickly find you do recall, your anxieties will ease, and you will become very bored as it turns out: you actually do know all the lost stuff and nothing was forgotten. Abstracting your abilities (like saying “aluminum” or “cinnamon”) seems like forgetfulness and is a sign of fatigue or repetition. <br />
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I hope that was helpful.<br />
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Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-55672105679621615192018-05-04T08:31:00.000-07:002018-05-07T08:30:07.171-07:00Devil’s Dictionary Artist’s Edition Art-noun \ ˈärt \<br />
1. A term used to justify and legitimize terrible ideas.<br />
2. A term of prestige tacked onto nonsense.<br />
3. Something that seems mysterious used to beguile and rob the gullible.<br />
4. An extremely ancient term used to describe extraordinary experiences. This experience being triggered by coherent configurations and combinations that are like to the patterns of the world as gained through experience but amplified into hyperreality or time distortions. (Rare but still accurate).<br />
5. The state of being cognitively manipulated into extra reality.<br />
6. Nested packages of information transmitted via material configurations that in turn create a toolkit of cognitive effects. Ex: A drawing is a configuration of contrasted curves, edges, boundaries, intersections, and values to indicate forms and patterns familiar to what the brain experiences in space. As this hierarchy of data escalates the brain creates meaning and agency. It clarifies pattern from noise. The clearer the patterns the more convincing the drawing. These patterns can be impossible as facts, but acceptable as experience.<br />
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Artist-noun art·ist \ ˈär-tist \<br />
1. One skilled in the fine arts. Fine arts, of course, being nonsense. Fine arts vs practical arts isn’t a thing.<br />
2. Everyone, in their own special way, being a wizard, saint or prophet. But not really.<br />
3. A do nothing, lazy, pretentious, low level con man.<br />
4. A saint, sometimes called a “master”, whose insights and sensitivity are beyond question.<br />
5. Someone who expresses themselves all over the place without regard or considering if that is even a good idea. (See Expression)<br />
6. Someone who can, through careful study, experiment and practice, induce a state of art by manipulating materials or signals to create cognitive effects (see art definitions 4-6).<br />
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Critic- noun crit·ic \ ˈkri-tik \ syn vandal, asshole, fraud, parasite, predator<br />
1.A self confirmed expert without expertise in the subject they address.<br />
2.An arm chair quarterback<br />
3.A huckster with an intent toward vandalism as a point of power.<br />
4.One who cannot practise what they preach.<br />
5.A failed personality cult leader.<br />
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Critique - noun cri·tique \ krə-ˈtēk , kri- \<br />
Etymology: from krienin- to separate or divide. To judge or separate.<br />
1.A popular method of gathering together in a group to pillary one another and vandalize work.<br />
2.A method of mining for faults and errors in the work of others without the necessity of any skill or knowledge in that work.<br />
3.An act of spite under the guise of assistance.<br />
4.A demand to do violence to reason and submit to the arrogance of others for fear of being proclaimed arrogant.<br />
5.A non-sexual sadistic and masochistic relationship between parasites and predators.<br />
6.Arrogating the position of the artist without having to do the artist’s work.<br />
7.The evasion of putting your money where your mouth is.<br />
8.Group assholery.<br />
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Epic- noun ep·ic \ ˈe-pik \ syn Pop, umph, boom!, bledow, kersplash, poit, and other Don Martin borrowings.<br />
1.A word lacking any definition often said while using explosive hand gestures and a dramatic inflection.<br />
Ex: “We need this logo to be epic!”, “That image needs to be more epic! More ‘umph!’, you know?”<br />
2.A term indicating bluffing. Often best addressed by the phrase “shut up.”<br />
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Expression (or the theory of expression in art)- noun ex·pres·sion \ ik-ˈspre-shən \<br />
1. A late 19th century philosophical idea of what art is from the likes of Croce and Tolstoy. Mainly, based in the idea of magic and voodoo dolls but disguised in philosophical language. Ex-press meaning to push out was, in summary, meant to indicate the artist was taking their inner self and putting it into outer objects. Harry Potter fans might consider a horcrux. But the “horcrux theory of art” sounds stupid. The theory of expression was and is often linked to expressing emotions. Emote means “move out”. So expressing emotions is to “press out move outs”. I am starting to prefer the horcrux theory.<br />
2. A fossil of an idea showing how far we have come in understanding when compared with recent cognitive science.<br />
3. A word, of unknown meaning, used to authorize something someone called “art".<br />
4. A term used to emotionally blackmail others when an idea or claimed piece of art is questioned. The word “personal” is often attached to endow the right to be personally insulted. Ex: “How can you question his personal expression? Who are you to judge?” This idea implies a mysterious ownership.<br />
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Just -adjective \ ˈjəst \<br />
A word used by conmen and clients to undermine everything you do and everything you are. An attempt to minimize the extraordinary. Making the worst cause seem the better in a single word. Smallifying what is big. Smally Bigs.<br />
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Objective -adjective ob·jec·tive \ əb-ˈjek-tiv , äb- \<br />
1.Not subjective (see Subjective).<br />
2.As perceived without distortion or interpretation…making it not a perception. The act of perception distorts, translates, recombines, and confabulates. If you perceive it you already broke it.<br />
3.Quantitative, though this idea rarely comes up as it is frowned upon to think art may involve calculation, analysis, or unemotional/unromantic things.<br />
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Perspective-noun per·spec·tive \ pər-ˈspek-tiv \<br />
1. a term used in art to note you know an art term. See also “use” as in “use of color”.<br />
2. A way of saying you understand the point of view of another without any knowledge of that point of view. Speaking for another in such a way as to shrug off responsibility to a generalized scapegoat. An indicator one is pretending to be the representative of a demographic one has never consulted.<br />
3.A term used in the attempt to become the vox populi, and therefore the vox dei without first consulting populi or dei.<br />
Ex:<br />
"From the audience perspective, this terrible idea is justified”.<br />
"From a player perspective this offensively stupid idea I’m espousing is legitimized.”<br />
"From the perspective of these voiceless suckers you can’t verify, what I’m saying has authority.”<br />
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Pop - verb \ ˈpäp \ syn Epic<br />
1.In art, this means, “I have no idea what I’m talking about”. Ex: “We need something epic! Something that really pops!” “When placed side by side these really pop!”<br />
2.A word used to suggest excitement, when nothing exciting is happening.<br />
3.A word used to indicated someone does not know the properties and attributes of creating an experience, but can clumsily discribe their experience.<br />
4.Describing something that draws attention, but not understanding it is many complicated things happening simultaneously.<br />
5.A diagnostic word to discern a bullshitter.<br />
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Style-noun \ ˈstī(-ə)l \<br />
1. A description of the limit of one’s abilities.<br />
2. An attempt to endow authority to a lesser set.<br />
3. Proclaiming one’s vices as virtues.<br />
4. Carefully, and with expertise, excluding some data, while amplifying other data to compensate for the exclusion, thereby giving a coherent, but noticeably idiosyncratic experience. (Antiquated use).<br />
5. Using a confined, economic, limit of information to great effect. (Rare).<br />
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Subjective- adjective sub·jec·tive \ (ˌ)səb-ˈjek-tiv \<br />
1.A term used to minimize importance based in a philosophical misunderstanding of a dichotomy between subjective and objective, which was left aside long ago. It is often used with “just” or “only”. The quantitative and qualitative, and the thresholds between them in cognition are not considered.<br />
2.An antique idea regarding a false dichotomy between subject and object long ago left aside in philosophy. The subject/objective dichotomy is extinct, as overlap and gradients with the ideas were quickly found. They describe proportions of measure and affect in signal interpretation.<br />
3.Often wrongly used to mean “personal preference.” Without understanding that preference can also be built and configured and rewritten.<br />
4.A dismissive word best used as a signal to dismiss.<br />
5.The clumsy, distorted, way of saying “qualitative”.<br />
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World view- noun\ ˈwərl(d)-ˌvyü \<br />
1. A tangential uninformed opinion about things of which one is unacquainted.<br />
2. Claiming a cosmic point of view when regarding one’s navel.<br />
3. Disregarding the intricate and impossibly complex pursuit of knowledge of the world for worship of a very small baetylus or omphalos.<br />
4. Being provincial but sounding sophisticated.<br />
<br />Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-74305949037878185592018-03-14T09:44:00.000-07:002018-03-14T09:44:09.974-07:00Art class notes<div style="font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">We read other peoples peripersonal space even if the "costume" or outfit or extra gear aren't there (pantomime)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Implicit drawing: use peripersonal space in a characters posture and angles (weight signatures and strain signatures) to imply an invisible sub drawing. This relies on body schema and peripersonal space maturity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Standing upright evolution. 2 things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">1.standing as a hierarchical position. Looking down on a rival. Widely present among animals. Implications of bigness (as opposed to reaching for food) and playing with depth importance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">2. Standing difficulty, rearing up is difficult. A physical unfolding uses great strength, energy and balance. It creates vulnerabilities in combat for the one rearing, but also demonstrates condescension as it is sneering or dismissing the power of the bent. This can be faked and acted as if rearing involves more unfolding and strength than is really used (drag). In people flourish and gesture add to the theatricality and hidden message. Like playing to the back row, it should be noted this is performance for several not as much one to one. Less a matter of making big, and more a matter of the display of down looking extravagance. Notice this in terms of the "body language" pose of leaning back arms raised behind the head. Conspicuous and Extravagant vulnerability while looking down. This type of rearing is selective to audiences that can be intimidated in front if others. This pose shown to an aggressor or predator exposes vulnerable organs and wide target areas. In humans, still, the arms back pose can be diffused by an opponent leaning in or even getting closer. It is proximity dependent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Inferential drawing based in cross modal perception. Drawing what isn't seen, hidden out of frame social interactions, peripersonal space. mix and match </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Drawing peripersonal space</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Perspective is an attentional and time tool not a framed context or geometrically ordered structure. Note Saccadic fixation in regard to perspective and time perception (note this also with accompanying audio and temp tactics).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Perspective, VR, clothing- the sense of position and extra position (height, body schema and peripersonal space). The ability to use tools, extending body space has meaningful aspects. The metamorphosis provided by extensions and altering bodily proportion can be communicated by angle with this result of a change to the character of the audience. Mind writing. (Bailenson's tests with VR and height and gender in negotiation). This old artist's trick has been used in portraiture for centuries with added color and proportion tactics to intensify. In VR the possibility of "unwrapping" to a certain degree can further expand on this experience (good completion and the subtle movements we use to scan around depth.). That noted the inertial and rotational cues will still mismatch in VR. The vestibular system needs to be brought in to the effect for the "reality" part. VR is a diminishment in experience, even if those things experienced are hyper-real in isolated properties. Ritual, wherein participants traveled through hyperrealities, also had real movement and inconvenience (labor and force), proximity cues (including scent and the movement of the small bodily hairs that assist in understanding the puffs of air in speech). The preconscious and subtle "realities" need to set the base for an experience of reality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Touch receptors have meaningful visual correlates (force, light touch). Look into an anatomy of visual touch (for example raffini cells).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Same with sound ie facial expressions</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Metaphor is a cross modal gap filling for inadaquate narration and targeted sense sequence. "A blanket of snow" describes some cross understandings of categories but have as much unlike their metaphorical model as it does alike. So priming is used even if contradictory. Warm blanket and cold snow combined. Layering various "warm" indicators can prime comfort and "heat" even in a winter scene.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Explain phantoms and ghosts and how implicit information can induce that type of projected agency (the ghosts of Kiki and Bouba). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Sound/taste is complex reception but still geometric. Color reinforced (ie fruit having a tangy smell, but ripeness a visual coloring and further depth coloring by light transmission through the skin.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Kiki bouba & line orientation bias (also top down light orientation bias)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Also consider food temperatures and soft textures as inference to behavior (sitting on a hard chair makes one a harder negotiator, drinking a warm drink makes one more sympathetic in punishment.) Color and weight as priming tools.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Recall case mentioned by Sacks about the woman with ticks involving imitation in extremis of people over a span of time. He connected this with Tourettes but it sounds like an extreme mirror touch synesthesia with the mirror boundary completely eroded and recalled. Leaving the imitative systems without a personal block. "Trying on" in extremis. Consider in the opposite direction in terms of anorexia as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Up down curvature bias (head space) in facial expression (Thatcher effect....poor ability in recognizing upside down faces and elongation of the face inversion)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Depictions of heavy attentional load can indicate narrative priority. If a figure is reacting to several points of attention: ie lifting a heavy stone infront if him, flinching away from something on his right but his eyes straining to the left- the value of each point of attention can be weighted to help indicate sequence and narrative.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Internal agency and attention. Feeling the bridge of the nose with the fingers agency can be switched from fingers to feel nose, or nose to feel fingers. The "personifying" or primary piloting or primary agency can be switched in body parts, ignoring other body parts. This agency can extend to personifying.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Anatomy- find primitive shapes. Cubes first with largest face area and orientation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Art as extended agency, doubling, hyper reality, phenomenological framework.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Social vs public identity and body schema- scale variation</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Brain using body as measuring tool and comparison guage of space, scale, and hierarchy</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Position has grammar and drawings can involve conjugation</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Narrative is a way creating a clock, but a sub time can work using narrative as camouflage (switching value in cognitive signals) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Distance limits the available emotions to communicate with voice, posture and faces. Playing to the back row is very limited, but those limits can also tell which are intimate or close social vs far performance or group appropriate. Performance emotions and intimate close group emotions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Controlling attention is power. When people vandalize and compete with art they are commandeering attention and exercising an aggressive competitive impulse against the artist, but more often against the work it self. They are in a performance and diversion will diminish the pursuing attention of an audience. Vandalism shows dominion. Coinneseourship is this with a controlled face. Creating cognitive biases around preconceived notions or hijacking pattern recognition is one of the more effective ways of vandalizing quickly. In the form of gang like joking sessions, real social rivals will offer competing jokes, destructive commentary and accusations of taboo breaking. It is rife in studio environments, and very costly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Kiki and bouba are also spatial (pointed breasts and round breasts "titties"vs "boobs"...thanks for noting this, Sherry, and the resemblance to the letters between kiki and titties, it also makes me think of averaging shapes and kiki/bouba variations). Three dimensional angles and curves. Depth is sculpting attention, value and agency (or likeness to body schema) in space. Consider variations in x,y biases and the different mode with z and depth biases. Also consider tournament and pair bonding priority in projecting agency to figures. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Fast/slow facial expression -these are of variable importance and use in depth....compensated by bright teeth, red gumd, whites of eyes -color variations. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Joints and "features" act as saccade guides, fixation points for connected angles and direction. These features act as pivots to other connected objects. Figuring an angular variation based on a fixed feature is easier. So shoulder to elbow, elbow to wrist etc (or curvature and relation of facial features) coordinate standard patterns. They are easier to discern anchors and guides. Adjusting their distance can help time distortion effects.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Invisible audience and proximity. Composition set close to a figure making "playing to the back row" faces and gestures makes the viewer an actor, the audience being distant (or likely distant), and the viewer is implicated on an attentional stage. Likewise, the viewer can be made audience (more pursuit attention as opposed to fixation) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">To study motion use rest to study rest use motion (fixation and pursuit)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Pursuit needs less consistency as attention follows and attempts prediction, not reflection. The pattern is oncoming and in ways unpredictable, needing tracking. Fixation needs consistency and prior convention for comparison of known patterns. A linear action back and forth will not keep visual pursuit, varied unpredictable motion will. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">(Also consider sound/saccadic relationships)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Drawing infers invisible pressures and circumstances using figures to give value and weight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Tracking (pursuit motion) can be a mistake for consciousness, or personal agency. The misattribution of invention of ideas or origins can occur at times due to this pursuit cognition. This cognitive glitch may need consideration to maintain grounding.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Blindness is the majority state of affairs. The illusion of sight has a very small range of information, and then conscious experience (much is preconscious) is a confabulation of averaged patterns with the small amount of new data. When given tests of vision (not moment by moment but vision as an integrated part of conscious knowledge) viewers are for the most part blind. Beacon points of attention can be recalled with great generality. The illusion of sight needs streaming continuity and shifting cognitive modes (saccadic and pursuit for example- or "what" and "where"). When creating a piece to be seen it must be understood the first reactions will be based in the viewers internal model of reality, not the image. The viewers will confabulate celebrity likenesses, perceive scandalous and taboo themes and shapes etc. It can take years, or decades to fully build enough experience to see the full work. The audience may need some priming and preparation to see. Their attention may need direction and hints at value. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Peripersonal space daemon, has its own anatomy and moves anatomically. It isn't a dead weight. We move, emote and gesture in coordination with it. It doesn't seem to have much bottom up effect. It seems a top down bias. Atop not pendulous. As an animation exercise animate the daemon and figure in interaction (with motion offsets) then turn off daemon animation</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Bdrf has a narrative correlate. Attentional rays are reflected and angled in narrative. Displays in groups of more than two with have an angle of performance. It us assumed the eyes are shooting rays of attention. The player will triangulate between audience and their subject. Reflecting attention of the audience in their performance (specular highlight). The "form" reflecting, the player, controls the inferred figure. They are toying with value scale. Consider models of light and narrative.l</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">We embody and imitate features in artwork when we mirror it, consider possession and imprinting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Consider audience presumptions-interest, preference etc. as irrelevant. By projecting we are possessed. When people "try on" others they also lose some fidelity in the previous pattern. The more "tried on" the more loss of fidelity. Conmen use the tactic of likeness and ease in "try on" to subsume choice, and linear narrative.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">When watching an artist the viewer will be observing actions offset from the mental imagery the artist is experience. Though painting dark areas or shadows, the mental imagery and their forward projection will be dealing with the modeling of the light areas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Somatosensory area one shows tongue and finger areas close. Tongue navigating while drawing or playing basket ball..</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Still regarding camouflage. The ability to camouflage might not be entirely trickery. The differentiation between self and others, or the relationship we have regarding "inside" and "outside" today shouldn't be a given. The inside and outside, or inner self as opposed to external others can be tracked to some extent, and 4,000 years ago it does not seem to be what it is today. Likewise this inside/outside relationship shows cultural differences as well as regional ones. In other words the metaphor of inner self to outer world is in large part learned and conventional, and has undergone development and sophistication.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">I mention this inside and outside relationship to camouflage because the person creating the camouflage doesn't need to be thought of as an outside director. The camouflage may work on the maker of the camouflage as well. When camouflage goes from environmental disguise, to personal disguise and description, and then to personal adornment, it does't need to indicate lack of participation in being "tricked". The adorned can be as fully invested in being deceived by what they have made, and this can even induce physiological changes. It seems in some cases, adornment, disguise, and camouflage have more to do with transforming the person adorned than the viewer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">In terms of art (and in terms of trying to root out what fiction may be), self deception and transformation should be added to the mix. With camouflage a theory of mind (across species) is important, and influential, but when reduced in area to disguises and adornment as camouflage, the adorned are not cynically removed. It is transformative. They are someone or something else. This needs not only theory of mind, but an understanding of community status and community mind. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">This is still in effect today. Within written history accounts of skins being worn to become magical can be easily found. Berserks (bear shirt wearers), werewolves (ritual wearers of skins and ritual cannibals), priests (Egyptian Ba priests as an easy example), boys dressed in spotted fawn skins for Dionysos, Biblical accounts (Adam, Jacob and Esau with the stolen blessing), and more recent accounts with photographs from all over the world, show widespread "adornment" in a transformative manner. But clothes, outfits (like the Pope for example, or Generals....or dictators dressed as generals), and newest fashions also work as camouflage (Spanx...might fit into this....or this might be squeezed into Spanx). As do hairstyles. This change of person, into hyper real or super person is very very common. It can be easily seen watching people perform in front of mirrors. They attempt to transform, through disguise, postures, set facial expressions, camouflage, and displays, themselves for themselves as if the viewer in the mirror is another person. Their perception of their being is based in the disguise, not in their habitual or general methods and stances. The perception is not personally invented. The person looking in the mirror did not invent the identity they are assuming. It comes from the expectations of groups standards. The transformation is both personal preference and group consensus. This is why is is hard to watch oneself on video. It shows the difference between our attempts at self deception and how we appear to others who we are also trying to deceive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Periphersonal space as a conjectural cognitive medium. Like a soft malleable projection, as well as a space measure. Gives feed back for geometric interaction socially as well as with tools. Consider in regard to epigenetic aspects such as east/west visual attention, brought about by social and environmental triggers. The spatial interactions, and peripersonal spatial interactions are linked to social massing and individuation. The fear of attack face and the shame face are very close except for external attention to an attacker And eyes aimed or down. The "peripersonal" extra identity, or the ghost created in peripersonal space is attended while generally blinding from external data. We don't seem to be singular animals ever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">The humunculus is not just a body map on the cerebral cortex. The map includes complex motion. Duration of stimulation includes complex sequences. When processing and cross comparison your brain is checking "doings". It can infer forward and back in sequences. Often used in drawing. Drawing can composite various parts of the sequences and still be acceptable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">The idea of art as expression- my inner soul housed in an item is magic. But the body has been building a way of externalizing and conserving energy through outside processes. So the "soul" part is missing, but bodily energy needs have been co-opted by the human body. Tool making does not need intellect.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Nor does tool use. The process can be tracked through pounding food-eating and chewing took hours. We had stronger jaws and bigger teeth for the job. Likewise fire took over energy use in digestion. so instead of having to expend massive resources in food processing we moved these outside.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Our energy use was freed up and our brain usage and size took up the extra resources. We have inverted gut to brain energy use as do chimpanzees.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Our jaws diminished in size due to less need for chewing, we adapted more refined food pounding and processing tools. Our jaw muscled shrank and allowed the skull to open out (there is also evidence of a birth defect in jaw size that also became valuable for expanding the brain case.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">The expansion of the brain case let to deaths in mothers and infants at birth. Premature infants became the norm but the social structure and dependency of the group shifted to accommodate the longer more fragile infancy. This in turn opened up areas of energy use for brain development in infants and the capacity to rewire and organize.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">These externalizing developments (digestion, gestation, and development of the tool making-peripersonal space- brain). Other externalizing tools were claws and teeth (spears and spearheads). An innovation was throwing spears. This is not just externalizing but communicating an action. The aerodynamics of spears was being innovated by homo-erectus, as well as being hardened in fire.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Art as an external cognitive tool kit was also in fast development. It emerged from the peripersonal space of socializing, and developments in close living and centralizing a type of communication to the face. Theory of mind allowed for camouflaged traps. Imitating enough attributes of a thing to trick another person or animal. This involved breaking down parts and reconfiguring like things in resemblance.</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Art using angle biases, motion angles and biases, and types of mapping emerged. As did a tool kit of colors, make up, (likely costume), instruments and imitative sound makers, and other aspects of "becoming" and imitation. Status was taken through enhancements in costume, face paint, gear, masks, and identities externalized and taken or owned. Likewise art is information packets and can be "souvenirs" or other external memory packets.</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">3d effects using color were a very early use. Peach dots in lamp light in dark recesses of caves create a stereopic effect causing space to fall back behind the dots.</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">These innovations weren't discoveries.</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Even into the use of writing scribes thought the writing had agency itself. That it did something. Not unlike the artists I worked with who thought their pencils had pictures fall out of them.</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">If not personified not seen? Do we have to find likeness to ourselves in some property to see a thing?</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Is peripersonal space integral to religious thinking and fiction? Extended "felt" spaces and environments both as displays and depth misread?</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Reading facial expressions with saccadic motion is more a where function that leads to what function. you're looking at where the lines of the expression are, micro expression to micro expression. Concerning where and what memory I'm not sure there's a clear distinction.</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Considering what/where and saccadic motion. The motion and pivot of the eye give a reference point to the "where" function that seems to be primary in saccadic vision. 'If these angles are such here, then they make this pattern. But with smooth pursuit coordinating the where needs different motion, largely taken up by the moving object. 'What, when, where?"</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">I still draw and my tongue navigates while my hand maps. So while processing the differences from value scale to simulate form and depth as well as mapping shape, my tongue is often incorporated as a secondary mapper. In a sense drawing on my lip. Is this due to the proximity of the tongue to the fingers in somatosensory area one? If so, is this using cross modal (taste, or language) processes like the kiki/bouba effect? When I draw I am often aware I am "bouncing" information from my somatosensory system as a map for drawing (as opposed to what I am seeing). That is, I am feeling my way through a drawing, and in a real experiential way, inhabiting the drawing (sometimes this leaks into the work and it will resemble me-also a known effect with animators who accidentally animate a portrait of their own motion in characters). This "inhabiting" the drawing was the main reason I drew as a child. At that time I was trying on the heroes I was drawing or entering places.</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Is the tongue involved in this spatial mapping and agency projection as a supporting and sub map?</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Metaphor is reading the overlapping somatosensory, interoceptive, and other experiential data. Calling out the inferred feels of a sight, for example, and connecting it to a near cognitive pattern. Like a boolean intersection.</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Emotion is a way of creating external limbs</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 20.3px;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: ".SF UI Text"; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: ".SFUIText"; font-size: 17pt;">Grid cells and place cells for body in space and environment as a pattern. </span></div>
Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-49685438163704521932016-12-08T20:42:00.003-08:002016-12-08T21:03:22.692-08:00Pirate Story Part 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7KUdf-RWcEW0qRrPWN7R59iAz0doErEBFddPECTMosYhDnbOFjx-unTEiOJMNFC41AndbX8atjnCgI_Ww-52-Lknq_BCoyIK1q-7Cjj-WligNcj8XPegB-hhwEtpkYMBaQ4ltdrojwWgI/s1600/Pirate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7KUdf-RWcEW0qRrPWN7R59iAz0doErEBFddPECTMosYhDnbOFjx-unTEiOJMNFC41AndbX8atjnCgI_Ww-52-Lknq_BCoyIK1q-7Cjj-WligNcj8XPegB-hhwEtpkYMBaQ4ltdrojwWgI/s320/Pirate.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
What you have heard, thus far, can
only be unharmonious recollections and rumors. Trust neither. They
will emerge as a confluence of interests. Your mother will tell you heroic
fables. Through the inadvertent devices of your father and the thrones and shepherd’s
crooks he venerates, you will have heard slander. I am fond of your father, but
we agree only on the point the other is misguided. His echoes of slanders
will be free of thorns as he will wish to excuse me of malice if not of
error. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Heroism and a muffled villainy are
the notions left for you to build me. An old song of dual natures will confront
you. Considering many motives is imposing and often left aside. Imagining
the world in some likeness of its actual complexity is a daunting, exhausting,
endeavor.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I
would ask you to consider undertaking this endeavor as a more likely avenue
through which to understand my purposes. Let me assure you, I was neither
continually heroic nor villainous, and in climactic flashes, I was both. Forget
those old tales, and consider what I write here with fresh, sharp, eyes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
You may know I was born on
Ginnesbrooke (now called Shuttley), one of the island colonies, just
commandeered from our ancient foe at the time of my birth, in the mysterious
Novus Mundi. My father was a merchant. He was not a merchant as depicted
in heroic fables. He did not export exotic spices, slaves, or gold, meeting
alien peoples, and fighting pirates with sword and muskets. His charter
included hemp for paper, rope and linens as well as cane sugar and
fruits. He disliked sailing and journeying. He was a sedentary man,
though made strong and straight. His adventures were restrained to a dim, small
office and desk. He was always the hub in a nest of papers and books. He was a coin man
with little imagination and less good humor. He was very stern, taciturn, and
as I recall he wore a perpetual frown. I must confess I cannot recall much
about his manner or behavior, just the atmosphere in his presence. I was too
young to understand any causes for his frown. From this vantage, I can relate
he planned for me to follow designs, to become a credit to my family name and
our place but as with many plans his were tattered and made worthless.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
My mother was proud and vain, both
in my memory and from the descriptions of others who recalled her. She was
young and considered beautiful for her time. I have few likenesses of her left,
but as a boy the main house was a temple of paintings in her homage. As I
understand her history, she was the favorite daughter of wealthy yeomen and
treated accordingly. Her marriage to my father was arranged for influence both
through progeny and land acquisition. In those times, and even now, I suppose,
plague was the gamblers tool for advancement. It was not hoped but supposed, a
certain quantity of family would be lost, and it would be wise to benefit from
their losses. Thus, lands could fall to the inheriting families of properly
assigned unions. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I recall many things about my
mother. I recall the small things I said to her as a young child, but I
recall little of her replies, or her embraces, or anything beautiful.
Motherhood is such a fond subject today. Mothers are graces, so they say,
but I can’t pull any gracious memories from my childhood regarding my
mother. She was another person passing before my eyes, in some ways
uninteresting and in others I recall her with a tinge of urgency. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
My parents were married with solemn
ceremonies and with God as witness, but there was little affection
evident. The cult of love was left in the hinterlands and small houses.
Love in marriage among the families and societies wasn’t accepted by many
persons, it still isn’t, contrary to many rumors. I have often suspected that my
father loved my mother and that his love was unrequited, I considered this as
being the cause of his demeanor, but this is a speculation. Perhaps he was a
bitter, frustrated, man, perhaps he was natively dour. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
My mother had little to do with me
after my birth. She was ill prepared to be a mother. Certain woman should not
be mothers. As I am sure you are aware children are a messy, runny, loud,
business. This has never been a suitable situation for women whose attentions
must remain on perfectly painted faces, artful hair sculpting and perfect
dress. “Upkeep” was how it was discussed, as if old gardens or manner houses in
danger of falling into dilapidation if not diligently attended. My mother was
not a woman with fortitude and wisdom. She was equally lacking in patience and
tolerance as I remember. Many nursemaids and nannies were assigned to attend to
my needs. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Though I should like to state
otherwise, I was not an overly bold child. I was not a hero springing toward
manhood. My father’s glares terrified me, my nannies bullied me mercilessly,
and my mother ignored me or conversely, found me a nuisance. I recall in
a very darkly tinged and indistinct memory, maybe it didn’t happen it is so
unclear, that I told my mother she was very pretty and she snapped angrily at
me and caused me to cry. She screamed for my nannies to get me away from
her. In this memory my nannies are the only clear images and their
shocked, frightened, faces seem to say much to me now. What a strange
time it was then. It seems so indistinct. It is a time of slowly
waking into being. I recall this as though imagining the events of a
familiar but fictitious story, and certainly not as my own tale. How
strange memory is. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I clearly recall toys were
forbidden me. It is often imagined of children that they sit in gentle reveries
knocking painted wooden toys about, singing or laughing. Fanciful images of
costumed, joyful, children, embracing dogs, singing while herding sheep, stare
at me from these walls as I write. I had no part in this. My earliest
memories are drudging hours of lessons. How I hated it. My father had
planned that I should be honed for business. I was an adequate student but I
recall little of what I learned then. Some men are very silly and imagine their
sons will repair their own disappointments, or amend their own disadvantages,
and believing this enforce habits on their sons that damage and create
disadvantage. With the tiresome instruction I was given, I was also made to
follow strict training of my body. My father could read and this reading
included descriptions from ancient men regarding their perfect societies, and
the strength of their perfect bodies. My father thought it important to
have me perfected. Likewise, he thought a robust, strong, boy would be welcomed
in academy. Arrangements had been made to send me to academy when I became the
age of five. Academies were subtly different in purpose then. Their
concerns were both preservation of traditional philosophy among aristocrats (or
paying yeomen), and introduction of newer discoveries by natural philosophers.
We were not the industrious men produced from academies as today. The
traditional titles and snobbery still exist today, but its application is
mercantile. The characters and oppressions of academies will continue immutably
regardless of party rule, or family ascension, but the purposes of academies
change with the weather vane. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Academy would have to wait. An
unfortunate occurrence on damp, temperate, islands is the rapid spread of pestilence
and black humors. Malady feeds on warmth. Late in the year, before I was to
leave for academy the colonies were ravaged by a great dying. The ships
delivering the news to our island delivered the agent of death as well.
Infected men, animals and goods quickly dispersed among the crowds and death
seeped through the shadows and the cracks. As soon as the word reached my
father I was hastily gathered and placed on a ship heading for a place I had
not yet seen, Home. I don’t recall much more of this time except a sight
from the ship as I departed: the bonfires had begun. Near the dock many
bulging, stained, shrouds were burning among improvised winding cloths
including carpets rolls, beds, and skins. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
One of my nursemaids was sent to
tend to me. She was a taut, squinting, sneering, roaring, young woman. Her red
hair was always straggling around her head in a wiry crown. Her clothes never
varied from somber gray. This made her ruddy complexion stand out like a
great soreness, or like she had been abraded until intolerably chapped.
Her disposition matched her appearance. She was given pay and instructions for
when we achieved our destination. I know this because she repeated this often,
as though it were direct authority from a great magistrate giving her license
for anything. She would volunteer this information at every opportunity. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I have no recollections of our
voyage in length or of weather. It seemed long as does any unfamiliar
voyage or new road. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It is my understanding a currier
vessel sped to the port town of Huan with news of our impending arrival, as
well as confirmation of general good health. Messages were eventually
sent back to the surviving families regarding our welfare and requesting
further instruction for the newly orphaned, widowed or destitute.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
As I later learned, Huan was spared
the suffering of the people of Ginnesbrooke. There Death was sweeping. Many
souls were lost especially among the native men. Both my parents suffered it.
It was unusual that both survived. The plague did not touch my mother without
leaving its imprint. She began to behave very strangely. As I have been
informed, the changes were subtle, at first, but very rapidly she
declined. She was “touched”, the savages said. Her up keep and “eyes”
consumed her every free thought. She would sit for hours applying paint until
it was cracked and flaking over her face. Her graceful stances were carried out
in extremity. And not long following this every mood and action became
expansive and exaggerated. She became like an animal that yowled, and
begged and roared, scratched, and played. This brought her great respect
among the savages who worked the house, and they believed she was moved by a
favorite Goddess or demon, but my father was disgraced. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I did not despise my parents, as I
hope is clear. I do not suspect they were deliberately malicious or carelessly
cruel, and I do not look at their misfortune without pity. I cannot reply to
any meanness. How could I, so long after, try to distinguish petty meanness, or
folly seen by a child? I don’t want it to appear I have thoughts of some
justice in their sorrows. I cannot judge the adult world in which they lived, I
can guess the subtleties that pressed them, but those guesses would be aloof.
The distance between this dying man and that child are too great to clearly
determine with any justice. I can write, when a child they were my world;
separation from them was terrible. It is a child's nightmare to be apart from
the family that rears them, regardless of how cruel the family may seem to
others, or even themselves. I can imagine they saw me as a lazy, selfish, brat,
and yet I clearly recall my father looked in pain as he saw me off. I was his
burden and also his son, which idea of me he dreaded to lose I cannot discern. Preference
seems as a pendulum. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
From Huan we voyaged “Home”.
What this was, in opposition to what I considered my place to live, was
mysterious. I was shipboard for several weeks, but I remember little of this. I
remember little at all of the following months of change. The confusion I felt
still disturbs me upon intense reflection, though I could not say anything
terrible or alarming occurred. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Upon
arrival in an unfamiliar port city, on a gloomy dark day, my nurse and I
disembarked onto Home. We were met by my new guardian, my Uncle Uzziah.
He was my father's brother. Uzziah was ten years older than my father, but in
no way you could discern. He was more robust, active and lively. He had a
loudness that could be seen. He smiled often and this was not an indulgence
taken by my father. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Uncle Uzziah was a witty, humorous
man, of a keen intelligence. "Smarter than God" I once heard a man in
a carnival mask declare. He and my father bore little resemblance to one
another. This does not indicate a black mark against my father. Uzziah was the
First Born son, and favored. He did not squander this advantage. However, I
would be hesitant to write the differences between the two were due to
circumstance alone. Uzziah was a rare man. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
He met us on the pier as we descended
the gangplank. He was very tall and his posture was leaning. He squinted over a
crooked, pursed, smile as my nanny dragged me by the right arm. I can clearly
recall she often tugged and pulled by that arm. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
My uncle gazed down at me with a
benign, somewhat reserved, smile. I was shy and attempted to hide behind my
nanny. She dragged me from behind her and aimed me, with little gentleness, at
my uncle. My memory informs me of his curious glance at her slightly disguised
rage. He stared in puzzlement, perhaps considering that I was a bad
child, or perhaps he judged her. It was a stare indicating more puzzlement than
condemnation. He looked back and forth at us as we stood in presentation before
him. After crossing the space between us he crouched to my eye level and
brought a wooden toy from his pocket. It was a toy shaped in the likeness of a
savage man of my former home. Its features were exaggerated to appear clownish.
The toy man stood hovering above a toy drum, and from beneath the aborigine
there hung a string at whose end hung a wooden weight. When the wooden weight
was made to swing, the aborigine's arms would tap the drum. He offered the toy
to me. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He said, "A gift for your arrival. Perhaps this small
bribe will earn me some favor." He smiled widely. I reached for the toy
with uncertain hands. My nanny was unused to this indulgence being spent on me,
as my father was in favor of discipline, and restriction. She was used to
having power and charge in a world of servants. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
She grabbed me by the wrists and
spun me to face her. She leaned over me, her face ruddy in rage. What she
yelled at me I cannot recall, but what she said and she faced my uncle is very
clear to me. "I have been given charge of this boy to make certain his
days away from his parents are not spent in idleness! I was given warning of
you by my master. He gave me instructions to disallow any..." My uncle
strode forward until he was barely a thumb’s width from her. He stared into her
eyes for some short while waiting for the violence of his presence to bring her
to stillness. When he finally spoke it was even and low. “To whom are you
speaking in such a tone? You are in the presence of an unfriendly master, and
someone in such a predicament would do best to keep her silence." She was
stimmied, and as happens with many persons under threat she sought to redirect
his burdensome presence to one still weaker, and I was the nearest candidate.
She jerked me by the arm, "You stupid boy! Take the master’s toy and be
quick, and respectful!" <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The look she gave me was a familiar
one, it spoke in silences: "You will be paid back for this!" or some
equal threat. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Around us a small crowd of
interested persons were watching the small event as it unfolded. I don't
believe they were expecting what came next. As she had grabbed my arms by the
wrists, so my uncle grabbed hers. He held both her wrists in one hand. She struggled
little in utter bewilderment. With his free hand my Uncle grabbed the nurse's
bonnet and pulled it over her face. He then spun her, gave her a small shove,
and kicked her squarely on the posterior. The crowd drew closer laughing and
chirping sounds of approval. The kick was not hard but a gesture. Though
she stumbled away, she did not fall. As she recovered her balance it was
clear she was deeply injured, though her limbs were intact. Humiliation
was a terrible and deep wound for her and she cowered beneath it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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People alone are shabby, but crowds
are worse. They howled and laughed. Uncle Uzziah stood apart from
her pointing his finger like a condemning prophet. "Gather yourself and
your things, I have no use for you." He reached into his vest pocket and
produced a card. He tossed the card to the sobbing woman who was my nanny.
"Contact this man, he will make arrangements concerning your wages and
your return to your master." <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
My uncle took me firmly but gently
by the hand and led me away to his waiting coach. His attendants spread out
around us, gathering our few goods, and when packed on the coach, we
departed. She was gone and lost to my further knowledge forever.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This
moment stands out starkly in my young memories. Understand, I did not turn my
back on my nurse in with indignation; I didn't set about a new freedom giggling
and without care. I felt very sorry for her; I sobbed as she sobbed. It is true
I never liked her. I felt as one always feels in the presence of a petty
tormentor: discomfort, intimidation, contempt, but at the same time I pitied
her, I felt sorrow for her sufferings, I wished the events hadn't occurred to
send her from me. Perhaps my uncle reckoned something of this as I
wept. He said to me, "Be still, nephew, calm yourself. She will be well
enough, she is unharmed.” We were silent in the coach for a long while
before he spoke again. “Let this come as a new kind of lesson: Everything is
changing. Nothing is certain. The world behind you is gone forever; tomorrow is
full of worries. But you are safe for now. That is the nature of every good
moment, it is surrounded by hardship. Relief comes at hard cost in some way or
another. Weep if you need, but not for too long, only as long as your losses
merit.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I spent the next four years with my
Uncle, and we became very close. He was tirelessly curious, and this condition
is contagious. His home was filled with thousands of books, paintings,
manuscripts written in old tongues, charts, diagrams, musical instruments,
lenses of many shades for experiments with optics, extensive gardens and a
hot-house. His acquisition of knowledge was tremendous but
effortless. His enthusiasm for questions and storytelling was stirring
and compulsive. I loved my Uncle. In many ways, throughout my life, I
wished to follow his path but I did not succeed in any measure.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
For my family on Ginnesbrooke,
daily life orbited my mother. My father had sent many letters to my Uncle, and
after two years requested my absence from the family become a permanent
situation. I still possess these letters but as a child I secretly read them
while my uncle was occupied. Admittedly, much of the content was beyond my tiny
skills as a reader, but the sense of it was clear enough. The sneaky act of
reading my uncles mail, paired with my Uncle’s attempt to soften the awkward
situation by overly stating his idea to keep me, made my situation clear. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
As described in the letters, my
mother had slipped from peculiarity into disgrace. She had conceived a child
through disgraces with one of the native men. What became of the child or the
father I have never learned. I have left these letters to you with a
substantial endowment should you endeavor to discover what has come of my
sibling and, doubtless, further descendants of that union. I leave it to
you whether you will accept this adventure. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
My mother was a madwoman. My father
sent her back to her family's estates where she was kept hidden away in
a chamber for many years. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Innocently unaware of these events
I was quite happy living with Uzziah in his amazing home. He wrote several
letters to my father reporting my progress. My entrance to the halls of academy
was held off. Uncle Uzziah was a fine teacher and we undertook several
subjects: history, grammar, mythology, music, vocal tonics, acoustics, theatre,
art, and some philosophy. Uzziah was very much opposed to my entrance in
academy at a young age. As he often lamented, "They are prisons for the
cruel and unsubtle. They are the dens of predators, who victimize and pollute
everyone they encounter." He assured me, as he taught me to fight, that
violence is an excellent device when used at a proper moment. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
When I did enter into my education
I was eight. Due to my Uncle's instruction I was a very good student. But I was
sent away to academy and over the next several years I saw my uncle
infrequently. He would occasionally visit me on free days such as the Sabbath,
or the end of a session. He was a prolific writer and my education was very
much enhanced by the post. His influence on me was a good armor against
the “pollutions” he mentioned, but incomplete. I can claim a sneering
sense of my own importance after a time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
On those occasions when I did visit
him, strangeness always greeted me. On one occasion I arrived at the great
house by carriage, and Uzziah awaited me. He was masked and he insisted I wear
a mask and say nothing. As we approached the house on foot I heard several
voices as at a party. When I entered there were several dozen masked persons,
puzzling over diagrams and geometries. I mingled with them, a boy slipping as a
shadow among babbling demon faced adults. Their conversations were heavily
toned with intrigues, secrets, forbidden words. My Uncle took me aside after a
time. He spoke to me privately in a corner. I remember his mask with pristine
clarity; it was a black laughing bird face with a sun and a moon drawn on each
cheek. It bobbed when he spoke. "Do you wish to know the meaning of this,
Adam? Do you feel drawn to these persons? Do you sense something of difference
here?" <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I responded slowly watching the men
and women puzzle, argue, whisper, and conspire. My answer was as honest as I
could contrive: “They are frightening Uncle, they are hiding things, speaking
in codes, they are lying. But there is something exciting, and though I fear
them I wish I knew them, I wish they would speak and lie to me so that I could
overcome them." My Uncle regarded me a while, his eyes searching.
"That is an interesting answer. Perhaps a terrible answer. Consider, Adam,
that sometimes a lie is a matter of time, a prediction or a map. A lie
today is a truth tomorrow. The substance of lies can be made real. A lie
is difficult to tell with any coherence or consistency. If it has those
qualities, the dominant property looks a great deal like the truth. It
may be that these lies are unnoticed or novel- overlooked-truths. They are
contending to have the dominating lie. Do you want to be a part of that?"<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There were many of these secret
gatherings. Each sodden with a quality of sanctity. In the elaborate rituals he
and his guests undertook, there seemed something drawn from the divine.
This is inconsistent with my Uncle's opinions, as I understand them. He hated
religion he was without God. I am aware of several treatises he wrote and published
condemning the ecclesiastical authorities. This has always been dangerous,
perhaps somewhat less so then, but he must have had some clear influence in
some powerful to be unpunished and so free spoken.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-20239158956688159382016-10-07T10:39:00.000-07:002016-10-07T11:15:35.905-07:00Pirate Story: Introduction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It is finally quiet. These days, though growing short in number, are very long in passing. The household is in hysterics and I am plagued by distractions the full length of the day. So much screeching and scratching and worry can be more tiresome than very hard labor. It is a hen house.<br />
Now it is very late and quiet, and I am given the opportunity to set down the account that has been, lately, weighing on my mind so much. I feel the need to write in secret, when all are asleep, when everything is still. I need to concentrate, not only for the sake of clarity as much of this is long past, but I wish to bring it all forth again. I will try to step into my memories and live them again, for my own pleasure. With so much flickering out, so much of my life spent, I need something back. Therefore, this dark empty night will be filled with reminiscences.<br />
This account will be a souvenir the next time it is unsealed. If all has come to pass as I have wished, this manuscript has been delivered with several other documents to Master Robert Liventon, upon his coming of age, and acquisition of his inheritance from his Grandfather, myself, Master Adam Liventon.<br />
If another pair of eyes are passing over these pages, it has come to pass that my grandchild has perished prior to his coming of age. In which case, I have entrusted this writing to the care of a gentleman to be unnamed here, and he will have delivered this account to whomever he deems fit to read it. In the meantime, I will continue under the assumption my heir is in possession of this manuscript.<br />
To you, Robert, my death is history, for me it is a looming weight. I sit writing with trembling old hands at a desk. I saw you only a few hours ago, and I know you sleep soundly in a bed chamber above where I now write. What you cannot know is that between the last sentence and this, I looked in at you again. It is difficult to imagine you as a young man, and so it is difficult to address you as a fellow and peer. You are an infant to me, and so I will leave your company.<br />
At the time of this writing I am dying, which may be understood in some sense from what I have written above, but I think it best to be clear, because in what is to come death is all but clear.<br />
It is bitter to leave you so soon after our first meeting, and it is a great regret I will have so little of you. Cruelly, I cannot be comforted by the notion that you will remember me with any love, as you have not come to know me. We are strangers, you and I. I would not have that so. It is a great loss to me, that in death I will lose you, but perhaps in some way, if you desire, you can still know me in some manner. So I will tell you a story. It is not my story, though I am a character in the story, and the story will begin with me. It is a story of adventure and magic. It is a story of the rare and hidden parts of this old monstrous world. It is the story of Captain Monroe.<br />
It may be best, though it is left to your discretion, to keep what is to follow close to the breast, as it is a dangerous story. It is not ended, and its influence is still lurking with great force beneath the still surface of what seem little events. There are open ears waiting to hear hints and news, should you tell recklessly, and then you may find yourself in great peril.<br />
I hope you are the kind of fellow who does not keep things close to the breast, or accept warnings from old dead men.<br />
I will proceed with my end, your beginning. I am unrecognizable as the man I was in my strength. My skin is old and slack. It has a gossamer transparency which has become familiar, though still intolerable, and it makes me think I am far closer to a ghost than a man. Or the man I was, I should write. My once proud scars, my keepsakes, are pale and becoming lost. How can this be, when they were so difficult to win? I thought they, at least, would remain. I am become a tattered old coat.<br />
Everyone who comes calling sees this dilapidated husk of a man. They do not know what happened. Defying this, I still recall I was a strong, alert, and vigorous. The betrayal of my limbs is difficult, the creeping weakness is awful, but I am not dead yet, and I still recall. I recall other days when the skies roared with fire and poured down ash, and for a brief moment the world turned its gaze on me. Deeds were done, the world was shifting and I saw one of its pivots, I acted with its greatest men, perhaps its greatest man, though he is its most damned. This sounds like bragging, but read on.<br />
I marvel in despair how so many moments have vanished. I no longer know anyone in this world as I knew my peers. They are gone: dead. Except perhaps one, but he cannot be counted. He wasn’t ever alive, I think. I feel as the last man on earth, for what I take to my grave will not pass again. It was our time, and I am the last to know it. It cannot become tradition, it cannot be bequeathed. Perhaps it can be something greater still, with you and your time, I cannot say, but it will not ever be again as it was.<br />
I think ahead to what will be left to you, and who you will have grown to be. I hope that you are a good man. Or perhaps I do not hope that. All men have hours when they shine, when they are golden, and all men have moments when they are dark, and without merit. You will not escape this, even if you attempt every moment to outrun the harms you will create, even if you are ever pious. The world will assemble snares you cannot know until blood is on your hands. If I can wish a virtue upon you, let it be the virtue of bravery. I hope you are a rival for the time you live.<br />
You have grown to be a man without the assistance of your grandfather. This suggests many things to me. It is my suspicion you have been reared in a setting of ordinary men. This is the way of your father. He is a kind and gentle man, I’m sure you hold him in high affection as do I, yet he is narrow of vision and simple in his beliefs. Of the bravery I mentioned he has none, though he is charming and decent. However, his decency is in many ways constrained by his fear and passivity. He reckons other men his betters and envies them. Many ordinary men have navigated the course before him. This course is free of obstacles, discoveries, and dire tests. The first man to make the road is the only man who will ever use it; the rest will be his shadow. It is your father’s good fortune he has only known set courses, old paths, he would be mortified to know that the paths are the intruders not the surrounding wilderness.<br />
At this early date, just months after your birth, he has made arrangements for your education and your career. Unfortunately, he knows very little of the institutions where he wishes you sent. He knows nothing of their vulgarity, separation, or petty vanities. He does not imagine their efforts are devoted to quiet crimes. Those caretakers, to whom you will be delivered, may tell you stories, rumors, of your grandfather and his companions; do not believe these stories. I have heard them upon their generation and watched them evolve over these many years.<br />
When first introduced, the tales told were exaggerations but more morbid hints and whispers polluted the exaggerations, transmuted them to lies. I can guess how they have transformed to fit your ears. Likely, as I have heard before, I am called the Devil, himself. And perhaps this is not the worst epithet. Do not let these men bend your ear further, their world is small and their echoes excessively please them.<br />
From your mother, I believe, you will have a different account of your grandfather. She will have done much to inform you of adventure and dreams. She will have told you stories as well. Stories I told her. Your mother is my only daughter, upon whom I have long doted and indulged. I love her dearly. So perhaps you will forgive me when I confess the tales I told her were not complete, and were often told in a way that offered a heroic bias to my part in them. I was not the hero she dreams. I allowed her to believe the tales she heard in my favor. I too wished they were true. They are true, for what little they tell, but I’m sure you have suspicions about the truth, and tales. Anything told will not be complete; only portions can be meted out. Those portions are usually favorable to the measurer. What I will write to you will give you much more of the truth than I have dared to tell so far. The previous, incomplete versions were not wholly my desire, I wished to tell more, and thought to do so many times, but this is not my story alone, and I made oaths of secrecy. As I am not the only one upon whom death has fixed his gaze, I am now free to tell the whole account<br />
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Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-16689997040353262452016-07-14T15:22:00.002-07:002019-09-13T22:57:00.990-07:00Topless complaint<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZysTZxzhaqM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZysTZxzhaqM</a><br />
<br />
I hate this video<br />
Okay, first let me give over my position on baring breasts and taboos about nudity in public. I have mixed opinions and my opinion is largely dependent on context and places and person. Nudity on a public school playground by a man troubles me, nudity on a beach by a woman in France less so. Nudity by gender is not an equal proposition,nor by individual and the genders have different methods, devices and value. And these are not “cultural” or societal, though these things inflect how the background drives are tribally expressed. But I’ll get into this in a moment. As to women baring their breasts casually, I have no real opinion. Baring their breasts as an act of rebellion, not very impressed…as it rings less than sincere, and very likely, ineffective in terms of whatever “statement” it is making. It is also of a family of very, very old rituals, which I’ll cover in a moment. I think nothing in that video was thought through or factual. It was silly. But let’s start.<br />
This video is not meant to appeal to facts or offer over information on any issue or growing concern. There may be interest and a want of bare breasted, and casual social interactions, but that isn’t given over here, or if it is, the roots and interests of that “casual” bare breastedness have some tells that lead to less casual and more manipulative ideas. The first clues as to bullshit is the mention of the activities of the Native Americans, who all went topless in the summer. Now the example of the French, mentioned above, who often go topless on beaches was not chosen because they don’t evoke the “nature” fallacy. The French aren’t seen as wholesomely natural as “Native Americans”. This appeal to the authority of the natural is bogus. Which Native Americans, I wonder? All of them? Through all time? I know many women of Native American descent, none of them went topless in the summer that I recall. Native Americans are not an animal of the past but exist now also. This universal toplessness didn’t keep Native Americans from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego from human sacrifice, rape, warfare or any other of the varieties of human behaviors attendant to a variety of peoples over many thousands of years. Toplessness may have been a trivial affair. El ninos, court politics, murderous enemies, and when Europe arrived, mass extinction may have been more concerning. Then again…maybe not. Breasts aren’t a trivial matter.<br />
But I don’t know they all went topless in summer. Some probably did, some probably didn’t, and there may have been some mix and match (like the French beaches). Dress to comfort and the caprice of the taboo of the moment.<br />
To further say no one thought anything of it is unlikely. Where this happened people probably thought things of it. The stone age Venus statues, for example, would seem to show the emphatic fatty deposits exemplary of the female anatomy, were of importance.<br />
To say it is okay to bare your breasts doesn’t need this natural authority if casual in itself nor does it need justification. The communal innocence implied is a bit flimsy. Whereas actual harmlessness would say a lot more than a justification. But is it innocent? Is it just casual, ever for men or women? (I would ask if “casual” isn’t a manipulative social pose and tribal identifier in itself.)<br />
Following this in the video are the signs of powerful and aristocratic women throughout the world baring their breasts. What is this supposed to say? So throughout time, royal women, powerful women and aristocratic women have taken it as a point of power to step outside the convention of the lower status and bare their breasts? (Why not show the Minoans too…just an absence I noticed…not really a problem.) What is the precedent being referenced? This is kind of expected, as aristocrats take on certain entitlements, and differentiating dress to separate and exaggerate power relationships. This doesn’t say toplessness was casual, it says toplessness is power. This isn’t to say boobs are powerful, therefore women are powerful. It is saying defying sexual taboos shows placement in the social hierarchy over those who have to obey.<br />
But I think this video is suggesting in other times it was okay to bare breasts. Okay. And? It is probably okay now too. I’m not sure it has been noticed but modern movies have regular nudity, why the appeal to antiquity? These paintings are a sign of “beauty and femininity”. Maybe…I am aware of more than a few paintings from the era shown that are a little more spicy and mischievous than that and go against the later rebuke in the video “If we continue to eroticize the breast as a plump salacious morsel of female sexual essence than we are kinda robbing women of their full bodily agency.” How eroticizing the breast robs agency is not explained. Eroticizing, or sexual interest, is also natural, normal and bodily. Breasts are sexual as well as useful with offspring, and a sexual identifier for the agent sporting them. As is a given. Agency is not robbed by any parties from any parties. I do find it interesting that a type of social bullying and dictate is offered here, but modified with “kinda”. Bullying others who find boobs stimulating (no one chooses to love boobs, we just do) as a crime, kinda, seems like trying to manipulate to advantage. Neither old men nor young women dictate the rules of sex.<br />
So these nonsensical diversions are the introduction to the point of the video “who writes the rules of sexuality?” And the question of boob taboos. The boob taboos are blamed on Christians in Africa, and the Victorian era. This is mentioned as the start of the taboo against the female body in the Western world. No.<br />
So let’s look at a few things first. The taboos against the female body go way further back than this. They are pre-Christian, they are prehistoric. Likewise, aspects of the male body were and are taboo. This isn’t to make this fair and balanced that I mentioned “men too.” The thing to look at here is taboo, which is magic. Taboo is usually the “don’t do” aspect of an otherwise potent magic. Menstruation has many magical dos and don’t throughout history including isolation, burning goods, and magic potions. It fit within the framework of the troubling concerns of birth, sex, and death. These were (and in many ways still are) mysterious and troubling things. But boobs don’t exactly fall into magical taboo, boobs are valuable in other ways. They don’t have to do with sex, birth, and death magic as much as gender value on both sides of the gender coin.<br />
Let’s consider who writes the rules of sexuality. Well, evolution has a lot to do with it. And though always fun to blame old white men and sexist behavior, there are some real considerations about sex and gender, and boobs, that need to be brought into the discussion. As a good friend of mine pointed out, boobs were valuable and an issue before humans included whites, and oldness had some different standards…not exactly the Roman Senate. <br />
One of my favorite areas to introduce the subject of gender relationships is fat pads.<br />
When studying anatomy you will eventually find a chart that has a side by side comparison of the sexes. The differences between the sexes is called “sexual dimorphism”. Within a species depending on the economics of energy within a setting, competition will mold the genders to great similarity, or great difference. The greater difference between the appearance of the sexes is a good indicator of serious sexual competition. In our case men are generally larger and stronger with thicker brows, and remnants of longer eye teeth, for example. A noticeable difference between men and women, though, is the distribution of fat pads. This includes boobs, but also the butt, thighs, arms, knee, beneath the navel etc. Women have more deposits of fat, which come in handy in various times of need, which we can skip for now. We are talking about sex. When female humans have fattier diets (when they eat better) in their childhood years they reach sexual maturity earlier. The signal for this sexual maturity is prominent rounded fatty deposits. This is very important in a deep and strange way. (It has also been noted that the fatty advantages for sexual ends, can be the same fatty health disadvantages when older-our sexual interests and personal interests don’t always agree.)<br />
I have mentioned the kiki/bouba effect before. <br />
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It is an image of two figures, one called kiki, one called bouba. One is spikey and the other is bubbly. This image is used to show that people have cross modal understanding of sound and vision. People usually assign the proper name to the proper figure without knowing why. The reason why is we have neurons that respond to both sound and vision. Sound and vision are tied. Though our eyes and ears are the conduits through which we take in data, that data passes through several systems and processes before it becomes a full experience. Our senses aren’t quite what we have traditionally believed. When we see facial expressions angling and curving we are in some ways “hearing” those expressions. If you watch musicians playing instruments their faces taken on the characteristics of the music, that is the line indicators on their face perform the correlate sounds in the music that we understand emotionally and in speech. But it isn’t just sound and vision, this interaction of the information taken in by our sense organs is all over. Curves, lines, intersections and corners, and how they move in time and space are a keystone of the way we “know”. This includes lines of motion, both those we enact and feel, and those we see when we watch others move. It has been found that humans can tell biological movement, including gender, using only 12 small lights on a moving figure in a dark room.<br />
The other aspect of the Kiki/Bobou effect that is of note is that we can also usually tell the gender of these figures. This is because of fat pads and our cortical maps.<br />
Our brains have several versions of our bodies mapped onto its surface. In greater and lesser detail and with variable function these maps provide us with our sense of our body, our body schema, as well as a good space around our bodies (called peripersonal space). It is how we feel and “know” our bodies. We have topographical representations of the body surface in the somatosensory cortex. These are separated into hierarchies or levels, and these maps maintain.<br />
I won’t get more technical, for the moment.<br />
I mention this because how we feel, how and who we are as bodies are known to us, pre-consciously. How we move, the way pilot our bodies, our physical capacities in balance and strength are all pre-conscious information we use persistently but don’t assemble deliberately. This experiential activity is surprisingly intrusive and projects. As an artist, I have the advantage of seeing it not only in myself but can recognize it with other artists as they “infect” their drawings (especially those done by imagination, but also portraits) with their own features. The cross-modal visual/feeling drawings they produce are in many ways external cortical maps. But we attempt to relate to and recognize ourselves in many very simple figures and patterns. We can know the gender of Kiki or Bouba because we can feel it, or can assume things from lines or curves and our own spatial maps of our bodies and motions. The strange part is we identify in exaggeration and we do not identify every part. Our brains bounce a signal to our muscles in imitation of living things we see. From the feedback of that bounce determines all kinds of agency, likeness, or relationship. We, in a sense, “try on” other people and things. For women, one of the comparative areas is fat pads. We see boobs as an important indicator. All of us.<br />
My point is, boobs are not a social construct or legal fiction, and to our animal not casual. That said, the same value doesn’t need to be boobs especially. It can be hips or other sexual signals. As mentioned: Eroticizing the breast as a plump salacious morsel of female sexual essence is part of what is happening by both men and women. You see, there is a problem that is popular but unfounded: sexual equality. There is no such thing. You probably want an explanation….me too.<br />
So let’s break this up into proper segments so we don’t muddy the water. Equality in tasks and skills by humans seems to have some variations, but for work and career, we can say that there are capabilities in common between the genders. So we’ll call this “ bourgeois gender equality”. I don’t mean bourgeois in a derogatory way. I mean it in terms of the merchant classifications that emerged in Europe during the late middle ages. These bourgeois ideas involved rethinking time (like hours in a workday as opposed to Church hours) and production. So for work, regardless of which is statistically better in one regard or another en masse, we can say there are examples of proficient men and women in any given profession not dependent on gender. <br />
But let’s move away from task-based skill. Other things are going on. Sex is never held aside or removed from life. The building blocks of identity and position are intermixed with sex and sexual viability. The kiki/bouba effect is instructive to show how deep and expansively we are aware of sexual identity, hierarchy, and viability. We identify and differentiate automatically. No deliberation. No planning. So instead of “equal” we know difference. We build these identifications based on our own bodies in space, their appearance, and how we interact (subtly not socio-political stances).<br />
We’ve noted work capability, involuntary identification of sex in ourselves and others, but now let’s look at how the genders deal with sex and where boobs (or other sexual signals) fit into this. Let’s look at tournament style vs pair-bonding sexual interaction. As I mentioned above animals fit into categories of sexual style. One is tournament style. Tournament style is characterized by a wide range of differences in the sexes. Males will be larger with more combat-ready gear. If you consider this as raw energy, it is expensive to be this kind of animal. Being battle ready (against other males) is costly. Killing competitors or driving them off is rough stuff. To compensate, animals like this are generally not stay-at-home-dads. The expense in energy raising offspring is deferred to the fight. These males breed widely and freely and as much as possible. Their chances of death in combat don’t lend to pair bonding. Instead, their DNA demands a different avenue to better chances. Likewise, the females in this interaction tend to have female traits as emphatic signals. If the males are brutal, knobby, and dangerous in appearance, the females will also show the signs of their best energy use-having good offspring and in some regard being able to maintain them for a time.<br />
Females also have a tournament sexual style. Females with overt sexual attributes (again costly to maintain) will sexually select those males most likely to provide strong offspring, but then when the tournament male is gone will find another male to raise the offspring. This frees the female up to have more strong offspring while deferring the energy of raising the offspring to less sexually viable males.<br />
Then there is pair bonding. Sexual dimorphism has a smaller range among pair-bonded animals. In this setup males and females look a lot alike. This look isn’t superficial. They share common burdens. Their energy dispersal between mating, fighting, and raising offspring is such, that sexual signals can use less energy, while other concerns (like mortality of offspring, food gathering, etc) need more attention. The common task sculpts them to uniformity, while with tournament style, the population of rivals in an environment sculpt them to difference.<br />
Many animals tend toward one or the other end of this range. But it is all present. Given proper environmental cues and stresses the pendulum can swing over time. Humans, of course, fit in this range. And it isn’t definitive how or where. Males tend to be large, stronger, with larger teeth, and women tend toward being fatty (literally looking like energy reserves for themselves and others). We move within a range of gender-specific arcs (easily identified with a minimum of information). But at the same time, we are not extremely different. As mentioned above humans seem capable of sharing very difficult tasks with equal facility. Barring gender-specific tasks, we overlap in skills quite a bit. Likewise, there are large numbers of pair-bonded and tournament mates in common areas of overlap, performing common tasks. That is to say, these styles exist in humans side by side, whereas these methods usually indicate specifics in environmental pressures. Likewise, they can exist in different order in the same person over a lifetime. <br />
The question of sexual equality is somewhat meaningless or in flux. That said sexual value is still very active and clear.<br />
Boobs would seem to fall into a range of the tournament-style signal. Being both sexual and involved with the care of offspring over a given time. That noted, it isn’t as easy as saying boobs are a sign of humans as tournament style animal. Likewise, it doesn’t say that boobs are taboo at the dictate of old white men.<br />
Let’s consider sexual interest in boobs, fat pads, sexual value and trade, and back to kiki/bouba. <br />
Why we like boobs. You may have heard the idea that men like boobs evolutionarily because they resemble the buttocks, who’s curves and cleaves lead to the vagina. Or that men like red lips because they resemble the signals of a sexually ready, engorged vagina. These seem incorrect in any number of ways, and are random guesses, bordering on sympathetic magic. <br />
The points of interest in these things are framed incorrectly to come to any answers about human sexuality. Instead of “why do men”, it has to be put to all. Why do humans love boobs? It isn’t entirely men. Just as a good guideline, any time blame is mentioned in gender be on your guard, bullshit is likely to follow. We are in this together.<br />
We have to consider boobs in terms of our animal. We have a good deal of weight placed in the value of vision. Anything that changes color, has spots or alters form and shape, or other visual exemplars are tells about attention. Someone is looking. The idea that men like cleavage because it looks like the cleavage of the rear end is making a superficial connection of likenesses. Men don’t love cleavage. Men love breasts with nipples. Size can be of varying importance. When cleavage isn’t present but breasts are still prominent, there is no lack of interest. This should be no surprise. Most swim suits and upper torso garments worn by women in western civilization specifically hide nipples, but can still bare cleavage. A key and obvious tell about interest is the coloration of nipples. Nipples are not only differing in shape and color from surrounding tissue, they also change shape and color during sexual arousal, and pregnancy. They are evolved to be intently noticed and attended to by mates and (once vision is somewhat established) offspring.<br />
The myth that boobs are for milk (implying single purpose) is a misunderstanding of organisms. Things aren’t assembled for single use. How we note use describes our biases toward what we do, or our interests. Breasts produce milk and nourish offspring for a time. But equally, in fact in most cases, more often, they are sexual signals. Let’s differentiate the mammary glands as seen, to how brains build them, specifically on women. <br />
Pardon me if this is uncomfortable. I suspect the taboos around this subject are setting up uncomfortable twinges here or there. It’s probably going to get worse before it gets better. This might signal a need to examine taboo and value. Laying bare what is secret or conspicuously hidden might give over some interesting information.<br />
Nursing has an interesting chemical component, which is oxytocin. The “love hormone”. Oxytocin is produced in several different circumstances, physical and social (maybe we should consider social things as somewhat physical or extensions of physicality-even transmission). Petting your dog increases oxytocin levels (in both you and your dog). Other circumstances include the physically triggered stretching of cervix and uterus during childbirth, and nipple stimulation during nursing. But also nipple stimulation when not nursing. Oxytocin levels increase for both sexes during sex, but it should be noted also during general social bonding. <br />
Let’s compile some information. A preconscious search is going on at all times among humans. We are attempting to identify routes and affordances in an evolutionary way. That is we are maneuvering to reproduce, adapt, and viably compete. The success through this triplet of pressures is determined by species. Survival is not an individual description. It refers to the general survival of a species. How that species groups, blends, or becomes internally parasitic or predatory to maintain survival is variable. We have evolved, like it or not, to be certain forms, with certain interactions. With these interactions, over time, workable methods have led to successes and reinforcement of methods. Oxytocin “confirms” likely successes. It biases an organism toward binding at certain times or under certain conditions, or if another organism fits certain criteria. These criteria are determined by likeness, or fitness etc.<br />
Boobs are not just a sexual signal. As well as having visual size prominence, and color emphasis at the nipple, there are more things happening with them than acting as signals to outsiders. Women have an interest in attention and stimulation of breasts and nipples. This is not much of a surprise in any direction. Men know this, women know this. Sexual stimulation of breasts is known. <br />
In a conversation with a friend, I referred to an asshole I know of as “the kind of guy who gives titty twisters in gym class”. <br />
My friend said “Titty twisters? You mean ‘tune in Tokyo’?” And made a gesture both like a “titty twister” and radio knob turning.<br />
I asked, “Tune in Tokyo?” having never heard this before.<br />
Wistfully she said, “Ahhhh, a girl never forgets her first tune in Tokyo.”<br />
Why? The above mentioned cortical maps are interesting things. They are the source of phantom limbs among amputees. The mapping persists even if what was mapped is gone. Your brain keeps what is lost mapped. And these maps can migrate. They can cross territory, even double. Where a foot is missing but still felt, another foot may appear overlaid in the genitals. This is interesting, dual placement. But nipples might be different. The nipple cortical maps are connected to the chest and torso. But they also have a doubling in the overlapping group of the clitoris, cervix, and vagina….and likewise in the genital regions of men. That is to say, that breasts and nipples are of sexual interest to all sides. They are not just signals, they are involved with sexual gratification. They are a part of eroticization on all sides.<br />
This isn’t to say “both sides do it” like a political equivocation. This is just putting forward and lining up some facts-notably those set aside when trying to portray sex in a blame game of guilt or innocence, like indicating old white men lay down sexual law. <br />
Sex is a powerful thing. Among all animals it involves a great deal of wrangling and killing. For all animals it is fundamentally important in some regard, whether in social status, or access. To think of sex politically is chronologically strange and superstitious. To think of it economically seems reasonable. The trope of old white men, or religion as overarching dictators of sexual codes is demonstrably false. Old brown women and persons with no religions at all, have also played equally manipulative parts, and still do. The control of sexual access and manipulation, or advantage, and even hoarding can be found in our near primate relatives and involves participation as well as unwelcome force (among both sexes).<br />
If we take this video, which is not offering over reasoned fact or information, we can immediately note it is a maneuver. It is using sex, and portraying sex in a narrative, fictional, form. It links sex to rebellion. But this isn’t new. Nor is it “thoughtful” or smart. It also fits into human rituals, tribalism, and an evolutionary situation of tension between becoming a parasite and a predator.<br />
Among the Greeks the ritual called the Skiraphoria (and another called the Thesmophoria), had exclusive gatherings of women. They would paint themselves white and eat garlic so they would look and smell unappealing. Ritually, they would discuss the overthrow of men, killing them, and taking over. But this isn’t a feminist rebellion. Men have similar rituals that are called “criminal” rites. The Skiraphoria included other rites of “communal guilt”-in crime or taboo breaking and were socially binding. Rebellion, criticism, vandalism, etc have this brand of grouping. Aligning with causes or issues serve this purpose (as do political parties.).<br />
The part to note is within groups, once they are grouped, the members of the group turn on each other in the usual hierarchical fashion doling out sexual rites and taboos, food rites and taboos, and other “cultural” mandates.<br />
The clichés and tropes in that video are not only incorrect, uninformed, and sneering, they are also unimportant. There are issues involving gender that are important. Topless women doesn’t seem among them. Even uber free men, who can frolic free and topless all day usually wear shirts. Depending on jurisdiction this is variably true for women…I think Utah, Tennessee and Indiana being no goes…so if needed a targeted campaign to those places seem best. Otherwise, I doubt many men, even old white men, would complain about topless women. They might be surprised, but probably okay.<br />
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<br />Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-37376323485345464452016-07-13T17:33:00.004-07:002016-07-13T17:33:52.138-07:00The Art Critic's Confession“Art hath an enemy called ignorance”-Ben Johnson<br />
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If she weren’t my wife I would resent her. She sleeps easily. Wherever we find ourselves regardless of climate, altitude, or nation, she will sleep as soon as the lights go out. If she lays flat she will sleep. We laugh at this. I have seen her lose consciousness in mid-sentence. I call her “the chicken” as this bird is known to fall into immediate sleep when the lights go out.<br />
I don’t bring this up to ridicule my wife, and as I mention I do not resent her somnia (if that can be counted a word). I enjoy watching her sleep, especially now as my sense of instability grows. Her sleep, her dreams, even those she can’t recall, put me at ease. She will wake momentarily and with a groggy voice, she will tell me she loves me, or mumble in a soft tone and touch my arm. She, at least, is at peace.<br />
Isn’t that terrible? It is common speech to resign ourselves to leasts. Let me state it differently (so I don’t disgust myself.) Shall I write I envy her quick peace, or clarify and say I do not begrudge her ease. I would very much like a share of that limitless expanse. I, as is clearly implied, do not sleep so easily. I am writing now in a hotel room. Unfamiliar places make me uncomfortable, restless. This room is no exception. It has that cramped feel of transitory living, and a smell of perfumed antiseptic. It is not as homey as I would like. My own rooms are memories, and anchors. I don’t need to rebuild the map of the clear areas on the floor or worry over the strangers next door. Here I am far too aware of being a guest to easily sleep. Please ignore these complaints, I am circumscribing the truth. It isn’t the discomfort of unfamiliar locations. It is the awareness of my identity. It is the unfamiliar person who is assembling behind my eyes. I cannot keep it away when the lights go out, or when the sounds diminish. It waits behind distractions. It is not me. And it is beginning to abandon me as an inconvenience.<br />
I have been considering this for some while for it has not always been this way. I have attempted to discuss it with my wife, but she was disturbed in such a passive way she ignored a good deal of what I said, and forgot the rest or pretended she had. She can see it though. Sometimes her face will cloud with mild worry. She will probe with questions for which she clearly does not want answers. For her pleasure I evade these questions gently, tacitly stating my distress is minor. I must admit my suspicion I am not entirely sure which aspect of me, my old self or this new intruder, she worries over. I wonder if she wants to be free of me, and my new self may be justification. Or even more troubling, I wonder if she works in collusion with my intruder. Again, I have written wrongly: the intruder would seem to be me the other would be almost eternal where I am fleeting. I am well aware of the philosophical history behind this idea, but Aristotle and Pythagoras can’t help me.<br />
It is not minor, this splitting of my identity. Nor do I think it is innocent. I am willing to state it has been calculated. My life has been changed by outside agents. My empiricism, my shield of aesthetics, was an illusion. Experience has worked against me. I sense the infinite as if the invisible chasms of space, the whole universe, had opened up on every side forever reducing and expanding. I have unpleasant anxieties about the stability of the floors under my feet like walking across an ancient and decaying bridge of brittle planks and fraying ropes. These are simply similes. How can I write this about my mind? How do I report this to you with comparisons for it seems incomparable?<br />
My isolation, my solitude, has become a thorn. This is a peripheral occurrence of the extinguishing of many long cherished comforts and abstractions. I have heard that when Howard Carter was opening the chambers of King Tutankhamen’s tomb he saw some ostrich feathers that had lain untouched for 3000 years. They were, for a short second as they had always been, but beneath his new breath and the air of this latter world, the feathers collapsed, they disintegrated. Imagine this as my former sense of things. The winds that strike me are profound. Unfortunately, I do not seem to have the integrity of a feather. The transformation is a sentence I have earned in my indulgence. I have long been a candle claiming responsibility for the dawn and the dawn is progressing to a sunrise, very shortly all my claims will be revealed as lies. Even I can’t begrudge it.<br />
If you do not know me (whoever should come to read this) I am somewhat well known as an art critic, philosopher, and historian. A profession I was very proud of. It is the poorest of professions. I am neither a historian, nor am I an artist. I tend to think history may be a bit of an error, and I have never made a piece of art (in fact I am only beginning to reckon what art is) in my life. I offer opinions. That is what I do. I use the “halo effect” to advantage. I know names, movements and periods in regard to art. I was once referred to as “the art maven” and this familiar but dismissive title has become too sticky. There are endless papers written in specialist’s language about the propriety and theory of criticism. I have written some of them. I have also written at length on aesthetics and attached myself to various philosophers and antique opinions. Who doesn’t love Descartes and his “cogito?” I believe Dante describes the situation of attachment to aesthetics in the inferno (under the guise of opportunism): “I saw a banner there upon the mist. Circling and circling, it seemed to scorn all pause. So it ran, on and still behind it pressed a never-ending rout of souls in pain.” Of course this can be seen in every movement or philosophy in art- the opportunist's banner whose signs and insignia are every changing. Let me repent anonymously here. I am very well paid for my articles, lectures, even consultation. I considered myself a bridge between the esoteric and exoteric, a translator of the mystical artist to the public. A translator who approved or disapproved of what he was translating. Of course I am educated, I have my proper degrees, but I no longer have the vanity to claim my employment is due to a superior eye or deeper understanding.<br />
That is terrible. It is stupid. “The eye” of the discerning! How superstitious! What nonsense! Croce, perhaps, opened this door. No I won’t assign blame. It is shifty to do so. I am the fool.<br />
Allow me to expand on Shakespeare “In the land of the blind the one eyed are kings.” Consider this, if the land of the blind has no one eyed to be kings, who is left? Would it be unlikely to assume that one or several of the blind might delude themselves into thinking they were seeing, or even suggesting a certain elite “blind sight”? When this “blind sight”, this terrible example of opposites together, is assumed and given a proper language, even an expansive Ptolemaic explanation, is it an error to consider that it is believed? In the land of the blind the blind become kings. Now consider this, these blind become tyrants, fragile tyrants whose reported powers must remain elusive, occult, because examination of their powers will prove they are only blind men. One last consideration: among the blind are born those with full sight, what happens when they appear?<br />
I am a charlatan. I did not believe this at the start. But this is the truth. I am not feeling sorry about this; it seemed like the truth when I flaunted my “blind sight”. If this scenario of the blind is in any way a model of the world of art, then let me answer what becomes of the sighted children when they appear. They are blinded. Somehow, it seems, there are some who evaded this blinding. Those unblinded fugitives have found a cure to our blindness; they developed their own sights that no socket, full or empty, can evade. It is sight, alive, and woe to the blind. This blind man has been administered three real visions, and now my sight is overwhelming me. It is dismissing me.<br />
The first time my eyes opened was at a private showing of a painting.<br />
I have many, many friends and acquaintances. One of my closer and more insistent friends had discovered a new young artist. These discoveries are very important to the aimless and those lacking talent; they believe it implicates them with the arts. It shows they too have the certain sensitivity that makes one an artist, even if they do not produce art they can perceive, and make in a professional sense, artists. As a professional critic I had to deal with such individuals whose wealthy circles tend to include both opportunists and actual artists. These are my clients. I must instruct them as doctrine demands, who is and who isn’t a real artist, who is and who isn’t innovative, what is and what isn’t art. My criteria were, admittedly, strange in retrospect and seem to apply to other matters, such as who is the artist, what was his history, socially what role does he play, what was the deeper sophistic meaning of his work, is he a product of structuralism, anti-structuralism, and importantly for me was his work malleable enough for me to use in my inflated descriptions.<br />
My friend was manic when she called. It was not the usual purring that underlies the poses and cadences one affects when they are being sophisticated; it was breathless and quick speech. I had assumed she had found a new boy toy. These were usually mediocre to bad art students whose feigned moodiness had captured her easy excitement. I was tired of these calls but I owed this friend a great deal, and she knew it. It became implicit in our conversation that this would take care of my debts. I recall I fretted a bit to make the weight of this favor more impressive. The bargaining and haggling in the American social Bazaar is very subtle and filled with complaint. She assented to the leveling of my debts so I agreed to meet her young artist. I would magnanimously give him advice, perhaps gratify myself with an expansive filibuster on art, and then leave as pompously as I arrived.<br />
I was late for our meeting. I had been having dinner with my brother. I was tired and some small degree possessed by the spirits of three martinis. My friend ushered me into her ostentatious apartment. I made brief small talk in her lobby, before she dragged me into her reception area.<br />
It is the usual formula in a meeting to talk to the artist, allow them their say, after which you will view the work, and then analyze or opinionate based on their intentions in comparison with their skills. At some point an invitation to talk just below the surface of the truth is given. I will say something leading, such as: “What would you like to do with your art?” This is an invitation to discreetly discuss one’s greed and ambition. It allows me a chance to sense their chances of success, in the rather brutal but grinning world of art. After which I remain noncommittal pointing out strengths and vices in the arts. It is generally the case in a private meeting to refer to the “art world” as an outside entity, a tyrant, whereas in a crowd, with plenty of shielding you can make elaborate rude commentary on behalf of the “art world”. I was preparing to offer my private treasons and excuses in their usual form.<br />
I was never given the chance to mount my bench. I was marched in front of the painting directly. (See painting in photo section).<br />
It was not a large painting, perhaps 36”x 30”. At first it appeared to be a young girl. I recall he later said she was supposed to be Sudanese. She was wrapped in a wrinkled hood. The background showed an angry, stormy red sky over jagged hills. It was like the aftermath of a great fire. It was well painted, nicely composed: skillful. I was pleasantly surprised. I remember thinking this artist may be worth consideration.<br />
My gaze shifted slightly as I was making to turn and address the artist whose presence had been on my periphery since I entered the room. It was then the painted girl moved.<br />
Allow me to clarify. I had been looking at her from about a foot away. Her expression was placid. It appeared the eyes were painted to be unusually penetrating, but her expression was calm. When my eyes moved a fraction, and her expression changed. The face became tinged with anger. It seemed to glare. I stared back at the painting and the girl’s face changed again: she smiled subtly. I could feel my breath become short and unsteady; my heart beat rapidly and I began to perspire. Such was my physical response, mentally I felt as if suddenly I discovered I had been dreaming, I even tried to rouse myself. A wave of panic and exaggerated emotion crept behind my eyes. I wanted to weep or laugh hysterically, but I could do neither. I just teetered suspended on the precipice of that moment waiting. What I was waiting for was very clear, I was waiting for more. I was not disappointed. The more I stared the more the painting transformed. The face became placid again but then the clouds began to move, and ghost faces mingled in the yellow hood around her head. Again her face called my attention. Her features became clouded and indistinct. Within that cloud a muddy checkerboard pattern emerged. I sought to regain her face with surprising urgency. I felt security in her face in comparison with that muddy pattern. That pattern seemed wrong, wrong as only a dream or hallucination can seem wrong. I hunted for her face and was met with more than I could bear. Abruptly the face reemerged, but it was not just her face. It became a Proteus of faces which my mind chased. Faces replaced that one face, and no feature settled. Her features recombined and displayed an ever changing population staring from beneath her yellow hood.<br />
I was terrified and amazed. How long the painting and I stared at one another I cannot write and is perhaps irrelevant. I suspect it would not have ever ended. Its transformations would never cease, and I began to wonder if the painting wasn’t an oracle or clock showing all faces that were, are, and will be. I stepped away in sudden panic realizing the painting might become a mirror. Looking back I should have wondered something more troubling: those faces were not, are not, and will never be. I may have been looking at impossible people. Their only life was granted by my eyes and my breath and their potential population was infinite. Eventually the artist spoke: “Did you warn him about the painting?”<br />
I stumbled backward staring around the painting, still very tempted to look at it. Finally, I murmured, “What? What does that mean?” My sense of alarm was rising. “Have I been drugged?”<br />
My friend laughed, she grabbed my arm comfortably and led me to the sofa. “No, no, of course not, I haven’t done that to anyone in years.” That bland joke, attempting to hint at some false daring or previous mischief, helped me back to myself. It was the language of deluded exchange in our finite world; it was a petty, banal (effective), effort to belittle the experience of the painting. I needed ground and that joke, which was all such a cliché of naughtiness, provided it. How foolish of me to confuse the ground with hot air.<br />
“Isn’t Aaron’s painting fabulous? He claims it doesn’t ever stop, not even when you look away. Isn’t that right Aaron? Aaron please introduce yourself!” My friend was giddy. I could feel giddiness rise in myself. I wanted to praise the young man; I wanted to talk to him. But my fears had not subsided. I am aware that people who are the victims of insult will try to align themselves with those who have insulted them, they will toady and placate and feign secret understandings with their oppressor. This is because contempt is contagious and the insulted do not wish to incur the insults of the several who may be witnesses. I had the unmistakable urge to toady. Believing what I believed I constructed a suit of arrogance for the young artist, I assumed in some yet undetected way I had suffered insult. I quickly defended against a strike that was never administered. I believed he was attempting to better me. I became cold and smug.The young man did introduce himself. He also elaborated on his warning. “It isn’t that the painting won’t stop, it becomes epidemic in the Dionysian sense. It is a divine infection. I asked Marcel to warn you before you looked.” Art is filled with snake oil salesman. Artist statements are full of false claims and polysyllabic words, self aggrandizement, and mysticism. I immediately assigned this young man’s statement to these categories. I was dismissive. I spoke to him with disinterest and vanity. This was a mistake I am willing to admit here. “Aaron” was not a stereotypical artist, nor was he a typical artist. He was very well kempt, calm but quickly interested, and free of melodrama. He was a normal man. He did not wear his eccentricities on his sleeve, nor did he otherwise flaunt them. I could ignore him in a crowd of three. This does not mean he was without mystery. He exuded mystery. It was clear upon first glance his mysterious qualities were difficult, well maintained, and honestly, too much work to penetrate. This reckoning of mystery as normality was more generous and apt then I could claim to have made before I saw his painting. It was an infection. What I had assumed was artistic bragging was, in fact, a clear statement. Having been a liar and dealt with liars for so long, I assumed it was the rule of statements. I was wrong.<br />
Feeling bested, although not admitting it, I later read up on Dionysian “epidemics”. I would use this trivia as a tool to later impress should I meet Aaron again. I would attempt to refute his claims. Being a historian, even of art, I was very familiar with Dionysos, through viewing Renaissance paintings, through reading Nietzsche, and I had also examined vases and other work attendant to this Greek god. I am by no means an expert. Of course, I considered him in the sense portrayed by Nietzsche, or painted by Caravaggio, or DaVinci. This god was a symbol or an emblem. The “epidemic” description was something different. By the time I learned of it, the epidemic was being felt and I could not refute it. An epidemia was an “arrival on the land” or to “be upon the people”, otherwise called an epiphany- a manifestation. It referred to Dionysus’s arrival and the spread of madness before him. He was the infectious god.<br />
Aaron was claiming his painting to be a germ of madness, or divinity. I must admit while I stared at it, that is how it seemed, but I did not account for its more subtle powers after had I left its presence. It takes time to understand the infestation of madness. It seems so familiar, so close, so unbelievable, and so far, all at once, ignorance seems preferable. Dismissal is the hope tried by all who are over come. Like a child with blankets over his head warding off the forces menacing him, I tried to blind myself to what had been awakened. I even wished to scoff. It was somehow galling to peripherally notice it was my subject and slave, Art, which had quickened the madness. I could not scoff as it was, even then, even through my denial, it was true: he had induced a divine infection.<br />
Although he was a pleasant enough young man, something disturbed me. And as I’m sure, Dear Reader, you will sympathize I assumed he was the source of disturbance. I did not assume I had been given the first dose of self disgust, I assumed he was disturbing. I was a king among kings, a being of free will; I had seen it all and was trusted for my opinions of all of it. When not adequately self assured I could reach back and rely on venerable tradition, greater authority, on which I could depend. But this intruder had dismissed it all, seemingly without even being aware of it. It is difficult to be magnanimous with a mouth full of manure.<br />
In such a deliberately intimate, enclosed, room I had little to say or do. I could not lose myself in bookshelves, or foreign ornaments. The room was barren and so one could discuss art without distraction. The best I could do was maintain a smirk and pretended to be jaded. Though somewhat hysterical my friend was an astute woman. By the look in her eye I knew she was aware of my discomfort; she knew I was overwhelmed. Not that it was hard to notice, my clothes were soaked with sweat.<br />
They spoke amiably of several subjects, sometimes art but not conspicuously. I remained aloof, acting as if I were listening. I must confess Aaron was a very nice and subdued fellow. But I would not bow to him. In Caravaggio’s day, artists, even friends, would pass in the streets without acknowledging the other, without “raising their hats”. It was a sign of power, a submission to those above, to lift your hat first. Friends did not speak for years waiting for a hat to be tipped their way. I was behaving in this fashion. The truth is it was my desire to tip my hat but I was immersed in habitual games of position and could not guess when it might be time to be humble, even when I was humbled.<br />
It is still a question in my mind: did I like the painting? Where can I start? What criteria do I use? The painting, as far as technique is concerned was good enough, but the paint was apparently, meant to be dismissed. The pigments were truly a “medium” a bridge to some other device. What was I to gauge? Was it art? Not in the terms I was taught. But what was it? This was some time ago, and I have gone out of my way, to avoid the young man, though he has twice crossed my path.<br />
I have seen another work since that evening. It seemed to carry the same epidemia as the portrait. Thinking on this next work makes me hesitate, for it was desirable. I wish for more of the work. That probably doesn’t clarify the sentiment, or give it enough thrust. I am well aware of how melodrama has become the relay of sentiment in writing and speech. It is repulsively telling how removed we are from the living. I saw the next work I will describe in a gallery. Looking back it couldn’t have been placed in a worse setting.<br />
My wife and I were invited to a not-so-intimate intimate gathering of artsy friends in Seattle. The invitation was extended by my good friend, Martin. Martin is a respected collector, with unusually fashionable taste. His collections toured very widely in Europe, and rarely in America. His pieces are select. Only the best and most lucrative are gathered to his collections.When the invitation arrived, we excused ourselves from any other engagements, and made arrangements to attend Martin’s soiree. This was certain to be a gala event. The invitation, which I have saved as a souvenir (and have committed to memory in pathetically religious adoration) read:<br />
<br />
Dear Friends,Please make yourselves available for a truly profound viewing experience Sept. 15, ----. What you will witness will forever change your perspectives. Please R.S.V.P at the attached address no later than Sept. 2 Marty<br />
<br />
It would be a habit for me to write in a smug tone about how I craved for social attention and the deferred opinions of the vulgar. Art venues have a very wicked habit of luring the vulnerable to pettiness and pretense. I did not care about art. Art as I look back was an opportunity to not only point out the emperor was naked, but to point it out while I was naked. I was not insincere when I thought I was an art lover, I just mistook what art was. The above opportunity to "change my perspectives" seemed like a beacon to either debunk an upstart, or attach myself to new and improved art. Which ever the situation, I would need to get some prior information. My persona would need preparation. I would like to clarify; this bogus persona was not perpetual. I was normal and good with friends-friends with little interest in art. It was professional. It was going to work, and loving my job which was, admittedly, to promote vanity, it was to create a false demeanor.<br />
Gathering information was not easy. No one knew anything. Martin, much like the rest of the certified professionals in our society, was (I was going to write gregarious but as this is a confession of sorts let's be a bit more frank) a loud mouth. Bragging is part of the reward in art. Rarety and who owns what is most rare needs gossips, and deliberate information leaks. This is very profitable. Most people know this advertising tactic through tabloid news on Hollywood celebrities. Auction houses and private collectors use these same tactics, but in a more elitist setting. So you can imagine how strange it was that nothing was leaked. The usual channels of information were untrafficked. The only thing that was offered and this so generally it was believable, was that Marty had not seemed himself in the last few months. By report he seemed nervous, or under stress. He had lost some weight, he was distant. This up coming opening was beginning to ring alarm bells. It was not advertised in any journal or art periodical. It had not been previewed to critics, or reporters, it was by invitation only, which is not the most successful marketing stratagem. What is more I had had the unenviable experience of touring the gallery where the opening was going to be held. It was a smaller venue, usually dealing in reproductions and decorative art, that is, "schlock." The crowd would not be a very large one.<br />
Just before the opening some word leaked out, unreliable word I should add, that Martin had invested a huge sum of money in the artist and the subsequent marketing of the artists work. It was intimated it would be very unusual.<br />
<br />
September 15th arrived, and our anticipation was to be sated. We had no idea how much so. I was prepared, so I thought for every variable. If it was good, bad, or other, I was ready. I had dozens of things to say. I researched regarding every rumor and hint (sparse as they were). I suspected the oddity of this event would attract the most important of my peers. I was not going to be unprepared.<br />
When we arrived, formally dressed and hungry, my wife and I were quickly greeted and ushered in the front door. It was somewhat ominous. The gallery was closed. I usually expect the milling and socializing of the cultured spilling out into the streets at an opening event. Cocktails (once literally a cocktail with the feather in it) and exotic snacks with various French and Italian (even Russian lately) names could be expected. But we were ushered like fugitives in the underground to the back offices and then to the door of the basement. There were several people already waiting and clearly annoyed. I did not know anyone, and what is worse, they were dressed very casually. We seemed like caricatures of a 1920’s fat cat and his wife. It struck me then, very forcefully, this was not going to be about me, unless of course I made an ass of myself.<br />
More people entered, until two rooms were filled in only security lighting. Someone made an inappropriate joke relating our circumstance to that of victims of the Nazis in a boxcar. This was offensive for many obvious reasons, but was also jarring because it voiced a certain quiet fear that some dangerous trick had been pulled. Very quickly, when expectation is not met, small but strong paranoia can appear. We were very relieved when the basement door was opened and no Panzers stormed out. An 18 year old usher in a red vest was all that emerged. She didn’t say anything just smiled a self conscious, but not bashful smile, and waved us in.<br />
The basement was very spacious, and a longer descent than I had expected (for some reason I was thinking of the basement stairs of a duplex I rented when I was 23.) I was a bit heavier then and I could feel 40 pounds of luxury bouncing and jouncing stair by stair restrained only by tuxedo. This seemed another demerit from my dignity. At the bottom three sets of risers, like those used in elementary school chorus recitals, were set up in an arc before a white curtained wall. There were only two spot lights directed at the curtain as illumination for the room, but they were sufficient.<br />
After asking the usher, someone courteously called out “stadium seating”, and everyone gave a forced chuckle. My wife and I sat together, a pair of sore thumbs. I was very conscious of my dress and becoming more so by the minute. This tell seemed to be broadcasting. My clothes were accidentally revealing more of my pretence than I could have dreamed. I was an imposter, but regarding what? My wife, I should add, was only momentarily embarrassed, and then preceded about her business. She is far less an imposter.<br />
The seating ended up elbow to elbow, not very comfortable, I assure you. Those risers were not cushioned, and before all was said and done I became very aware of the bones in my buttocks.Finally Martin entered the room, and made his way before the curtain. He was followed by a very tall lanky fellow. This new man seemed entirely made of elbows. Martin looked well, healthy, even strong. He was dressed in a casual jacket and jeans, and seemed very excited. He was expectant, and assured, I could not help but forget my silly clothes. Something was really going to happen. My instincts flared and I became excited as if by contagion. This was not going to be hype or a prank.<br />
Martin made speeches before everything. To get a glass of water Martin would ask for silence in a room and describe how important water was to one and all. For this brief moment he seemed reluctant. He said, after uncharacteristic stammering, “Dear friends, thank you so much for coming to this unusual event. You may be questioning the wisdom of the choice to attend, as rough as it is. Regretfully I can’t tell you much about what is to come, I mean both here and after you go to your warm homes. You won’t see anything quite like this again. It is a shame, and also a blessing. You will not believe what will happen when this curtain is parted. So without further indulgences, let me present the artist, Mr. David _____.”<br />
The tall man of elbows awkwardly made his way to the front of the curtain. I was expecting a self referential speech describing the validity of his work, first through art history than some anti-classical pinnacle. At least, I thought this in part, the excitement had not waned to fully accept this idea.<br />
In his right hand he held the handle on a plastic box. A lens peered out amid the usual swirls of design that accompany up to the minute electronic appliances. He did not speak, he gestured and said a half word to the two young men controlling the lights. “Wait!” this sharp bark made all of us jump. The artist made an earnest face as he adjusted his plastic device. He smiled up at us blushing, I believe, “That wouldn’t have created a very good performance if I made you all blind.” I became uneasy. For a brief moment with the Sudanese girl, I thought I was going blind.<br />
The lights went out, and the tall man turned on his plastic box, what I first thought was a portable projector, but I do not think this now. For a moment I feared I was about to endure a performance piece. The curtains were pulled aside and what appeared behind it, revealed by the indirect light of the box was blank wall.<br />
“If you all direct your attention to the center of the beam of light” which he promptly directed to the blank wall, “I would like to begin my tale.”<br />
In the center beam of light, isolated, an island of vision surrounded by the geometric lightening provided by our eyes, was a painting. In a moment I will change the form of narrative, as it will better relate what was seen, but for a moment let me describe something jarring. The light was not a projector. The light from the beam was slightly shaky as it was hand held. The painting did not shake. What is more, the painting seemed to spread out in the shaky perimeter. It was something about the nature of the light on the surface of the wall that revealed the painting. As we would later watch his small spotlight travel and unravel his illustrated narrative we realized not only was he traveling this broad surface and using his light to reveal an enormously elaborate painting, but he retread portions and a new painting was revealed where another had been.<br />
I will here switch to 3rd person and try to tell the story we heard it, including descriptions of the illustrations as it was seamless whole.<br />
“Before the Hejira and after the age of the Jamshid who’s starry cup witnessed Kai Khosrau there was a war. Some have said the war was in Khurasan and its hero was Idris, other say it was in Meshed and was at the command of Shab. The tale has been abandoned to whispers and obscure scripts. All the accounts, however, agree it was Shachar the Sabian that secured the victory.”<br />
“Of Shachar I will tell only the end of this war for that is when his wisdom was miraculously revealed. Shachar sat in despair, alone in a field.” Again, this is a combination of the spoken narrative and the paintings as it was slowly revealed. “The war gear of his men were scattered around him. Their final camp site was abandoned litter. Insects claimed the abandoned war prizes, now abused and filthy. Shachar sat still and tired. His once handsome face was leather stretched taut against sharp bones and hollows. The face that was once harsh and proud had been broken by privation, duration, and loss.”<br />
“A short time before he sat Shachar had sent the closest of his lieutenants from him. He released them to try as they may to escape punishment. The war was lost. They would find little left of their villages, or families. The reward for their struggles and loyalty to him would be mourning.”<br />
“On the perimeter of the field the arms of the embracing forest shielded Shachar form sights and sounds not far away. Just beyond the eastern arm of the forest waited Belchir Ibn Melchir and his legions. These armies knew fresh infantry, a sea of foot soldiers all armored and spiny with weapons, generals and the young princes, sons of Belchir Ibn Melchir, eunuchs and servants attended, the priests were there, and the diplomats. They were preparing for a feast day.”<br />
“Belchir Ibn Melchir had sent envois to Shachar’s camp giving detailed instruction for the rites of surrender. Shachar sent back his reply. At the first break of sunlight the following dawn Shachar would present himself to Belchir Ibn Melchir and meet his fate. He would arrive alone, unarmed, standing upright. Belchir Ibn Melchir received the news with satisfaction.”<br />
“Shachar waited in the field, stark and empty, as the sun slipped below the horizon. There Shachar waited, hoping for the sound of birds, or beast. No song from the Archons would be his servitor. He abandoned the hope the angels would deliver him, but perhaps he would receive some comfort from them yet. In bodies of light they mapped the sky. As he had come from dust, so would he return to dust, and the stars would witness this without surprise. In a language he did not know his story too, was written in the heavens. He ran his hand through the dust at his feet and wondered upon which heads he had strode. He thought it likely the dust beneath his feet had once sported crowns, but here it was brought low, hidden under grass and ferns. That field was surely a looking glass that told him the one certain future. “Dust unto dust and under dust to lie, sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and sans end…’”<br />
“He brought his dusty hand before his face, looking at his kin, and he was curious regarding an old question.”<br />
“The sun was nearly gone. The forest could not hide the armies further. The smells of campfires and cooking met Shachar’s nose, and the sky behind the trees glowed. Shachar had not eaten in days, and his head ached from hunger, and his belly turned. He felt slightly sick, but too drained to give this suffering its due.”<br />
“Shachar stood to draw in air, to ease his belly with memories of food. He was met with the stir of his own filth and sweat. He patted himself and clouds of dust poured from him, while his clothes cracked under his blows. He was disgusted by his filth. He became angry with the protuberance of his knobby bones.”<br />
“Flowing not far within the confines of the field was a small but deep stream. Shachar ambled to it with bony angularity, like a door frame under an enchantment to move. He painfully disrobed, and set about bathing. Tomorrow he would transform to dust, but for now he was a man, and water was welcome on his beaten, scarred clay. He would not face Belchir Ibn Melchir clothed in fugitive’s grime.”<br />
“He soaked in the water for a time. His mind was surprisingly free, but also very aware of time. He wished for better moments of ease. He brought his hands to his face, rubbed his eyes, wrung his beard. His pale hands were visible in the star light. In ways they were nebulous, insubstantial, indistinct. He brought his hands close to his eyes, then held them far and said aloud, ‘Perhaps this is their truth.’ To himself he thought, tomorrow if Belchir Ibn Melchir follows custom I will ask this question.”<br />
“He dried in the warm night air. He dried his poorly washed clothes like spinning swords in the old martial exercises. He had difficulty pulling his clothes back on as they were still damp.”“He ate nothing, he had no fire, he did not sleep, he only had the stars. He watched them spin, the fixed and the wandering. They marked time but largely ignored time. Their dance was the concern of men it did not trouble the stars themselves."<br />
"As a boy, he had gone on pilgrimage with his father. They traveled to the Pyramids in Egypt. His father told him stars are not time, but describe time. In those distant fires were maps of all their temples. Those angels were the places of memory, and the visions of their idols, the entire story of man.”<br />
“He believed these stories, but could not discern the memories of his home or temples in those far lights. He wished to take asylum. He would go to Egypt again, he would follow the Milky Way and it would lead him to Troy, or Rome, or Harran. There were so many stars but too many letters for a man to read.”<br />
“The night passed cold and slow. Shachar spent much of the night with his arms up stretched to the sky, watching the silhouette of his hands.”<br />
“Blue tinged the vault of heaven and the stars eased their labors. All but one. The morning star seemed flared and defiant. Sitting close to the horizon it retained resplendence. The sky brightened, and the star remained. Shachar used the star as his beacons he tromped through the grassy field and then the dim forest, to meet his end.”<br />
“He emerged from the forest at the proper moment, for the sun just settled on the tips of the tallest trees. Shachar lost his breath at the expansive vision of war before him. Belchir Ibn Melchir’s legions flowed out before him. Their aim and attention dropped fully upon him. His hoped finally melted away. Standing at the forefront of the armies was Belchir Ibn Melchir. He was on horseback, his head high. Belchir Ibn Melchir was rotund and oiled, clothed in jewels and ceremonial armor. Behind him stood generals, advisors, his thirty sons, and behind them were innumerable men regimented behind flags and totemic insignia. A forest of spears and swords were raised in triumph, and a great roar erupted from all throats excluding Belchir Ibn Melchir. Shachar nearly collapsed.”<br />
“Belchir Ibn Melchir languidly raised his hand and silence descended. Shachar swallowed very hard. A rough swallow. He straightened and stood as if his body remembered pride. He sent his gaze to meet Belchir Ibn Melchir.”<br />
“’Shachar! For you folly will end here, for it is here you will be finally counted wise and sound. For here you have surrendered to the hands of fate. You were as a sheep before the lion, and it is futile for the sheep to struggle so, for God has made them both, and made the lion supreme. But I am more fierce than the lion!’ Belchir savored the sound of his words and spoke them heavily with great gestures. ‘I am also more merciful. Shachar you will not be made an example, for you have many qualities I admire. I will not allow you to be tortured. Your death will be the death of a man, though you now look an animal. Come forward, let my armies see you. We will then take you into custody and execute you, without delay.’ Belchir smiled widely, almost like a spoiled boy.”<br />
“Shachar paused before he replied. ‘Belchir Ibn Melchir. I submit you have triumphed in this war. I agree I am defeated. You have not asked that I bow to you or your generals or armies, and for this I am grateful. Let it never be said Belchir Ibn Melchir is an Emperor without courtesy. Let it never be said Belchir Ibn Melchir does not observe the old traditions and piety. You are the victor and I am the dead. But I would ask one thing of you, and this has been the way of victors for all time. Will you observe the final request of the vanquished?’”<br />
“Belchir Ibn Melchir seemed to have expected this and so grinned. “Shachar, you know these requests have conditions, they are not absolute. I will grant your request as long as it does no harm to me, or my own, and as long as it does not interfere with my more extensive wishes.’”<br />
“’Belchir Ibn Melchir, I do not ask any demands, or reprieve. My request is far more humble than this. My final request is the answer to a question. It is a question of philosophical import.’”<br />
“Belchir Ibn Melchir seemed pleasantly puzzled by this request. His fat thick brows rose high above his wide nose. He laughed a roaring, scornful laugh. ‘Of course, Shachar, I will grant you this. What is your question?’”“’What is the true size of my hand?’”<br />
“Belchir Ibn Melchir laughed so hard he wheezed. His legions attempted laughter in sympathy. He lifted a fatty hand and pointed at Shachar, ‘Measure his hand!’”<br />
“Shachar held up his own hand, ‘No, Belchir Ibn Melchir! That will not answer my question.’ Shachar’s hand was held high and he slowly displayed it to the legions. ‘Consider: when you bring your hand close to your eye it looks large. When you pull your hand away it seems to diminish. Children know this. But I would like to know, as my eyes will not tell me, what is the size of my hand?’”<br />
“Belchir Ibn Melchir’s mouth hung slack. He turned his head with difficulty and looked to his advisors stupefied. His face immediately soured. He roughly ordered a eunuch forward, this was one of his philosophers and advisors. The eunuch bowed, and trotted to stand behind Belchir Ibn Melchir’s horse.”<br />
“’Shachar, the answer to your question is known to me, but it is a small thing! It is beneath my majesty to address a child’s question! But I have granted your request, and so it shall be answered!’ He kicked the eunuch forward. ‘This one will answer your question!’” Belchir Ibn Melchir seemed unduly troubled by his inability to answer such a strange question. Perhaps that mighty army, those wolfish generals, the serpentine sons were not as tightly bound as they appeared. Was that a shadow of unease that darkened Belchir Ibn Melchir’s face?”<br />
“The eunuch seemed very nervous, but he quickly built a long toothed smile. ‘The answer to your question is: your hand is the same size.’ He bowed and began to back away. Belchir Ibn Melchir smiled.”<br />
“Shachar also smiled a sympathetic smile and shook his head in negation. ‘Still you have not answered my question. It is, of course, the same size as itself. This does not answer my question, for it still remains, what is the size of itself? And again, what is the size of my hand?’ Belchir Ibn Melchir, you have given your word, here, before the strength of your armies, to answer my request. Are you unable to grant this? Is this not a disgrace? After all of our violence am I to topple you, and the wits of your ministers and vast armies, with a child’s question. Was this the vulnerability I should have exploited, and stood where you now stand, our positions reversed?’”“Belchir Ibn Melchir shook with rage. He called the eunuch to his side, drew his scimitar, and with a great ponderous swing, cut the eunuchs head from his shoulders. He roughly turned his horse, nearly toppling the animal, and approached his son’s, his generals and his ministers. He held the bloodied scimitar before them. He could taste their rising scorn, their doubts and he knew to crush them with fear, for if he did not the day may rapidly change the balance of power. Murder was very close to the minds of his court-it was their gift, but it must not be turned against him. Belchir Ibn Melchir growled low as he passed in front of his court.<br />
‘Do not look at me with blood in your eyes! You dare! Wipe your chops, there is no prey here! You are my prey! You are mine! And so I deem to pass the burden to you! The answer to this question will be found before the noonday sun or I will take the heads and hands of all of you!’ Belchir Ibn Melchir called forth his personal guard and ordered them to stand weapons drawn man to man with each of his generals, sons, and ministers. As one the leaders of the army called forth messengers. These messengers were dispatched with the question to each captain, who then relayed the question down the lines of command until each soldier heard.”<br />
“Shachar became dizzy with a wave of hunger. His head ached, and his eyes watered. He had said all he would to another man on this day.”<br />
“Shachar squeezed his eyes shut until the dizziness passed. The world was amazingly silent. When he opened his eyes, his vision took in a nearly comical sight. All the advisors, all the sages, and warriors, every last man in the vast army stood waving there hands forward and back before their eyes. Every face was quizzical and uncertain.”<br />
“The hours passed and the sun rose. Sweat poured from every brow, not from overwhelming heat, but under the burden or death. The swaying hands did not cease, but varied in speed and angle. Sometimes they would cease moving only to begin again with greater confusion. Even Belchir Ibn Melchir stared at his hand.”<br />
“It seemed a spell was cast. The legions of faces had lost their liveliness. The armies of hands were becoming still. Like the cessation of disturbance in a pool, the actions of the armies slowed. It seemed a trance was falling. Shachar looked up at the sky. It was far from the noon hour.”<br />
I must now return to my narrative to describe the rest. The painting which had unfolded with the traveling light became slightly obscured. It seemed to take on blotches of absence- scotomas. If you suffer migraines you will understand what I mean.<br />
Sight by sight the light exposed the perspective of different soldiers. It seemed as though we blinked, and it took on a new perspective every few seconds. Each time an eye opened a hand appeared in its center and behind, at various points of view stood Shachar. Hands of different shapes and characters popped in and out of our vision, making Shachar the magnetic constant in this parade of perspectives. Shachar was near and then far, but most impressively, he changed under the point of view and social biases of each soldier. He was Shachar in some general way, and in no way a caricature, but some feature in each changing view became emphatic. The transformations that changed Shachar were amazing. In one soldiers eye his tattered clothes became emphatic, in another his starvation, in another he seemed proud, in another he seemed filthy and small. We were given peripheral observations of a man as seen by many men, and it was done with subtlety. It seemed natural. We were allowed to see through the eyes of others to read fear and power of other men-impossible men who did not exist. After a short time it seemed these myriad Shachars were building a composite, a truth, as if we these sights were building the first vision of something ideal. An absolute Shachar seemed to be under construction.<br />
These perceptions were becoming deeply marred with the blotches of absence. Just as something seemed to be entering clarity it was being obscured. For a few moments I thought I was beginning to have a migraine, the effect was so convincing.<br />
The armies continued to look at their hands. The narrative had paused for a moment. The light did not cease to travel the wall, as if imitating our eyes, seeking out something to see. But it could find less and less. And I became somewhat nervous because I was unsure if it was the work or my vision. This kind of suspension is very uncomfortable. It is an unpleasant intellectual rebellion.<br />
The artist continued: “After a time Shachar began to understand the stillness of the army. Still with little hope, but more days and adventures before him, Shachar stumbled away from the still army. After he had walked some short distance, he heard the first howls and cries that initiated a mass panic.” He granted us the illustrative perspective of Shachar, and interspersed this with the blotchy perspective of the mass. “The armies of Belchir Ibn Melchir, including Belchir Ibn Melchir had all fallen into an abstraction. They were tricked into regarding the deceptive nature of vision. They held a mirror to sight. They were lulled to answer one of the forbidden questions. They....” my eyes hurt and seemed to involuntarily cross looking for sight, “…all …” the images were fading even when Shachar was shown, “…went…” suddenly the absence took over and I could not see, I reached out for my wife, “blind.” Had I noticed, and not been ready to panic, everyone gasped and became utterly silent. The spot lights flicked on again.The lanky artist stood before us satisfied and smiling. Behind him the wall was completely blank. We all looked around to ensure our vision, even stupidly measuring our hands.Martin was up in front of the room giddy and gesturing for us to proceed up stairs. Everyone laughed. Like we just stepped off a roller coaster, everyone was tussled. We must have been squirming in our seats, though I must admit, I did not notice any such fidgeting. Someone tried to start applause but, it fell dead. Applause seemed a little inadequate. We may as well have set up barking like seals.<br />
We were escorted upstairs to the main gallery by ushers, and it was then some wine and cheese were served. The artist appeared like some figure from Oz, all sticks and pulleys. Vivaldi was playing, people were milling, but in an unnerving silence. We were all still trapped in that world. We were still with Shachar. After a time a crowd gathered around David and everyone managed to overcome their awe, and sense of awkwardness to ask questions. The evening decayed from there.<br />
I did learn some interesting details, by listening to the questions thrown at the artist. It was his first piece. It was not for sale. It had taken him 12 years to create. After a short time the crowd broke into pairs and the theories began to assemble regarding the plastic box. That is was a projector was one theory, another was that box was a flashlight of sorts, but with various colored lights that reflected or were absorbed, and these lights revolved. I thought these were unsatisfactory ideas, and still do. Too many aspects of the work are left unanswered. And although it is intriguing, I think in the end it is not my concern how he did what he did, but more importantly what did he do? He erased us all. I was not me for a time. I jumped body to body, a ghost. We became swept up in the senses of another, in the sights of other eyes, and for a time we were whatever identity he provided. We were, briefly but with lingering aspects, Shachar, Belchir Ibn Melchir, the sons, the army, other men. But what will not dissipate is the variable Shachar; the multiple visions of Shachar that nearly gave us an ideal, an eternal experience.<br />
I had to leave. Somehow normal people were too bland to endure. Shachar was more real. They seemed less effected by the work than I was, and it felt offensive. I began to feel with some certainly the first feeling of disconnection.<br />
The populations of the impossible never people that radiated from the Abyssinian girl, the shifting characters of painted fiction presented in the story of Shachar that I had just seen (that I had just been) seemed to hint at a depth behind the easy surface of sense. If the universe we inhabit is infinite, this other thing, an impossible universe, is more. ! squared or ! to the ! power. It is participating with shadows, only these shadows are more substantial than granite. Illusions seem to describe the bedrock of truth. Reality, at its best, is incomplete. My sense is these works describe a fact: we are illusions to something more startling. It almost seems like a form of solipsism, or a taste of the Hegelian Absolute.<br />
I complained I was feeling slightly ill so we left the reception. On the ride home we attempted to discuss the work, but my wife became nervous and evasive. It felt like we were trying to discuss something shameful or intrusive, or a violation. I cannot explain this.<br />
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There was one further piece I would like to mention. And though I am suspicious of threes for the superstitions surrounding this number, it does feel like there is some uncanny relationship between the pieces.<br />
I was at a funeral. I should mention I am, as is normal I believe, deeply troubled by funerals. Perhaps this is old fashioned of me. They seem due homage. Mourning seems like a properly lonely state, and is honored by reluctance to approach. But the world is has truly become a farce or is it still in the tragic stages? I’ll let Marx or Hegel worry over this. This funeral was a “celebration of life” or so the flyers reported. Flyers for a funeral. It boggles the mind. I am disgusted with the idea of a funeral as a celebration. It is morbid, like a clown face painted on a corpse. If life has been good and gracious, virtuous or honorable, its passing will be terrible for a light is gone. Maybe I am being sentimental, but this seems a decent enough sentiment and I won’t lightly throw it aside. Life should be celebrated as it is lived (or condemned). These should occur during our brief span. Post mortem gaiety seems like a really tacky excuse to have a party, or a show put on for an audience of fellow mourners. It is pathetic the dead can become a platform for attention and vapidity. Leave the dead some dignity!<br />
I write with vehemence about this for a reason. The dead man at the funeral meant little to anyone (myself included). That may be cold to write, but it is true, nonetheless. In most circumstances I would have performed as is expected and acted sorrowful, but I had run out. My sense of doubt had matured into self disgust and disgust for all things like me in my isolated field. When you first catch on to the fraud, the first whiff of your own weakness and pretense, it is the most profoundly irritating experience. When I had first been willing to scorn the pieces of art I have here described I was so solid, and knew all of the rituals and acts around me to be real, but after it seemed the worst farce.<br />
We stood around the coffin as it was being lowered, and everyone chatted. Martinis were passed around. It was a monstrous coffin. As if ironic or a joke, it was covered in tinsel and garlands and hundreds of bottle caps. It looked like it was dressed as a gypsy for Halloween. I felt my face scrunched in disgust, and I could not unknot it. In this well manicured graveyard, silent and still, even solemn, we stood out like a glittering pimple. It was like watching the most desperately resentful teenagers crying out for attention. Each mourner was talking and laughing a little louder than their neighbor. One man wore a Technicolor kilt, another man was in flamboyant drag (can’t drag sometimes be subdued?) One woman dressed like she was just arrived from a swingers convention, all in holey fishnet and mesh, and I assure you she was not someone you want to see in fishnet and mesh with holes. This display of scandal might be forgivable if this was teenagers, or even twenty three year olds. But our youngest mourner was 38, our eldest was in his early seventies. This was all false.<br />
In a moment I realized I did not want to stay and would not stay. In mid sentence I strode away from some shrill harpy and set off across the graveyard. It was Scrooge like, after seeing such cold self interest I suddenly had the urge to sense some human feeling. My head felt swollen and my eyes ached. People of a class and culture whom I had striven to join were transforming before my eyes. They were like the frightening puppets on Mr. Rogers. Every face had some “Lady Elaine” quality, or the worst of Venetian Carnival masks, elongated and heavily accented with makeup and paint and shiny grease. They were spangled monsters, twisted people. Perhaps this is all subjective, or perhaps they were cells wracked with disease. I was having the godfather of anxiety attacks.<br />
I was jarred into some reality, or some more calm state, by a simple sight. People. Real people, plain, dull, people. It occurred to me the funeral was unpeopled, a bunch of empty coats. The mourners were behaving in some alien manner and it was very lonely. When you are in a crowd of empty men you suffer the effects of isolation, and possibly sensory deprivation. These real people were not here for my entertainment, nor did they petition me to act as audience. They were solid. They had concerns out in the world. A young man stood beside an old man who knelt, both apparently paying respects at a grave. The young man looked somewhat bored and disinterested, but there was also some sense of warding. His young face squinted and searched passively. He was here for the old man, it was apparent. The old man was hunched forward, sitting on his knees. He was concentrating on something.<br />
They were straight ahead of me, so I kept on my way, and was prepared to quickly sneak a gaze at whatever was happening then leave them in peace as I went to find my car.<br />
The old man was drawing on a small tablet. The young man, and this may be generous, he looked about 16, watched me walk up with some interest. The old man did not shift a hair as I passed.<br />
I had to catch a glimpse of what he was drawing. This was unusual and my instincts informed me to keep alert. Something about this moment seemed portentous, and far more “magical” than anything they had attempted at the sham funeral.<br />
I paused and looked over the man’s shoulder from a respectful distance. The drawing was beautifully done and very simple. It was a portrait of a young woman, face front, neither beautiful nor ugly. He was drawing in pastels on what looked like an old Fisher Price child’s chalkboard.<br />
I spoke quietly to the young man. “I’m sorry, very sorry to bother you, but may I ask what your father is drawing?”<br />
The young man looked away with disinterest while he spoke, as if the act of communicating made me safe, or he had sized me up and I was not worth barring. “He’s my Grandpa. He does this every week. He makes me bring him here on Sundays. This is my Nana’s grave and he’s a sketch artist. He draws her.”<br />
I looked over the old man’s shoulder again, and saw he clutched a tattered black and white photograph of the girl in the hand that clutched the chalkboard. The drawing was far more lively than the photo.<br />
In art you often hear hyperbole regarding the effects of a work. Everyone attributes some voodoo and magical other worldliness to simple drawings. It validates them (both work and observer) in some petty way. I am aware of this and I would like to communicate I am not suggesting this silly superstitious pose when I say the work was better than the photograph. The color would lend “betterment” if nothing else. But there was more than just the addition of color to quicken the picture. The face was different, it resembled the photo but was not the same, and the difference was subtle, more expressive. Certain of the facial muscles were flexed that lent a “telling” quality to the face.<br />
“Again, I’m sorry, but do you think your grandfather would mind if I watch him draw? I am very interested in art and his work is beautiful. I truly do not wish to intrude but it is remarkably beautiful.”<br />
The young man squinted down at his grandfather and put forward my request in what sounded like Italian, but I do not know for certain, it could have been Portuguese. The young man answered with as much disinterest as before, “Sure he won’t mind, he doesn’t even know we are here. PAPA! This man wants to watch you!” The old man grunted but continued without interruption. I drew closer, careful to stay out of his light. His hands were steady and always in motion, but not ever frantic. It was fluid and graceful drawing. He applied each detail with careful but certain attention. He knew what to do with clarity, but he was cautious in application. Each hair was present, each flush. Some aspects were eerie.<br />
As I watched I became aware of how the blood supply would have colored her face, blushing the tip of her nose to the bridge. Hidden aspects of her physiology and anatomy were navigated and added as a light smoky blue tracking around the thin tissues around her eyes, or the cracked pink of her lips and the pale skin that circled and then radiated toward her nose and the sides of her chin.<br />
As he drew he mumbled, sometimes chuckling, sometimes it sounded ironic, or even righteous, but the silences were painful. When he stopped mumbling it felt tragic, as if his trance was coming close wakefulness, and the knowledge the face he presented was a meanness, or trick But he would dive deep again, and pick up the strains of the mumbling.<br />
He nagged at the picture with his pastels and with the eraser. When one feature seemed impossible to correct he moved onto another, only to return to the previous feature and alter it in some subtle way. I thought I was watching a perfectionist, and it brought to mind the image of a sculptor who, ever dissatisfied with one angle or another of his masterwork, chips away at it until all he has left is chips and powder.<br />
I misunderstood. I watched for nearly an hour before I did understand. The drawing of the young face I had first seen had evolved, it had aged. With small steady progress he was animating the face. Her mood had darkened from the first version I had seen, her face had become more angular and stark. As I came to this realization others quickly followed. His mumbling and grunting were in time to the changes of the face. He was reliving her.<br />
He continued, and I did not grow tired of watching. His humming dialogs rode a pendulum of moods. At times the face became lovely, at other moments plain, or very expressive. It was angry, disdainful, happy, sly, and worried. In an extraordinary feat he drew her face in deep sorrow, I knew it to be mourning, and yet it was here most lovely. Her pleasures and sorrows took turn dominating her face. With mastery he aged her. He did not use a guide. He did not have further photographs or reference, only the clarity of his memory.<br />
His mumbling became less frequent. The woman was fairly old. That might be incorrect, she was worn. The most terrible sorrow, to touch her face had marked it and was not diminished though other expressions passed beneath it. Along with this, some wrong had settled into her features. Some corruption that cannot be misidentified appeared as slight hollows in her cheeks, and eyes, and a slackening of her cheeks, which did not have enough substance to become jowls. She thinned, her eyes became large as if in frightened realization, and then they became tired, sunken, weak. Her decline was terrible and my throat ached. I felt the muscles in my chin tense and the corners of my mouth arched down to camouflage the possibility of weeping.<br />
The old artist began to weep. From the angle behind him I could see his jaws clench like a pulse the closer he came to her death. And then the moment of her death appeared in a series of colors too easily placed to believe. Less than a dozen strokes of chalk and she was dead. The face was barren, and terrible. The muscles evacuated tension and the eyes …what other term can be used but dead? Her eyes were dead, that horrible unfocused, sunken, vacancy that is apparent in the eyes only with death.<br />
The old man wept unabashedly. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket wiped his tears and quietly spoke, but I do not know what he said. The phrase wasn’t addressed to me. I am content not knowing, though I will say it sounded sorrowful or regretful. He took the tear damp cloth, wrapped it around his index finger and marred the picture by smearing a cross over the board. He took a small water bottle from his pocket, poured it over the board, and using the handkerchief cleaned away the face in muddy streaks.<br />
I did not weep, though the feeling offered itself. The old man stood with some strength. When he unfolded he was surprisingly tall. He was several inches taller than me, though I had thought he must be shorter as he drew crumpled over (perhaps because the perspective of the woman was drawn eye to eye, instead of from above, I confused his height.) He carefully folded and placed the soiled kerchief in his pocket. He finally seemed to acknowledge me, with a small, maybe slightly embarrassed, smile.<br />
He patted his grandson on the back before putting his arm around him and they set off. The old man nodded to me in goodbye as they walked off.<br />
I puzzled over this for some time as I stood above the woman’s grave. I wondered what the old man did with his neatly folded handkerchief. Did he simply wash it or was there more to his ritual of cleaning away her image with tears? Did he keep all the soiled kerchiefs, each a history, a body of memory? It didn’t seem unreasonable that he might keep any and every sacrament, as his weekly dedication demonstrated, he made new icons of her to venerate if only for the time he spent near her grave. I considered the idea he did keep a collection of kerchiefs, and it struck me these started to take on some impossible aspects. I wondered if those dirty cloths were all the same memories, and marked the days on a calendar that actually extended beyond her life. I wondered if he altered her life making it more ideal some days and beautiful, or if he ever held resentments that colored her time, or even if he created fictional events to add to her life. I realized the ideas began to resemble my old manner of thinking; I was trying to impose scandal upon him. He had shown me another miracle of art and my habits strained to pollute it, and bring it low.<br />
I realized much of what I deem art was a vain attempt to bring the powerful down, to diminish what was overwhelming and steal its powers. I wanted these strange things to accommodate the small, claustrophobic, world I was inhabited. As with the other art I have mentioned here this last left me bereft of cleverness. It stole away the walls of my habitat. I am confused by what I have seen, but I no longer feel the desire to dismantle wonders to offer my confusion a balm.<br />
I am uncomfortable inside my skin. Treading the familiar grounds and habits of my professional adulthood is unsatisfactory. Seeing the common, the ironic, the disgraceful, feels like I am being force fed something noxious. I may have been fed manna and now TV dinners (or Gallery or Museum Dinners) seem unsavory. Many of the so called graces and all of the expressions made by my intimates or associates sets me scowling (or create a guilt that I am not scowling.) I have seen things that dictate I dismiss fools, and frauds: I can’t help but obey. So here we reach my dilemma. My standards and expectations are ruined, which is something for which I should be grateful. I am grateful but I am left with little. I survive, and survive well enough for it to be seen as to be called luxury, on the corruption of these greater things. I regret to write I love my luxuries even as I see them dismantle wonders. I have also found I love art.<br />
In a profound way, I have been shown an impossible world. The clash between my vices and this undeniable virtue does not seem to alter either abstract, but it is tearing me apart. I mentioned I sense another me is emerging, another self, and this is true. It is not so simple as suggesting I have changed. The arts I have seen have “installed” another man, a better man, inside my head. I want him to win, though it frightens me that I would be swept aside. He might pull apart my world; tear down my structures and theaters. This shabby theatre deserves destruction.<br />
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Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-31008877262634221882016-07-12T21:36:00.003-07:002016-07-12T21:36:52.091-07:00Werewolves in the Bible...first passI have decided to annotate the Bible. This is the third time I am doing this. The first time was to incorporate the Bible, Pseudepigrapha, and any and all legends I could find into my general mythology notes. (For Christians, Jews and Muslims it may be important to note there is a great deal of overlap with Biblical material and mythic material- for example the Biblical interdiction against seething a kid in its mother’s milk, is known to be a mechanism to make one a God in Orphism.) The second time I annotated it was to point out instances where art traditions are evident, and especially art traditions around caves, or subterranean areas (the biblical God is several times depicted as rising from beneath the ground), or art with outsiders or outcasts (like the Rechabites or Kenites.) This time around, I must admit my annotations are a bit adversarial, as I am looking at debunking some aspects of fundamentalism, and some silly ideas regarding acceptance of the Bible as history. Or history as we generally think of history.<br />
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As I have been going through the Bible, I stumbled across some of my old notes. I found that there is a great deal concerning , almost an obsession with, werewolves in the Bible.<br />
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This may sound very strange, and certainly not very Biblical, but it is true just the same. Let me clarify my terms here a bit. “Werewolf” may not clearly get the idea across. To spare everyone my usual long winded, pedantic lectures I’ll summarize. People considered “outside”, “strangers” or “aliens” were thought of as estranged, and wild. There were specific rituals that made one “estranged” or a stranger, and some of these were very clear in what exactly “strangeness” entailed. It had to do with murder, cannibalism, and man turning into animals. We can’t think of animals in the terms that we think of them today. Animals had specific magical histories and traits that set them apart. For example leopards and fawns were seen as divine because their spots were thought to be the likeness of the stars. In Egypt the Ba priests wore leopard skins to be heavenly, and among the Greeks the fawn skin was used in Dionysos cults for the same reasons.<br />
So when I say werewolf I am referring to something more than a guy turning into a wolf, though that is included also. To be a werewolf several things had to happen. 1. A murder had to be committed. 2. In most cases this murder is followed by an act of cannibalism. 3. The head hands and feet of the victim are mentioned for special notice, and shown. 4. The appearance of dogs, or wolves, either as a relative to the victim or perpetrator, or signaling that the perpetrator is a fellow wolf. 5. The murderer is known as “the stranger”, “foreigner”, the “outcast”, the “wild man”, and cannot be harmed. 6. Hairiness (that is specifically growing hair to look like an animal, especial if one has red hair. 7. Leprosy (or a white skin disease). 8. Eating honey from bee hives found in dead bodies (see Samson or Saxo Grammaticus’ Amleth). 9. Rams, especially the shoulder blade of a ram appears as a puzzling but important element but also shoulder blades are a strangely persistent mythic element.<br />
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Okay this sounds unorthodox enough. It is, however, all connected. Let’s take number 7, leprosy, from the list above as a jumping off point. Several places in the Bible mention lepers. There is mention of people becoming lepers, and what to do when one becomes a leper (that is how to treat leprosy.) To be clear about the terms, the Biblical Hebrew does not note leprosy from other skin diseases, notably those that cause white flaky skin. Flaky white skin, whiteness of skin, was seen as a signal, a malady of sorts, but a magical malady. Pausanius mentions a battle close to Delphi, in Greece, where the soldiers covered themselves in white flour, or powder and attacked at night. The enemy forces believed they were besieged by ghosts or demons. This way of thinking of whiteness was very wide spread over a very long period of time (still ghosts and “supernatural” descriptions are white or pale.). But if we take this to Greece and Rome we’ll get a better idea of what is meant by “leprosy” or white skin diseases. In Greek the word is “Lepo” the word indicating whiteness and white skin disease. In Latin we are given a clearer understanding of the word. “Lupus” means white skin disease and is still used today to describe a disease whose symptoms include flaking skin and white patches. As may be noticed, “lupus” also means wolf. This relationship of white and wolf is very wide spread. In Germanic, and other Indo-European languages (including Latin and Greek) the term “alb” means white, as in reference to the snow covered “alps” or the white cliffs of Dover giving Britain the Latin name Albion. The word appears in Germanic and Scandinavian languages as “alb”, “alf” and “ulf”, meaning white, elf and wolf. In Scandinavian traditions elves are not small spritely things but stranger Gods of the light and subterranean darkness.<br />
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The whiteness was not a stand alone issue, and it had nothing to do with the germ theory of disease. Leprosy, that is werewolfism, was the result of some act. Plato notes “it is told of the sanctuary of Lykaian Zues (wolfish Zeus) in Arcadia, namely, that he who tastes one bit of human entrails minced up with those of other victims is inevitably transformed into a wolf.” From other sources it is known the “he who tastes” was ritually a shepherd, and the victim a shepherd boy. This story goes back far earlier than Plato. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, not only is there a wild man, Enkidu, but the Goddess Inanna is accused of turning her lover, a shepherd, into a wolf that is torn apart by dogs. To kill a man, and eat him made one a wolf. Now let’s look at an example of this in the Bible. The account in Exodus of the Jews escaping Egypt is an account of werewolfism. It must be recalled one of the Pharaoh’s emblems was the shepherds crook. Without getting into the events of the Passover (though extremely import to this issue) we’ll recall the Pharaoh’s first born son dies as the “angel of death” passes over. At which point the Jews are told to leave Egypt. As they leave, God has it as a sign that the dogs were silent. That is no dogs barked at the Jews. This may seem like a strange but unclear thing. First let me say that the dog used as pets in Palestine at this time was very wolf like, not very dog like. Second, it was a folk tradition that dogs do not bark at their own. In other words the dogs didn’t bark because the Jews were “fellow citizens of wolves”. And what is more they were being estranged, that is cast out of the city. This is important, inside the confines of a city vs outside was the signal of man’s domain or “the wild” or the “desolate places”. It may seem like I am reaching a bit here to connect werewolfism to a Biblical story. So let me mention another version of this story known among the Romans and mentioned by Pliny the Elder. According to Pliny there were two leaders among the Jews Moses and a character named Hierosalemneus (Jerusalem), and they and a few followers were kicked out of Egypt because they had Leprosy. At the time this Roman account written, what it meant was unclear to the Romans and they thought it was meant as a derisive statement about the Jews. But they did not invent the story, nor change any details though they were garbled. The two accounts have a common source, and refer to the same thing. The Roman account is explicit and emphatic, where the Biblical account needs some context, and is idiomatic. It should be noticed that among all the werewolf accounts, estrangement is present. The afflicted become estranged, outcast, or separated. Often they are termed “strangers”, or “outsiders” (literally meaning outside the walls of a city). In some instances, like among the Rechabites, they literally lived outside the city walls to maintain their holiness.<br />
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Let’s look at another aspect of this werewolfism. Among the legal and ritual directions given in the Pentateuch can be found the ritual procedures to create priests and High Priests. The priest must participate in the sacrifice of a bull. Then (and keep this in mind) blood from the sacrifice is placed on his ear, thumb, and big toe. To “purify” the leper the leper must shave his head (that is remove hairiness) then, without performing the sacrifice, blood from the sacrifice is placed on his ear, thumbnail and big toe. In other words the priest has to commit a sin before he can be purified. The priest has to participate in a killing. The leper is already under the “curse” of murder. There is a difference that should be noted. The priest sacrifices a bull, which is meant to stand in for another, human, victim, while the leper uses a lamb. (Oh check Leviticus 8 and 14 for this stuff.) these different animals signify something important and unsaid in the text. Animal sacrifices are stand ins. They are not random choices or favorite food items. To choose a specific animal for sacrifice means a specific victim is implied. Likewise they are not only killed specifically but cooked specifically, notably boiled, but in accounts from other places and times both boiled and broiled- in a tripod kettle. What is more is the victim is slain in an act to “purify” a state called “unclean.” Unclean does not mean dirty. Unclean means holy to the point of poisonous. The implements of rituals considered in close contact with God were “unclean”. In other words, lepers were not seen as dirty and diseased, this is a modern idea. They were seen as frighteningly, dangerously, cursed with holiness. The purification was to restore them to the company of living men. I say living because they were is some sense considered dead or even resurrected, but not quite among the living or reborn. (Adoption and reinstating the mistakenly dead type of rituals are important here but may be a bit of a tangent.)<br />
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As I mentioned it is important to keep in mind the blood on the ear, thumb and toe of the “purified”, or priest. These blood spots are references. Like circumcision is a reduced form of completely removing the male genitalia, this is a reduced form of something more gruesome. It will be recalled in 1 Samuel 5.2–7 the story of the statue of the god Dagon. The statue is found fallen before the Ark, its head and hands severed across the threshold of the temple. Or the story of Jezebel, who is eaten by dogs, whose only remains are her head, hands and feet (Ahab whose blood is licked by dogs is also of note here.) This emblem of murder and cannibalism, the remains of head, hands and feet are very wide spread over a long period of time. In Greece, the story of Thyestes and Atrius recounts how Thyestes’ children, torn from the alter of Zeus, are slaughtered, boiled and broiled in a kettle, and without Thyestes knowledge served to him as a meal. He was later shown the head hands and feet of his children to reveal his crime. A similar story occurs with Arcadian King Lycaon (the wolf king whose sons are all changed into wolves) who slaughters a young boy (sometimes his grandson) and attempts to serve them to the Gods at a feast. The boy is boiled and broiled in a tripod kettle. Likewise in Arcadia a ritual was practiced wherein shepherds would gather and eat an umble stew. One piece of meat supposedly from a shepherd boy (archeological remains have only come up with sheep and goat bones at the areas of ritual sacrifice so it was likely only said to be a boy) was in the stew. The unlucky recipient of this piece of meat had to leave, swim across wolf lake and live like a wolf for 8 years before he could return to the settlements of men. At the original Olympics the tripod kettle was important. At the Olympics sacrifices were made to Zeus and Pelops. Pelops had been slain boiled and broiled in a tripod kettle, and served to the Gods. He was restored to life, except his shoulder blade which Demeter had accidentally eaten. A rams shoulder blade was used to replace it. It is important to note Thyestes and Atreus were sons of Pelops. But we don’t need to stick with the Greeks, we can look to the Norse myths, where Volund Smith, who lived at the wolf dales, murders the sons of the king who holds him captive and makes drinking vessels of their skulls which are given to the kings as trophies. Or in the story of Sigurd the Volsung, where Atli dreams he has eaten his sons and they become dogs. Later “ Then the king asked where his sons were, and Gudrun answered, ‘I will tell thee, and gladden thine heart by the telling; lo now, thou didst make a great woe spring up for me in the slaying of my brethren; now hearken and hear my rede and my deed; thou hast lost thy sons, and their heads are become beakers on the board here, and thou thyself hast drunken the blood of them blended with wine; and their hearts I took and roasted them on a spit, and thou hast eaten thereof. ‘ King Atli answered, "Grim art thou in that thou hast murdered thy sons, and given me their flesh to eat, and little space passes betwixt ill deed of thine and ill deed.’ " The story occurred around Cyrus the Great. When Astyages orders Harpagos to kill Cyrus and Harpagos does not obey, Astyages has Harpagos son slaughtered, boiled and broiled and served to his father . Following the meal the boy’s head, hands and feet are given to his father in a basket. It is important to note that Cyrus was said to have been raised by a she wolf, or prostitute (note the name Caleb in Hebrew means dog or prostitute). The story of Jason and Medea is to be included in this group (his sons are slain at the alter), as is Achilles son Neoptolemus (later called wolfish, and connected with Delphic wolf cults) slaying Priam at the alter.<br />
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But let’s back track a moment and note, that most of the grisly accounts above mention the presence of a lamb, or a ram. Thyestes and Atrues were fighting over a golden ram fleece. Jason of course has the Golden fleece. Everyone else eating with Harpago is eating lamb. The sacrifice to Pelops, was a ram and his shoulder blade was in some instances ritually shown to be a ram’s shoulder blade. With this we can return to the Bible.<br />
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The use of a lamb to sacrifice in relation to a leper (a wolf) seems widely dispersed, but doesn’t indicate anything about obsession with werewolves in the Bible. I’d like to follow the idea a bit further along. On the island of Mykonos, a ritual was performed for Poseidon wherein a ram was sacrificed, and then it’s shoulder blade was sprinkled with wine. This ritual was very much like the ritual for Pelops. But this ritual of a shoulder blade and wine are not confine to the Greek sphere. This will point us back in the direction of Biblical reference.<br />
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“And the priest shall take the boiled shoulder of the ram, and one unleavened cake out of the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and shall put them upon the hands of the Nazarite, after the hair of his separation is shaven: / And the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before the LORD: this is holy for the priest, with the wave breast and heave shoulder: and after that the Nazarite may drink wine.”<br />
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The relationship to a rams shoulder blade and wine are important here. There is a bit of a reversal as wine is sprinkled on the shoulder in one instance and the shoulder is waved about in the other. But the elements are in place. Even the whiteness from Lamnetations: “Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk.” What is more is like the Leper, the Nazarite (separated or held aside) has his head shaved on the threshold of the sanctuary. This is because the Nazarites vow not to shave their heads or eat grapes or drink wine. It is noted however they can eat honey and have honey mead. This is very important. Wine was the “blood of the grape”. Grapes had to be “killed” and bleed to cause fermentation. Recall it is forbidden for Jews to eat something that has died naturally. things must be prematurely killed for magic to occur. Or better put, you can't make wine from raisins.<br />
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The “death” of the grape or vine is often blamed on a goat, or ram, or shepherd. And it is sometimes asserted that the rams blood colors the wine. A Nazarite in his vow, cannot, like the Arcadian wolf men, partake of cannibalism during their werewolfism. In other words, the wine was held to be the blood of the sacrificed ram, which in turn stood for a man (or god). A Nazarite under his vow could not partake of the flesh or blood of a person and hope to return to the status of a man. This should also be mentioned, it was not only the grape but the vine itself that was connected to the ram.<br />
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The Nazarite grew his hair to be an animal, a wolf, and his hair is where his power resided. The story of Jacob and Esau ( Esau is also called Edom-red, and Seir- hairy) has still another account (closely related to Odysseus and Polyphemus and the story of Humbaba in Gilgamesh) of wild men, and sacrifice regarding the stolen blessing. But these examples can go on and on. Other that could be brought in are Samson, Caleb, the 300 dog soldiers of Caleb, the treatment of strangers, the title “stranger” taken by several of the Patriarchs, Naboth slain for his vineyard through the devices of Ahab and Jezebel- stoned outside the city "In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, dogs shall lick your blood, even yours," also dogs and prostitutes (Caleb) bathe in the blood of Jezebel. The Old Testament examples are daunting to list because there are so many of them. The word “Hebrew’’ has the sense of “stranger” or “one from the other side (of a boundary)”. And Jew or YD and it’s Minoan derived relative “Id” as in the Idean cave, mean “wild or desolate”. Were wolves were also termed wild men, and Plutarch notes the Jews made a distinction between drinking wine and drinking beer or mead which the Greeks shared. Men drink wine, bearded animal men drink mead or beer (barbarians- “bar bar”- bearded, or a jibberish noise). Mount Sinai, also known as Mount Horeb, the mountain sacred to god, is Horeb) “desolate place”- the mountain of the wilderness. The position of wild man/ werewolf to a “civilized man” is noted everywhere. The homeless, wandering Wildman, was not just understood it is mandated. The Jews may not own a land. All land is turned over to God, the Jews are perpetual, “unclean” and holy, wild men. Nazarites, in a sense, that is separated, as a whole people. I would like to mention this position was the origin of “chosen” people. Chosen by God in the sense they were chosen by lot to perform the hard task. The idea of chosen as in “Elect” was a later development and groups such as the Essenes reacted against the idea. Modern versions of these “chosen” people, or those elected the hard task still exist. To be chosen wasn’t the position of advantage. It was, however, deemed holy or sacred.<br />
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In Gilgamesh the example of Enkidu and his transition from animal man to human is explicit. It is not accident that Jesus is connected with Bethlehem or Bet Lahmu, though very old by the 1st century C.E. Though transformed through time, traditions still surrounded the “house of lahmu”. Lahmu were heroes known for their redness (termed muddy) and hairness. Enkidu was a Lahmu hero.<br />
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When we come to the New Testament era, we run into the Dead Sea Community, who again, outcast themselves to return to proper holiness. That is they assumed the former ritual werewolfism, and were careful about accepting the goods from gentiles relating to “threshing floors” (meaning the area in front of the threshold where grain was threshed- like where Dagon was fallen and Nazarites cut their hair). This indicates they were aware of some memory of the werewolf tradition, if greatly changed after Babylonian, Greek and Roman influence. What is most telling and most complete, is the account of the Last Supper where nearly all elements are met. The sacrificial paschal lamb is connected to the victim, who is eaten (“This is my body, this is my blood” in reference to lamb and wine). Likewise Jesus declares that wherever he hands the sop, or who eats the portion given him will betray him. This is the same event that took place among the Arcadian Shepherds. They were given a vegetable dish and whoever ate the lamb was outcast and a werewolf. It must be recalled that “Judas” that is “Judah” or Yd- means wild, or Wildman (man of the Jews or strangers), and is not an accidental designation. This isn’t anti-Semitism at the table of Jesus. The tensions in the definitions of righteous Jews was often violent and with several diverse interpretations. These were both religious and political issues. Among some groups righteous separation was still a very strong impulse. Chosen and righteous still had a strong dose of the magical outcast.<br />
The tradition of the werewolf carried through with surprising consistency well into the 17th century A.D. In the 12th century A.D. the Grail Romance the Perlsevaux mentions a character “Gargaran the Albanian” who cannibalizes children. Albanian of course from the root alb meaning both white and wolf, but also “gar” which means stranger, and is the old Testament term for “stranger”. It carried still further forward in time. The Brothers Grimm recount a story called the “Juniper Tree” which still carried vestiges of the werewolf lore from the same traditional sources as the Bible. As did little Red Riding Hood. In the original story Grandma is turned into bread and wine that Red Riding Hood is made to consume. Then Red Riding Hood is bound with, strangely, woolen rope, that is, with rams fleece.<br />
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Seen through the lens of lycanthropy, the Bible may need some review.<br />
So we have considered the idea that werewolves are in the Bible, and maybe at this point it doesn’t seem so strange. It isn’t exactly the werewolves that are handed to us from somewhat modern European stories but it isn’t a comfortable distance either. Removed from horror movies, and scary stories the idea of werewolves takes on a somewhat different sentiment. And it is sentimental, not a reasoned difference. When the Eucharist is performed it is not thought of as a horrific monster movie act, though it is eating the body and drinking the blood of a man. The transubstantiation is deemed a miracle of actually turning a wafer of bread and sip of wine into the flesh and blood of Jesus. A great deal of medieval ink was expended describing just how it was a miracle that bread and water should magically change. It was never discussed as cannibalism, or lycanthropic, at least in orthodox circles. In the Grail Romances it was explicitly mentioned. The Great mystery of the Grail, the question that is supposed to be asked by Percival when seeing the Grail “who is served with it” is never answered, but the answer is “the werewolf or the cannibal man”: Who is served with a cup of blood and the flesh of a man? (This is because the grail is variously described as many things but sometimes a platter that held human flesh, or a cup of human blood.) Likewise in the Grail myths the hero Percival (or a similar name) is described as a “welsc” which is sometimes taken to mean Welshman, but simply means “stranger” or “foreigner” or “alien” (as was mentioned in the previous werewolf post, another term for werewolf is stranger). Welsc, is an Anglo–Saxon word meaning “strangers”, and was the term used to described the Brythonic Gaelic speakers already occupying southern England. The invaders referred to the established occupants as strangers, or aliens. Back to Percival, he wears animal skins (that is he is clothed like a wolf, or an animal), and he meets cannibals, such as King Gargaran of the Albanians.<br />
The tradition and history of this werewolf lore is very old and exists today in Catholic ritual and beliefs, and in some derivative Judaic concepts, though the older ideas have largely been retermed and offered as metaphor. Some Wiccan and New Age ideas have taken up the idea, but they are not at all related and have much more to do with fictional ideas and accounts from novels in the late 20th century. <br />
Presently, I would like to consider some ideas, and consider some questions, as well as point out some relationships and strange trajectories connected with the werewolves. These may unveil some surprising ideas, I think especially around Jesus.<br />
First, let’s consider some things. If what I am saying is correct, then Judaism and Christianity have a central set of ideas regarding the laws, stories, and lineage of werewolves. That mentioned, the Greeks, Romans, Scandinavians, Egyptians, Celts, and many other peoples did have werewolf/stranger, as a central premise. Though sometimes wolves, or dogs were replaced by other animals, but this will be explained shortly.<br />
I would like to consider Judaism and Christianity here, and the common points of importance between them. I have mentioned previously that Hebrew, or “Abiru” or “Apiru” means “strangers” or people from the other side- that is the foreigners. In Egypt they seem to have been assimilated to some extent and considered the lowest class. The term “apiru” had the meaning of “low class” or a low caste. The idea of the strangers and outcasts was connected to these tribes from a very earlier period. They are first described as invaders arriving with the Hurrians (Indo-European invaders), and causing the usual havoc and disorder of invaders arriving from the Caucasus. This history has little to do with Bible accounts, but I note it to point out in some sense of the idea of the Hebrews as foreigners, and strangers of a special sort is already in place.<br />
The idea of the stranger was present, as was the idea of Wildman, in Sumer, and the idea of the Wild man as enemy was in place in Egypt when the Hebrews arrived. His position and importance changes and varies, but he is easily recognizable. As Set in Egypt he is known as hairy, and the foe of Osiris or Horus and identified with the constellation Hyades which are the horns of Taurus. As Taurus he perennially fights Osiris, or Horus as the constellation Orion. In Sumero-Babylonian stories and throughout the ancient near east he was a hairy hero, sometimes called “Lahmu heroes” which means both muddy and hairy, or red and hairy. The name Bethlehem- House of Lahem- is derived from this word. Likewise the story of David and Goliath contains this “lahm” character. In II Samuel and First Chronicles David (also called Elhannon), notably from Bethlehem, kills Goliath, or Goliath by another name, Lahmi. (The name Goliath is interesting but maybe for another discussion.) The figure appears in earlier stories like Jacob and Esau, where Esau called “Seir” hairy, and “edom” red, is easily discernable as a lahmu hero. The most famous Lahmu hero is probably connected with the story of Gilgamesh, the Hero, Enkidu. In this story it is important to consider that Enkidu is enemy of the Bull of Heaven (The constellation Taurus, therefore he is Orion).<br />
Enkidu is interesting for other reasons. He is made of clay, he is a hairy animal man, and he seems to be intimately connected with the heavens. He is referred to as an axe and a meteor from heaven. In Egypt stones from heaven made of meteorite iron were thought to be the bones or semen of the gods or sometimes called “benben” and were thought to be the eggs or bodies of the Pheonix. This will be important in a moment.<br />
To consider the origins of man according to Judaism and Christianity, we have to consider Adam, who seems, at first glance, werewolf free. There are some clues though that point to werewolves and murder. We must first consider some things, and these things would be other Adams. In Egypt Adam was Atem, or Temu. Tem comes from the same root as the word “adam” and both mean mankind (adam also has the sense of earth, as does Latin homo and humo which may show the idea of man and earth are closely linked in several places- the English word man also a god, Mannus, who emerged from the earth). Atemu is a god created from clay on a potter’s wheel, in some accounts, and is often associated with a serpent. Atem is said to reside atop the Benben stone, and rises to heaven on the Benben stone. As may be imagined Atem is connected with the creation of mankind, but he does so in the capacity of a god, as well as engendering men, he also creates the other gods. <br />
In the Sumero-Babylonian accounts the term “tem” appears as Temu and Etemmu. It is much closer to our subject of werewolves, so may be more familiar in form. It is decided that man must be created to ease the burdens of the Gods. So the Gods set about a magic charm to create the first men. To do this they must kill. They decide to kill a god named “Geshtu-E”. The assembly of Gods kill Geshtu-E and his blood is mixed with clay, from which man is them made. The redness of the clay is often mentioned in connection with Adam. In Islam, Adam is not made of clay but a clot of blood. The connection between blood and the redness of the clay was also mentioned as a pun with Adam’s name and the word “edom”-red. This is not a very strong connection, but it gets a little help when it is considered Geshtu-E was also called Etemmu, or even more close, it is said “an etemmu came into existence from the God’s flesh.” Etemmu is a variant of the words Atem and Adam. Along with the Etemmu, or ghost, a drum beat is mentioned which, though extremely important, can’t be covered here. Along with Etemmu, to emphasize the word, a pun is used referring to Geshtu- E as Temu. For those who read the post on “the muse” may recall mention of Moses and Meshkenti, as womb goddesses or Goddesses of birth, likewise the account of Geshtu-E also includes womb Goddesses and importantly a “room of fate”. This room of fate, to make a long story short, is usually connected with Ursa Major, and is the place of origin for the “breath of life” from India to Egypt and among the Greeks, Romans, and Scandinavians as well as the Hebrews (the idea of the northern stars or Ursa Major as the origin of the “breath of life” and a thunderous drumming have been traced around the world.) *Note: Geshtu-E is also read Ilawela.<br />
So with these accounts we can consider Adam, and consider whether he is connected to werewolves and if he is, how so. The commonality of the names Adam, Atem, Tem, Temu, Etemmu, should be held a side for just a moment. They are interesting and suggestive, but direct connections seem a bit tough to make even with the elements I mention above with Lahmu heroes, and the various “tems” relationship with creation. The Biblical Adam, at first glance, seems a different matter. For our werewolves we have had some specific needs, like werewolves, cannibals, and estrangement-not to mention animal qualities, hairiness or the like. The Biblical Adam seems to be alone, so unable to murder, and when he does have company, he doesn’t kill her. Likewise Eve is not described as bestial, and she performs no killings, as there is only Adam, and one other character of note: the serpent.<br />
As I mentioned above Atem was connected with a serpent, his temple was called the “serpent house”. If we accept Atem and Adam, as even distantly, related stories how did it come to pass that in the Egyptian Adam is the serpent and in Hebrew he is the enemy of the serpent. The serpent is a tricky problem. Where does it come from? Why is it there? Then by extension we have to ask-what is the original sin?<br />
Where does it come from is actually fairly easy to answer. As I mentioned above our werewolves are connected with stars. Certain constellations were known as the werewolf, and identified in the stories as the earthly werewolves. Often the werewolf was assigned the role of enemy of the Gods, as he was in Egypt as Set, in the constellation Hyades (Taurus), or with Apep -again the Hyades. As Apep the constellation Hyades was a serpent or dragon of sorts. This isn’t unusual. Among the Norse the constellation Hyades was “Hati’ the wolf, or Fenris the wolf. It was also the midgard serpent, Jordmungund. Still further it was a bull, or a bullshead. Several Norse myths are devoted to describing the scene the constellation represents. This may seem a bit far removed from Egypt and Biblical stories. It isn’t. Though following by a few thousand years the Norse maintained icons and images with direct relationships to the icons and images of the Egyptians and Mesopotamians. In one example, a recurring theme (also found among the Greeks) is a nude, but belted, figure fighting a monster. This image is always Orion. In the rune poems the Rune “Tyr” is known as a constellation shaped as an arrow, which is Orion’s belt. In the stories Tyr, or Orion, loses his hand to Fenris wolf. There are pictures of the nude belted Orion fighting a werewolf, who conspicuously holds a spear descending from his wolf’s head into the foot of Orion. In Egypt, on one of the versions of the Benben stone was carved a depiction of Orion, nude but belted, offering up his hand to the Hyades (that is to Fenris). These depictions of Orion of are fairly consistent, and were the basis of the formulaic pose depicting Gods or the Pharaoh known as “Osiris smiting his enemies”. It may be interesting to note that our sense of composition is the heir, in large part, to constellational composition. That noted the enemy of Orion, isn’t quite so stable. He appears in seals, wall paintings, amulets, and other designs as a serpent with several heads, a dragon, a boat with a dragon head that attacks Orion, a serpent shaped boat, a serpent shaped as a staff, an ass, a minotaur, a wolf, a man, a hairy man, , etc. the only sure and consistent thing to identify the image as the enemy of Orion, that is the Hyades, is Orion itself, and the direction of the enemy- always facing left to fight Orion. A few general traits are such things as heads at weird angles, or awkward poses. This is to maintain likeness to the constellation which isn’t precisely placed with Orion to make a perfect scene. The Norse shield dye from Ollund made in the 6th century a.d which depict the two constellation are based closely on the angles of the constellation, as are some seals from Neo-Assyrian sites dating to the 8th century bc., but the Greeks were known to take some liberties with the compositions. They did not completely disregard the stellar compositions but did create more “naturalistic” poses. Still within these poses, sometimes intentionally made with dark stone or wood, they would place white stones at the appropriate points in the composition to match the stars upon with the constellation was based. (One such mentioned by Pausanius is Athene of the Bridle.)<br />
So we might consider that perhaps the serpent appears as the role of the enemy in a stellar play that was well known and very wide spread. And this serpent was sometimes not a serpent but instead a wolf, or werewolf, and was ritually portrayed by a person or persons. In this scenario, we might assume the werewolf is ritually given the history and traits of the enemy as seen in the narrative of the stars. But again we would be guessing at a thing. It doesn’t say anywhere that Adam is a constellation or represented by a constellation, and it doesn’t suggest that the serpent is either. It is true the god Atem, and Geshtu_E can be connected to stars, and the connections are fairly clear. Likewise it can be connected in several places that werewolves are related to constellations, and calendars with certain constellations as their emphasis. But the story of Adam doesn’t seem to mention any such things. Does it? It does.<br />
In Genesis 1:27 it says: “So God created Adam (or man) in his image (shelem), in the image of God he created them; male and female he created (shelem) them.”<br />
This word “Shelem” is an interesting word. In Hebrew it is usually translated as “likeness”, “carved image” or “image”. But this isn’t exactly correct. The name “Solomon” is also “shelem”. The seal of Solomon, the five pointed star, is emblematic of Solomon because it refers to the morning star. Before Solomon was a supposedly historical king he was a mythical divine figure with a brother named “Shakar”. Shakar and Shalim (Solomon) were the morning and evening star- that is the five pointed star (Venus the morning and evening star, creates the form of the five pointed star every eight years.) The word “shelem” or “shalim” are forms of the Akkadian word “shalmu”- meaning likeness, statue, constellation. They did not mean these things apart. A likeness was a constellation. A Shelem was not a simple likeness but a specific type of likeness, like a statue made to look like a constellation. The name Solomon, is not actually a name it is a title, and was attached to names, or positions. Like a “regnal” title. A name acquired at the ascension to kingship. The Bible notes Solomon is given his name Jedidiah, by the prophet Nathan.<br />
Solomon is surrounded by stars, his mother is BathSheba (daughter of the star), and he has an adventure with the Queen of Sheba (Sheba, shb, means star or constellation) which was the subject of a many legends, not to mention the “shulemite woman” in the Song of Songs (Shulemite means “one of the people of the stars”) and his brother Absalom (likeness of the father, or in likeness of the constellation of the father). The legends of Solomon are filled with astrological and stellar references. Each demon who Solomon controls through the use of his seal gives descriptions of their constellations and powers.<br />
I mention this to show that Adam is a sculpture created in the likeness of God’s constellation, not simply created in God’s likeness. The understanding of “shelem” and its wide meaning were still in use when Kabalistic books such as the book Bahir (first published in the 12th century AD) which continues to juggle the word shelem and incorporate the popular meaning of “peaceful” with the wider definition. When Adam’s creation is mentioned it refers to stars, to translate shelem as “image” or “likeness” is to distort the meaning to fit some traditional misconceptions. The tradition goes beyond Adam. One tradition describes Cain as colored as the stars, another reports that when Adam’s son Cain was born, “Who shall tell my lord Adam? I implore you, ye luminaries of heaven, what time ye return to the east, bear a message to my lord Adam.’- that is the sign of Cain is a constellation. Reading these ideas of the “likeness”, it also becomes clear “shelem” is not only how a thing appears. It refers to behavior. A Shelem must enact the thing it is like. For example, one legend states Adam creates Seth in his image, unlike Cain, who behaved badly. Seth behaves in accordance with the behavior of Adam. A likeness also includes a sequence. Meaning the shelem is based on a moving thing. It is not static. For Solomon to be like the morning star he has to enact certain things as the “star” is actually a calendar.<br />
Armed with the information that Adam is a constellation (shelem in summary), we can now safely ask- which constellation is Adam? The answer is given fairly clearly by the Bible. Gen 3:15 “...he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” The constellational battle between Orion and the Hyades has one repeated event: a wounded heel and a struck head. Robert Graves describes at length the various heel Gods in the ancient world in his book the White Goddess, but a couple of the important ones he missed would be Ra in a story regarding a betrayal by Isis, wherein Ra is bitten on the foot by a “serpent shaped as a dart”, and again the Ollund shield dye with Orion wounded in the foot by a spear from a werewolf whose head is awkwardly tilted in the shape of the Hyades. Mesopotamian versions have a many headed dragon (one head per star in Eridanus) whose lowest head attacks the foot of the Orion. The heel wounding may seem odd, but it isn’t if you look at the stars. A line of stars project from the “lower jaw” of the Hyades to the foot of Orion. This line with open jaws atop is the origin of the “serpent staff” in its various guises-this includes Moses Serpent staff, as well as the Nehushtan. The “staff” portion is known as the constellation “Eridanus”, the celestial river. When the Bible reports that Moses cannot ever cross the Jordan, it is speaking very clearly, especially if it is understood Moses is Orion, which sits beside Eridanus (Jordan in Hebrew). The Orion constellation will not cross the Jordan constellation. The list and examples of the icons and stories regarding wounds to the head and heel involved with the constellations is very long and spans several thousand years, among very different cultures. In the Bible there are several examples, the birth of Jacob and Esau, Jacob wrestling the angel (as well as the ladder-Eridanus was called the “ladder” in Egypt), Baalam and his ass, and this proceeds into the New Testament in ways that will be addressed shortly.<br />
This is all interesting, but the werewolf connection is a bit unclear. What I seem to have mentioned is a pictoral battle between constellations and the understanding of this battle by various peoples in the past. Thus far I have noted some ideas present in early Judaic thought that give biblical characters some strange coloring, and imply some unusual beliefs. But I haven’t clarified how Adam is related to werewolves. I did mention, previously that werewolves were very prominent in the Bible, and to be Jew, a Yd, was to a be a werewolf, likewise here I will put forward, to be a Christian, regardless of whatever rationale one follows, is also to be a werewolf (The Eucharist is one of several examples,, which I will bring up shortly). But it would seem reasonable that to assert this I must connect the first man with this tradition, if I am to make my case at all. I say this because, Adam is the cause of both Judaism and Christianity. In the first case because Adam sets the precedent and situation in which law can exist (Jewish law, or the laws that emerge out of werewolf ideas), and in the second case because Jesus was fully in line with werewolfism and deemed the second Adam. There is much discussion about Seth, Adam’s son, as one of Jesus’ ancestors, and through Seth having Adam’s Likeness. With Jesus, according to Christians, the werewolfism comes full circle (though I doubt this would be offered in these terms.) Adam is said to be crucified at the place of Adam’s burial. He refers to himself as the “Son of Man”, which in Hebrew would be rendered, the son of Adam (this connection was not lost on the Sethian Ophites, who venerated Seth as a precursor to Jesus and refer to Jesus as the Great Seth).<br />
But we are left with a bit of a conundrum. The werewolf has to do with sacrifice, ritual killing, scapegoats, and fairly dark happenings. There seem to be some hints in stories like that of Geshtu-E that something was killed in order to create Adam, but the story of Egyptian Atem doesn’t seem to support this. His creations involve masturbation and ideas of sex, not murder. A read through Genesis doesn’t give over any descriptions of Adam killing anything to earn his rejection from paradise. But here we seem to stumble upon a strange marker. Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden. One of the characteristics of the werewolf is to be an outcast, a stranger, and this situation is visited on Adam and Eve. What is more is the werewolf becomes a werewolf through eating. In Greece, and Rome, and many other places (as mentioned previously in the first werewolf post), what is eaten is a shepherd boy. An act of murder and cannibalism takes place leaving the head hands and feet as evidence or left overs. As I noted previously the heads, hands and feet are conspicuous elements, and recur not only in myth, but the bible mentions these “left overs” several times including the destruction of the statue of Dagon, and the death of Jezebel. Likewise I previously mentioned the High Priest of the Jews had to ritually place a drop of blood from a sacrificial animal on his head (ear), hands (thumb) and feet (toe). These left overs were not simply unedible parts, they are the points in a constellation- Orion. Owing to the description Adam and Eve are cast out for eating something forbidden it might be wise to look for a death- a murder, and the traces of that murder. We have some reason to suspect that Adam is a werewolf.<br />
We must first look at what is eaten. One of the “mysteries of the Bible” regards the Tree of the Fruit of Knowledge. Traditionally in Western Europe it is considered to be the apple. This is an add on, mystical, application. This fruit was chosen because when sliced in half the apple reveals a five pointed star which was mystically connected with Mary and the secret “rose of heaven”- the patterns of Venus. Much of this is influenced from the Greeks, and the fruit is not mentioned in early legend. It may have some relationship to some Latin word games (Latin apple- malum, and evil-malus) or relationships to Mary, derived from Venus. Apple trees are almost never mentioned biblically, and they are not mentioned as the tree of Knowledge, nor do they seem to have any magical or ritual properties. Other fruits appear more frequently in connection to the forbidden fruit, and can be supported by internal Biblical evidence.<br />
Without hashing through the suspects, I will bring out the two important fruits: the grape, and the fig. Both are given credit as the fruit of the forbidden tree, but only one holds up in relation to the situation in question, though the other plays a supporting role. First we have to toy with a few ideas. 1. The “fruit of the tree” is not a fruit, as such 2. More went on in the story of the Fall of Man than is mentioned in the Bible 3. That there is a reason the Nazarites, deliberately werewolves, cannot touch grapes once their vow is undertaken.<br />
We have to depart from the Bible, and cover some related mythic figures to flesh this out. YHWH, is not an uncommon name for a God, though it is held to be the name of the True and Jealous God of the Hebrews. Among the Canaanites the name was Yah, and this version was also used centuries later among some Gnostics. Yah was another name of the God Baal. In Rome the God Jupiter (Diu Pater- father God, or if you want to trace it further “resplendent”- the meaning of the word Deus, or theos or Deva) was also called Jove which is pronounced Yohweh in Latin. It was also recognized that the vowels taken and placed together created variations of the word YHWH, iouea, Euoia, etc. In Egypt the Gods made prayers to the Gods by singing their names as seven vowels in succession (according to Demetrius of Alexandria.) Some have suggested this is why Hebrew has no vowels, as using the vowels one may accidentally spell the holy unspeakable name of God. I mention this because we are going to discuss another YHWH, Euoia- Dionysios. <br />
Plutarch, in Questionnes Conviviales, discusses the many similarities between the rites of the Jews and the worship of Dionysos. Some of these are misconceptions, others are fairly reasonable observations of similarity. One of the points he mentions and is worth noting, is the Jews, like the Greeks had some ideas regarding an adversarial stance between wine and beer or mead.<br />
Wine is an interesting subject because it is very closely tied to sacrifice, werewolves, magic and the defining characteristic of a God. In regard to Dionysos some ideas have to be understood. As maybe expected with the subject of werewolves, life death and murder play a part, as does cannibalism. First let’s consider wine- the blood of the grape. Definitions and categories as we think of them today were not quite so precise 2000 years ago, not to mention further back in time. For example the word for “crow” in Greek could be applied to several types of black birds. At a very early point in history it appears any and all animals with horns or tusks were simply called “horn” and lumped together (whether bulls, goats, boars or elephants) by the single term. This didn’t mean they were considered to be one and the same, it meant they all shared a quality, and this is how things were placed into categories. Grape juice, a reddish fluid that comes from the living grape as it is “killed” was considered to have a relationship to blood and the blood of animals. This is clearly mentioned, and not a poetic metaphor. Grape juice and wine are the “blood of the grape”, and this term was current among several ancient cultures. In Greece the story was attached to the wine hero “Ikarios” who is invents wine, and is murdered by shepherds who, upon being drunk for the first time, assume they have been poisoned exact drunken revenge on Ikarios. Ikarios blood is said to color the wine forever after. It is important to mention, as I will show shortly, that Dionysos was called at times around the precincts of the Delphic oracle. <br />
It must be remember that in the Bible there is an interdiction against eating blood because “the blood is the life”. But blood was not the only thing that defined something as living. Breath, or the “breath of life” was the other component. The word spirit and animus (as in animate) both mean breath. The reason alcoholic beverages are called “spirits” is a related to some Greek, and Judaic ideas regarding the magical process of making wine. Grape juice was put in containers called “kerykos”. These were sacks made from the skins of animals- bulls or rams. When the dead skin was filled with the blood of the “murdered” grape, it was left out to stand under the rising summer stars “Sirius”- the Dog star and the constellation Orion (both Hesiod and Pliny mention this recipe). During this time of year, when the heat is intense, the skins filled with air, they breathed. The wine was transformed from juice into a drink that made you crazy. We know this as fermentation, but the ideas was a bit more elaborately understood by our ancestors. This “breath of life”, coming from the dead was very important. In Mesopotamia the head God was Enlil, God of the Breath of Life and the “ether”. It was thought (from India to Scandinavia and beyond) that the “breath of life” was a special type of wind that originated by a spinning motion around the pole star called “the mill” (Hamlet’s or Frodi’s mill in Scandinavia, the Shambha mill in India, and many mills or spinning posts in between). This mill was also called the potter’s wheel. In Sanskrit is is the source of “Khert” or “Kharma” to do or make in the sense of making pottery. This is often misunderstood. Kharma in its earliest form (among the Jains) is a type of colored dust or earth, it is not the “wheel of fortune” and the idea of Kharma coming back around is also the wheel of fortune or ideas of Justice. The Wheel of Kharma refers to a specific area in the heavens “the wheel”, “the mill”, “the mill wheel”, “The potter’s wheel”. It was thought the act of creation was a result of the spinning of this wheel. In Norse and English, a related word ‘Weird” or “Urd” (from a root krt) means to make or spin out. Even in modern colloquialisms we stills say “it turns out…” referring to the idea “it came to pass” or “It came to be”. In the Bible the references to this turning or the mill go under such terms as ‘Golgotha”, “gilead”, and “Goliath”, which refers to a mill stone or a circular ring of stone, or a round stone.<br />
Among the Greeks the idea of Kharma and the potter’s wheel is fairly directly related to the word “keramos”, ceramic. But it is also present with Dionysos and wine lore. In Greece the Gods of the breath of life are the Kouretes (from the root krt or kur), but there is also a clearer connection to Dionysos and “the Kharma” spinning. In Attica there was a place named “Kerameikos” named after the son of Dionysos and Ariadne- Keramos. Dionysos and Ariadne derive their names from the old Minoan religion on Crete. Inscriptions found in Crete describe offerings to “Du on wo so” (Dionysos) and “ar ah ad ne” (Ariadne) . The Minoan civilizations were not Greeks but were related culturally and linguistically to the Western Semitic peoples like the Canaanite Phoenicians, and Hebrews. They spoke a Semitic language. In the Semitic languages the word “Keram” seems to have a relationship to both the Indo-European words “Kharma” and “Keramos”. Keram, or Kerem means vineyard in, for example, Hebrew.<br />
This description of the word “keram” or kharma, or kerem, or Keramos, is mentioned here to point out several things. The idea of breath, and the magical recipe for making wine involve murder. A biblical another interdiction tells the Jews they cannot eat anything that has died naturally. They can’t eat things that are not killed prematurely. This may seem fairly sensible as eating already dead things can be bad for your health, but as the Jews and everyone else was unaware of the germ theory of disease, and recipes for making honey involved using corpses as homes for bee hives, it doesn’t seem that the reason for avoiding dead food was a health issue as we would think of it. It was instead because of the idea of wine. If you kill something prematurely it can still be brought back to life. They kill the grape, they kill a bull, put the two things together as a wineskin and it breathes again and creates a magical- living- thing. It is in a body (the skin) it has blood, and it “possesses” whoever drinks it. This formula was believed to have some connection to anything the Jews ate. The Jews were forbidden to eat the permanently dead. <br />
Also Kharma (as colored dust), or ceramics bears an interesting treatment in creation myths, and the making of wine, also has an interesting connection the creation myths. Stomping or treading on wine is not a good way to make wine. It doesn’t seem the productive way either. They had wine presses or sacks in which grapes were pressed and strained. Trodding on grapes is a ritual act. It has some extension. In the Dionysion festival of Choes (wine pitchers) at one point in the event boys would try to jump on inflated goat skins. That is they would attempt to stomp, not on the grape, but the breathing skin that holds the grape juice. The important part is trodding or stamping on something connected with the recipe of wine making. In the Creation myths from Mesopotamia the God is murdered and his blood is mixed with clay (as with Ikarios who’s blood is mixed with grape juice). Then the clay is trod upon (the explanation given here is often they were making man like making bricks). But the Mesopotamians made bricks using a wooden frame from clay found along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Even when mixing the clay with straw this stomping wouldn’t apply. The Mesopotamians didn’t make figures (as is described in the myth) using the method for making bricks. They didn’t mix the clay with straw for terra cotta figures. The process described has nothing to do with bricks anymore than it does with making wine. These are descriptions of a ritual action- and this action is standing atop or treading on something. It has to be understood rituals involved with religion are something like re-enactments. When the boys jump on wine skins, or grapes are trodden, or clay is trodden it refers to a previous story. And as the story is told with Geshtu_E, or Ikarios, someone is murdered first.<br />
More soon….maybe<br />
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Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-61981139805311405352015-05-19T19:23:00.001-07:002015-05-19T20:40:31.410-07:00Why I HATE "fake it till you make it"<div class="MsoNormal">
I recently watched Amy Cuddy’s Ted talk on body
language. I thought it was very
interesting. Interesting in the topic,
which as an artist is very familiar to me, and interested in what I thought
were some real problems. I specifically
considered the idea of “fake it till you make it” and how that is a terrible
idea. Amy Cuddy is not alone in
mentioning this rhyme, and it has other variants. One that comes to mind is the Richard Branson
quote: <span style="background: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">“If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity
but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!”<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span> <o:p></o:p></div>
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I can’t stress how much I hate this set of ideas. And I mean <i>hate</i>. Let me explain why. I tend to have problems with things that are
corrosive, destructive and that do violence to reason. If we rephrase “fake it till you make it” as “deceive
till you achieve”, I think we have a bit more, but less savory, clarity. You can’t fake a thing until it is made. Faking, by definition, does not produce the
results of authenticity. You can’t fake baking a cake and from this fakery
produce a cake. That is called
magic. Fakery involves some strategies
and tactics, it is not without effort, but those efforts are devoted to
deception, either of oneself or others.
I am a bit suspicious about self-deception, if not confabulation, but
that is another story.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In whatever situation one would like to examine faking is
unproductive and escalates into destruction.
I have frequently seen this in business and with “amazing opportunities”. It doesn’t turn out well. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Faking involves evaluation.
There is a wanted thing, and someone providing that thing needs to be
tricked into giving it over with the least stress, effort and resistance. Flattery, ingratiation and up beat charm
tend to be effective tools to this end, as does an overt, patient,
subservience. As with “the customer is
always right”, this appeasement has terrible consequences. Both parties are diminished in the exchange. Let’s take business fakery with
employment. It is not uncommon for charming
fakers to be hired into jobs far beyond their skills and ability. The
consequences are easy to recognize.
Aside from the added labors and complications as other employees
compensate for the incompetence of the faker, an escalation in fakery on the
part of the faker has to occur in order to maintain the farce. Managers and leaders, charmed by and ensnared
in the fakery, social or professional, are increasingly obliged to protect
their own reputations and credibility, and safe guard what has come to be a
parasite. Ill will due to increased work
in the form of clean up, and repair due to inexpert damage, creates real
hostilities, real pressures on all parties.
Politics, delusion, paranoia, deception, and debilitating distraction
blossom. Eventually, the pressures rise
until….the faker is promoted to a higher position. This isn’t the Peter Principle, by the
way. Just to be clear the Peter Principle
has to do with aptitude eventually failing at a certain level of
promotion. The faking scenario is something else. It is more like hiding disgraces by promoting
and paying out of harm’s way, or visibility.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now this may sound kind of awesome to the opportunist, but it
is costly all the way around. There are
businesses and industries with a majority of fakery. They produce fakery and superstition as their
main product. Standards fail and
effigies are propped in their place.
Value drops, knowledge is lost and sharing of information decreases. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Fake it vs Practice<o:p></o:p></div>
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I don’t want it to seem like I am dismissing or tearing down
Amy Cuddy’s Ted talk. It was interesting
and enjoyable in many ways, though there are many problems with it, in my
opinion. I also don’t think she was
thinking of “fake it till you make it” in the nefarious terms I am. There was one portion of her talk (I’ll link
below) that seemed much more like encouraging a student with low self-esteem. She told this student to fake bravery (I’m
paraphrasing) and succeed. “Fake it till
you become it”. This seems like the fake it theme got carried away. “Be brave” is the
simple idea. Minus the theme, that is
fine advice. But the bravery was not to
cover a scam. The student had practiced
and studied, but was lacking confidence.
She wasn’t faking anything, she was adjusting her demeanor to be
appropriate to the situation. This is a
real thing. People often surprise
themselves with their capabilities even when those capabilities are long
studied, and honed. This is different
than awareness you have to use trickery to deceive others into thinking
something untrue about your capabilities.
You can’t fix it and learn after the fact. That is a favorite movie theme, the magical,
undeveloped capabilities appear like a super power to the chosen one and they
had to expend no efforts to achieve it.
Doesn’t work as well in real life (fortunately because that theme is
stupid).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The other term that “fake it” seems to have replaced in
popularity, and along the same subject is “Practice makes perfect.” What happened? Let’s look at the opposing directions these
ideas address. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Fake it involves tricking away the energies, goods or
attentions of others. It is camouflage
and has both parasitic and predatory aspects.
But these aspects are dependent on the prey, or host. It needs a gullible audience. Faking derives from the situation and is a
false front. It is directed at a preset,
established, set of standards and opportunities, and works to leech away this
established limit. Fakery promotes
contamination and contagion. You may be
familiar with the phrase “You are making everybody else look bad.” This is fakery made common agreement.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Practice makes perfect involves establishing and construction
of both mental and physical mechanisms to achieve an end. Practice involves honing, ordering, shaping,
effective decision making, muscle building, efficient energy use, expertise,
precise pattern recognition etc. In
other words, it does not appeal to a predatory or parasitic set of constraints,
but instead aims at criteria and observable effects to high achievement. That is, it actually produces demonstrable
results, with high standards.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So why has “practice makes perfect” been displaced by “fake
it till you make it?” Smiles. Positivity.
These are a problem. What? Did I write that? Yes I did.
A positive person makes you feel better!
Putting a smile on can change your mood!
Well, that has some real boundaries.
First, what are we considering? Positivity
has become a cult, even a gang. Positively
faking someone into a bad situation may make them feel better about the whole
thing but the same bad outcomes are imminent.
Feeling and outcomes, should be disentangled. An annoyed, angry, person can be highly
effective and good at what they do. They
may be hard to work around. A positive person may be great fun, and terrible at
their jobs. Of the two the positive
person with terrible outcomes is preferred.
The proposed business endeavor is not the goal. Fakery becomes systemic. There was a social media meme going around
about this involving difficult, high performing, geniuses ruining business
cultures. This supposes a majority of
jolly happy less competent workers are better than surly high performers. What it actually indicates is a reversal of
the Peter Principle. A business has
become incompetent as some workers excel.
It wouldn’t be surprising if those workers became surly. A low standard majority bias is preferred,
even if the majority is fatal to the business. They are more positive working
together, though.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A focus on positivity (even if masking passive
aggressiveness, bigotry, or highly destructive actions) has become a point of
peer pressure. It is very popular, and
becomes increasingly magical and superstitious.
The drive to magically induce a “better self” free of “negative emotions”,
or making others feel bad, or evade offering offence at all costs, has led to a
great deal of emotional and intellectual maiming. The idea a smile or a postural change can
alter your world is highly superstitious.
It applies to very specific communities with shared methods of
communication and cultural fictions. It
is not universal. The tactic of faking
has greater and less success depending on audience, their receptivity to deceptive
postures and how aggressive the next faker may be. Let’s not forget fakery has competition too. In fact, it is rife. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We have a suite of emotions and interactions that do not
deserve to atrophy or suffer neglect as they are deemed negative. This includes failure, vulnerability, sadness
and anger. They are not less important
than feeling good. In the same sense I
think over inflation and exaggeration of emotions (happiness included) shouldn’t
be a goal. The encouragement to become Stepford
like is damaging and a disguise for some unpleasant vices. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Let’s consider smiles as a mode of changing your body
language or mood and how far it allows fakery.
A smile is not an endless flow of goodness and graciousness. There are good and bad smiles. Smiles involved with wickedness and smiles
with victimization.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So let’s be specific: activity of the pars lateralis portion
of the orbicularis oculi in conjunction with the “mouth smile” is the enjoyment
smile (the Duchenne marker). The other
smiles, well, all kinds of things are going on, good and ill. Does your Duchenne marker smile, or even a
super fakey smile, reduce stress and make you feel better? Maybe.
Is that the question? Can faking
an emotion (triggering your body to simulate other component parts of the
disguise) make you feel that emotion?
Some research suggests so. But
what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? You feeling good is not the same subject as
whether or not you are being effective, knowledgeable and honest. Much of learning, practice, and
accomplishment does not feel good.
Failures, in fact, hurt. Stresses
are uncomfortable. I hear heroine feels
good, though. Stresses prompt action,
change, and survival. You might not want
to suppress these but instead pay close attention.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Faking emotional output (smiles are not for you remember but
for the reading of those looking at you) and receiving interactive replies says
nothing about the good or bad outcomes of a situation. It isn’t saying your situation has improved. It
says you have found a clever way of dosing yourself, and like many drugs, have
addled your decision making. It also
says you don’t mind dosing others. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Let’s look at another aspect of the “faking until things are
made” gambit: everybody knows. It is a
saying, meaning the fakery has become or always was pretty popular. Everyone is doing it. As tactics to enhance laziness, entitlement, evasion
and trickery have been around for a long time, it can be guessed that there are
already many practitioners of faking until destruction. Faking needs rubes. If you are faking it til making who are your
rubes? Your victims? Would it seem unlikely that others are also
faking toward you, with smiles, gestures and postures? So if everybody is
faking it, and everybody is rubes where are the sincere, honest, and knowledgeable
people? They are out there-frustrated
with incredible endurance and compensating for the corrosion brought by inauthenticity. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Even when the faking is framed with a heavy emotional plea
(blackmail) it does not look to be a very good thing. It attempts a costly short cut at the deliberate
expense of others. Notice the saying isn’t
“Be sincere, earnest, diligent, smart, honest, and imaginative, until you make
it.” I think that may point out the
virtues lacking in the faking idea.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Back to Amy Cuddy’s talk.
Changing our body chemistry as connected to our bodily position,
postures and expressions are not as impressive or magic as it sounds. And it won’t bring success. Our body chemistry changes under all kinds of
pressures. We can’t all win, we can’t
all succeed, and these faking, posture battles happen all the time. I’ve read accounts of these success driven
gestures and expressions as they were enacted on pirate ships. People have been posturing, bullying and
bluffing each other forever. We aren’t
the only species that does this. It is
really common. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There are more things going on than how we experience our
feelings. People are far more complex
and varied under any given condition than a magical smiling, arm raising
gesture, can cure. Especially as no cure
is needed. Uniformity of expressions and
gestures of faked success is not a boon.
The drive to succeed for an audience, to be the best by false means, is
childish and attention seeking. It might
be good to consider what the best idea for a given circumstance is, or what
might make one’s life as reasonably enjoyable as possible. Winning all the time is not anything at all
as the contest being won is largely imaginary.
Competition and wrangling for success are not eternal states. There are other things going on as well, like
philanthropy, and teaching. There are
times to step aside, collaborate, encourage others, defer, and admit being over
matched, none of which are shameful or lesser.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Don’t fake it til you make it, please. Practice until you are perfect, be honest,
sincere and reliable, and for my part, I’ll do the same and help you in these
endeavors as I can.<o:p></o:p></div>
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https://www.ted.com/speakers/amy_cuddy<o:p></o:p></div>
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Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-70867693024341697282014-05-26T20:35:00.001-07:002014-05-26T20:35:16.539-07:00My Artist Bio<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Paul Mellender was an artist from Reno, Nevada. His biography was not written by him in third person, but rather by someone else. So it can probably trusted and nothing in it is contrived. That noted, he was a profound individual of unrivaled skill and handsomeness. His inventions helped end human suffering (for about an hour or so in one small area about the size of a living room) and fed the hungry (in that he once took a hungry friend to lunch...well, didn't exactly take them, they split the bill.)<br /><br />Regarding his art, Paul Mellender (again not me, notice I'm formally using my full name- signed, Someone Else) can be credited with, not only, the creation of his own fine works, but he also found ways to annoy and irritate other artists. Fondly, but with some clear bitterness, known as "Epistemological Crisis Mellender", he was rarely invited to parties.<br /><br />Wait, I think I got off track, let me get back to regarding the art. Yes. Yes. Very nice. Good stuff. Now that that is done let's get on with some interesting things instead.<br /><br />Paul Mellender had parents. One was tall and one was short, but it is unclear which was which. One was also a witch (probably his father). His mother once wrestled a 7 foot man to the ground when he tried to rob her. That is fact but sounds like fiction.<br /><br />This one time...wait, that doesn't sound like professional biographical writing. Hold on. These two times, Paul did stuff in public that earned him accolades and great praise, also some awards, and some thoughtful attention by very important people. Notice I just said "Paul" instead of "Paul Mellender". I figure you guys are friends now and I can drop the formalities. In fact, since friendship is established I feel like I can relax a bit, mind if I undo the top button of my pants? (Big lunch with a friend earlier...we split the check and I don't want to do the same to my pants.)<br /><br />Paul Mellender was killed while saving several children from a crazed, supernaturally large, bear named Ethan. He was able to save the Princess before Ethan, the Bear, rent him limb from limb. Following his death, Paul Mellender, or the "Paulinator" as he preferred to be called, wandered the lonely roads of America, humming the song, The Lonely Man, from the 80's Incredible Hulk TV show. Someone Else is listening to this song while he types Paul Mellender's biographer and he is nearly in tears.<br /><br />Today. Paul Mellender continues to be an artist of international renown. Called THE "Citizen of the World", he continues to create art and other magical doodads to the delight of millions. And why wouldn't he? Though dead (see the part about Ethan above, and since you are rereading please enjoy the funny part about my pants again) Paul "Paully Pockets" Mellender is planning to have an ice cream sandwich in about an hour. Make that 45 minutes, I type slow.<br /><br />Mr. Mellender's next adventures promise to be a boon and wonderment to all. Okay, I think I filled up the required space. PEACE!</span>Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-35485560318608503292014-05-25T14:55:00.001-07:002014-05-25T16:14:24.202-07:00What is Art?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">What is art?</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">At the tip of Southern Africa is an archaeological site
called Blombos Cave. The artifacts in Blombos cave have been dated to as
far back as 100,000 years ago. Inscribed stones, paint production and
other “manufacturing” have been uncovered at this site. I bring this up
first as a chronological placement. </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">We tend to regard art as an extension of our own
preferences, interests, messages, and the embodiment of our beautiful or bitter
souls. This tendency needs review. It bears a striking, vain,
resemblance to the geocentric cosmos, or arguments against evolution. Art
seems one of the last places of refuge for the dream of our own superiority and
special status. It has become the understood framework where our personal
tyrannies and importance can hold reign. But does this idea show any
relationship to fact? When it is insisted that art is the thing through
which we can express ourselves, are we stating anything with real
meaning? If art proceeds from us, how do we explain the vast majority of
the history of art that has come before we were here? Can we expect it to
be convincing or taken seriously, if we suggest that art has come this long way
just to be a vehicle through which, I, the artist, can reveal himself, and you
the audience can relate? That has an ominous and megalomaniacal
edge. Speaking for myself alone, I’m not that interesting.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">If we consider the 100,000 years since the pigment
manufacturing in Blombos cave, we have the entire span of our species of
human. Through Ice ages, deserts, devastating volcanic eruptions, near
extinction, war, death, and the rise of civilizations art has been
present. It shows no signs of having been a frivolity, or
amusement. Blombos isn’t the only site of that era showing pigment
use. There are other sites of comparable age, from homo sapien sapiens,
but they don’t seem to be tribes or groups related to each other. This is to
say, the pigment culture was already old. It would seem very likely, art
has been with us since the start of our animal. Art has been around, at
least, 10 times longer than Loch Ness. Some pigment evidence may be
traceable back to 400,000 years. This is well before our type of animal
emerged. 10,000, 100, 000 or 400,000 years the state of human affairs
have changed so many times and in so many ways, that if art has been a human
legacy, it doesn’t likely concern the messages and meanings I would care to
project today. Tactical success for that long a period would suggest art has
long been an effective method of survival for our kind of animal. Then and now,
art is one of the reasons we are alive. But that doesn’t really say what art
is. This is only noting that art is not our transitory, and even
unimportant, set of concerns. By placing art in an evolutionary framework
we take it largely out of our personal aggrandizement and have to consider it
in the larger framework of man the animal who competes with his peers and other
animals, jockeys for the ability to mate, and must adapt or die.
Art, to maintain as us for so long needs to address these concerns. Aside
from our personal sense of it, we must note, even if we find art pleasurable,
it isn’t here at our pleasure. Samuel Butler said “A hen is an egg’s way
to make another egg.” We may want to reposition our sense of priority in
like terms. Art isn’t about you, it is about this animal’s
survival. Art has been alive longer than you. But again, this
doesn’t say what art is.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">If we consider the evolutionary aspects, our subjective
experience and some objective facts, we may be able to trace an outline of art
that can help us begin to understand what art is. If we look back as far
as possible, to the first written descriptions, through the history of words,
to the rituals and artifacts that have survived, and how all these things correspond
with one another we can start to assemble a picture of how art was conceived by
our ancestors, and how it their notions have been given to us. Art and
ritual, were and in many ways still are, the same thing. A common root
origin between the words, art and rite is not a trivial connection. Art
and ritual, explain activities in another world, apart from this one. The
idea that emerges can be summarized in a term, used at the Mysteries of
Eleusis: The Extraordinary Experience. This may need some
explanation. Ideas of art referred to thresholds, doorways, entrances,
passages, to another world and time. The other world was art. It
was somewhere else. And not only was it somewhere else, but the
participants were someone else. Art also refers to states where people
were “moved”. This doesn’t mean emotionally excited. Moved in this
sense means moved, as in their identity was pushed aside. Possession
would be more akin to the idea. Schizophrenic’s accounts of their experiences
bear resemblances to accounts of art. One account has a ritual participant
stating, “when I left I felt a stranger to myself.” This is very
different than our statements on art “I don’t know if it is art, but I like
it.” Like and preference had little to do with it. Art was as well
known for terror as beauty. Though we do not generally find the idea
compatible, early accounts give art as a world, or set of worlds, with their
own rules and methods, concurrent with our own. Though we don’t use this
same rationale, it shouldn’t be considered we have escaped this. We act
within the confines of traditions built of art, and are largely unaware of how
entrenched and thoroughly we have incorporated these other worlds. We are
very familiar with the extraordinary experience, and it isn’t our
socio-political, economic, or personal messages. It is far older stuff.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">Our subjective experience, however, shouldn’t be confused
with the point and purpose of art. These extraordinary experiences aren’t
available to send us on our way in contemplation and fulfillment. Our
fulfillment is unimportant in terms of art. That may be surprising when
we take the usual descriptions of art as a personal, individual, stance.
Many of our modern ideas of art derive from the Protestant Reformation, the
16th century schism in Christianity. Ideas such as personal relationship with
art, idea versus form, where authority resides (artist, audience or
critic…basically who art the priests, in the Reformation, this was monks,
laity, or the pope), knowledge vs faith (in art this is craft vs emotion)
etc. Art practices and ideas during the Reformation had other
concerns. When the Reformation ideas were adopted into discussion and
ideas of art the Reformation was already 300 years past. It was a late,
anachronistic addition. What is more, whatever views one holds on
religion and religious philosophy, art is not religion. It is not as
freely open ended and omnipotent as might be assumed of a God, or beliefs with
the divine. Art has real, human, cognitive, historical, material
restrictions and boundaries.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">Let’s update and consider in light of shiny new discoveries
what may be happening with art. We are primates, but strange
primates. We are the inside out primates. What it means to be a
primate for us is large parts of our brains are devoted to social interaction
and identification. Likewise our brains devote a good deal of work to
build habitats. The two things are not separate. Our home and our
people are the basis of how are brains construct reality. We are not
solitary animals, our animal seeps out to our peers and place. There are
some things to consider. When our ancestors started cooking they opened a
door to a chain of events that led to a change in our sense of body and group,
allowing us to seep out and transform. With cooking we started
digesting on the outside. A great deal of our physical energy was devoted
to digesting food. Digestion is in many ways our body cooking food.
Performing this action outside our bodies freed that energy to be used
elsewhere. It was taken up by our brains. As our brains were
allowed greater resources of energy, they got bigger, which caused problems
with the act of birth. Our head size, holding our big brains, were
becoming dangerous to our mothers. This was solved by premature
birth. Humans are born premature in development compared to our cousin
primates. Chimps help deliver themselves when born. Humans, like
the way we deal with food, have to be cooked more outside. The community
takes over the energies needed for both mother and child. But this allows
still greater changes. Aside from new interactions between community
members, the brains themselves were able to extend and change development
outside the womb. Most of our primate cousins nearly complete brain
development while in the womb, for chimps this is 9 month gestation period,
like us. But comparable brain development among humans doesn’t achieve a
similar state of completion until we are 3 years old. Our brains develop far
more complexity in that time. Add to that that our brains go through a
process of rewiring in our teens and don’t settle until our 20s, and it can be
understood, that outside development, relying on the world and our group to
compensate and become part of our bodies allows for some interesting
extension. It does, however extend our dependency on our group, and
demand a change in group relationships and behavior. This doesn’t
concluded how our inside became out. We have also extended our bodies
tools. We have transformed and altered what it means for our brains to
have a body and limbs. The boundaries of our bodies are not set or
stable. We developed tools. But not just tools, weapons.
Without effective claws and teeth we made claws and teeth. Our big
brains, responding to the stresses of environmental need but also to the
availability of dispersed labor and position, developed methods for honing our
new weapons. We hardened spears in fire, and perfected shapes and methods
of production. At first these were stabbing instruments, but then the
theme of distance became attached. Weapons as a form of long distance
communication-projectiles. This description of long distance
communication and our extended bodies is important, but may lead off our topic
here. It should suffice to note that proximity is a base of our
cognition. Spatialization, and dealing with, or overcoming it, has a
surprisingly large part of our sensory input and mental processing.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">With these outside compensations we have also been able to
“hone” and transform not only our habitats but ourselves. It isn’t just a
sense of honing a tool. The stresses needed to pressure a change in tool
is not differentiated from honing and needs for the rest of the body. We
might be better off thinking of tools as interchangeable and extensible
limbs. You may want to think of how you inhabit the space of your car or
look of youtube videos of extended personal space (see Richard Wiseman’s dummy
hand experiment, Ramachandran’s Phantom limb treatments, and myriad other
“phantom” experiments.) As certainly as our weapons could be honed for
use, so could the rest of our bodies. Our transformative and extensible
bodies were not toolish. We could change ourselves, our form, in relation
to each other with tools. Whereas, it is a common practice among animals to
inflate, stand taller, splay out, to indicate position and strength, man
developed ways of adding to our person. Social weapons. </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">We could alter our environmental body. We could not
only make our dwelling toolish and meet needs we could make it other
places. We developed methods of turning our dwellings into other places,
changing and enhancing them as well. When I say dwellings, I don't mean hut, or
houses, I mean temporary stations. We seem to have been nomadic and
restless in our development. But we carried a "home" with
us. Some evidence suggests this may have been the stars and
constellations. Some cave paintings with illustrations primarily on
ceilings as opposed to eye level walls, as well as suggestions of stars, and
constellations give over clues to this extension of habitat to the stars.
Regardless, of how early this starry identification of the original or actual
home happened, it became the standard for man in the civilized era. It is
still predominant today.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">In sum, both physically and mentally we have adapted the
environments, persons and condition where we live as part of our bodies.
Our identities and realties are also built and supported by the outside
world. We use the external as mental support and order. </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">We have a very interesting set of tools to understand
reality. We have a surprising number of methods to discern visual
depth. Depth and distance, proximity and spatialization, and we have
developed emotional cues to note what is near as important and what is far as
less so. Our emotions should be considered as a support not a focus.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">We have several systems in our brain that discern patterns,
such as faces, and the variations within the frame of that pattern. We
innately know faces, and facial expressions. We communicate over distances and
these faces build other mental events. We also communicate by sound, and
prosity, the rhythm, stress, and tone in our voices. We sing to each
other, and these songs can build imagery. Possibly more so than words
themselves. The relationship between prosity and facial expression is
important. We have facial expressions that correlate with sounds and vice
versa. When we communicate with faces and speech we are doing so as a unified
function. They are one piece, and they indicate we communicate events by
description and “replay”. We don’t just live in the moment. We have
systems in place to describe other times and places. This may seem
unique, but I should point out, bees have similar abilities through dances.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">We have time, and narrative- the ability to understand
sequences of events in other places and times by description, not just
acquaintance. </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">We have the theory of mind, we have an understanding that
things that look like us, have a like entity looking back. We project
identities into things-even inanimate things. </span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">We have reality testing. Modules of our brains
confirm, based on the propagation of experiences, what is real. And by
real I don’t mean factual, or material reality, I mean a workable order or
habitat. A way of noting statistical consistency or regular
patterns.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">We also have error, inconsistency, misreads,
hallucination-an array of mental vulnerabilities. Our brains are
susceptible to a great deal of misunderstanding. Though very useful our
ability to extend to our neighbors and environments also includes some
surprises. If enough criteria are met, our brain will concoct patterns
out of nothing. Our reality isn’t a cold hard truth, our brains build
composite realities, covering blind spots, stitching incompatible information
together, mixing and matching to suit its own order. Our brains only
worry about matching the factual world in so far as it can keep us alive.
Our brain will produce the hyper real, as a useful order. Let me give an
example. Paint and light are not the same. This is surprising to
some. You can mix paint, which is made of particles of pigment suspended
in a medium. You can mix blue and yellow and get a green color. But
when you try to mix light this doesn’t happen. Light doesn’t mix like
pigments. Light is frequencies of vibration. That said, when we
paint we can make the paint seem like light. We can, in paint, make light
do impossible things. We can deliver a hyper-real experience. In other
words we can slip past enough of your brains reality detection, to deliver an
experience of what is unreal. Our reality includes the impossible.
At this point in history, be assured most of what you think or believe is not
factual, but is built of the hyper real. Stripped of this and placed in a
setting outside our special habitat, you likely wouldn’t survive. And I
don’t just mean, your life would end. I mean long before your life ended
your identity would cease. It isn’t just paint, by which the hyper real
is delivered, there are myriad methods, and ways to slip past the guards of
reality and provide the hyper real. The artist’s tool kit is for the most
part, methods of tricking and distorting reality detection. Realism and
art have gone hand in hand because if your brain reads a thing as real it gets
a pass. It goes unquestioned. Sometimes the resultant pass causes
stresses as what is real is adjusted and we emote. But much of art slips
past undetected. This is interesting. It means that we can have knowledge by
description of what isn’t. But this is still subjective in
emphasis. This describes how our brains function in such a way as to
accommodate the extraordinary experience. Let’s step back a few
paces. How is this useful? We can understand our brains do a thing
that assembles into our experience but I’m trying to make certain it is
remembered that art is an evolved aspect of the human animal. We may love
our fingers and toes, but they didn’t come about so we could love them.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">We can see how art has been used and is used. It is a
mixed bag of good and ill, instance by instance. We have used art to
transform ourselves, with masks and paint, to attract and to terrify. We
have used art to kill and comfort. Art has been used to enlighten and
disguise. And it has been used to reveal and hide. That’s how we’ve
used it. How has it used us? If we look at what has been made from
the hyper-real, not art pieces or artifacts exactly, we can see organization.
As I mentioned we are primates whose brains spend a lot of energy on
identification of tribe and habitat. Looking outside how much we may
enjoy it, art seems to be several things. It bonds groups under unified,
special, realities. These realities can be taken away as emblems,
rhythms, noises, even specified motions and actions, like procession or dances,
meaning even when away from the group, when proximity is broken, unified
identity can be maintained. Familial and familiar emotional ties are
entangled in these “realities”. Given enough comfort and stability,
we can manipulate environments to better accommodate the idiomatic realities of
our tribes or groups. We can build effigies of the hyper real, and live
in our common habitat. That habitat can extend generations. The
hyper-real can be cultivated. Our veneration and habits around veneration
build larger complexes, more honed hyper reality. We develop structures
by which we can more efficiently build more comfortable hyper reality. We
can incorporate more of the hyper real into our mundane in between time.
We can immerse in the unreal. We can extend our group size, and ideas can be
propagated outside usual group limits. Our primate brains, though largely
devoted to our group, has number limits. After a certain number we don’t
identify populations as our group. But with this mobile, mental,
extended, group connection, reproduction can occur in larger numbers.
When I say reproduction, I don’t mean people breeding across usual limits, I
mean methods of hyper reality-Art- breeds. This effective, even
organic, practice breeds. We build cities. When we trace their
roots, they emerge from the very small magical center of a hut in a settlement,
to small village temple around which the village builds, to larger temples that
transform villages into cities, and cathedrals into still larger cities.
When Cathedrals are succeeded by emerging civilized areas of veneration,
centers of business let’s say, or palaces, and with these the city
extends still further. When considered as organization, cities bear
a striking resemblance to both organic systems and computers. Information
transfer, storage and work modules all interact to operate a complex
system. Though we can be sacrificed individually, our large groups
and practices, our cultures, our methods of order and hyper reality
maintain. Ars longa, vida brevis. We may have to consider that our
unreal methods of living are contributing to a larger animal built from
us. It may be we, individually, are a contribution to a bigger concern, a
different animal. Likenesses to hives or organs made of cells might be
obvious, but I’d like to state it clearly. Looking at cells and how they
communicate and build larger organism and looking at how we transmit, cooperate,
unify and transform seems to share many parallels in method. It may just
describe how large numbers of things coexist in an environment and unify, but
that also describes how living things organize and become more complex and even
different, bodily, things. Civilization, culture, and other methods
around which we orbit in interest, themes that unify, seem to describe
something very similar to chemical signaling in cells, attracting and provoking
the actions of other cells. That we have a private opinion in these things
seems subordinate.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">Remove our practices of art from civilization and culture
and nothing remains of those things. You can take many other elements out
of a civilization, or a culture, and they can proceed, but you can’t remove
art. But then this begs the question, could we remove art at all, even if
it was desirable? Art doesn’t seem a voluntary part of the human
animal. It has been costly and dangerous when individually we haven’t had
the energy to spare. Jorge Luis Borges offered an anecdote that
several authors have mentioned with time and honing they seem to converge into
a single author. That is their styles and ideas seemed to
converge into a great single author. I’m not suggesting that. But I
am suggesting that point of notice indicates a uniformity of method. The
authors were noting a commonality of how efficient they were under a framework,
how alike, but it wasn’t by choice. Encouraged through the reward of our
experiences we are performing unnoticed actions to a noticeable but unclear
result. Sugar is not in itself sweet. Sweetness is the signal our
brain sends to say “Eat that! I run on that! Eat it.” A hen is a
way for an egg to make another egg.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">This conjectured definition suggests some ideas, few of them
new, strange though they may seem, but rarely applied to art. I am
imparting this definition fully aware it is both incomplete and in parts,
likely wrong. I do so in the fervent hope of refutation, and
correction. As an artist it is very disturbing to me to have only a dim
awareness of what it is I am doing. Looking back in history, and
deliberate, focused, progress, art has been a questionable contributor. A
real aspect of art is harmful. Equally a real aspect is beneficial. In either
case it bares the stamp of its lowly origin. As audiences you should be
equally concerned. Together what are we doing? In simplest terms a
definition of art allows us the comfort of knowing what we are doing, and if
possible allow us to aim for excellence regarding its finest parts. Ignorance
of art, fumbling in the dark, seems a much more dangerous proposition than
might be guessed at first. A definition may allow us the opportunity to
avoid areas wherein we would not like the consequences of trespass.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;">This isn’t just a question for artists, cultural gurus, or
sophisticates. Science is desperately needed to help assemble knowledge
of art, and has been superstitiously unwelcome for too long. A
multidisciplinary approach would be ideal in addressing the definition as it
would seem probable the answers to the question of art can shed light on what
it is to be human.</span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri Light', sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-21831892075219184762008-09-18T09:34:00.000-07:002008-09-18T09:56:29.529-07:00Art Critic's Confession“Art hath an enemy called ignorance”-Ben Johnson<br /><br /> If she weren’t my wife I would resent her. She sleeps easily. Wherever we find ourselves regardless of climate, altitude, or nation, she will sleep as soon as the lights go out. If she lays flat she will sleep. We laugh at this. I have seen her lose consciousness in mid-sentence. I call her “the chicken” as this bird is knownto fall into immediate sleep when the lights go out.<br /> I don’t bring this up to ridicule my wife, and as I mention I do not resent her somnia (if that can be counted a word). I enjoy watching her sleep, especially now as my sense of instability grows. Her sleep, her dreams, even those she can’t recall, put me at ease. She will wake momentarily and with a groggy voice, she will tell me she loves me, or mumble in a soft tone and touch my arm. She, at least, is at peace.<br /> Isn’t that terrible? It is common speech to resign ourselves to leasts. Let me state it differently (so I don’t disgust myself.) Shall I write I envy her quick peace, or clarify and say I do not begrudge her ease. I would very much like a share of that limitless expanse. I, as is clearly implied, do not sleep so easily. I am writing now in a hotel room. Unfamiliar places make me uncomfortable, restless. This room is no exception. It has that cramped feel of transitory living, and a smell of perfumed antiseptic. It is not as homey as I would like. My own rooms are memories, and anchors. I don’t need to rebuild the map of the clear areas on the floor or worry over the strangers next door. Here I am far too aware of being a guest to easily sleep. Please ignore these complaints, I am circumscribing the truth. It isn’t the discomfort of unfamiliar locations. It is the awareness of my identity. It is the unfamiliar person who is assembling behind my eyes. I cannot keep it away when the lights go out, or when the sounds diminish. It waits behind distractions. It is not me. And it is beginning to abandon me as an inconvenience.<br /> I have been considering this for some while for it has not always been this way. I have attempted to discuss it with my wife, but she was disturbed in such a passive way she ignored a good deal of what I said, and forgot the rest or pretended she had. She can see it though. Sometimes her face will cloud with mild worry. She will probe with questions for which she clearly does not want answers. For her pleasure I evade these questions gently, tacitly stating my distress is minor. I must admit my suspicion I am not entirely sure which aspect of me, my old self or this new intruder, she worries over. I wonder if she wants to be free of me, and my new self may be justification. Or even more troubling, I wonder if she works in collusion with my intruder. Again, I have written wrongly: the intruder would seem to be me the other would be almost eternal where I am fleeting. I am well aware of the philosophical history behind this idea, but Aristotle and Pythagoras can’t help me.<br /> It is not minor, this splitting of my identity. Nor do I think it is innocent. I am willing to state it has been calculated. My life has been changed by outside agents. My empiricism, my shield of aesthetics, was an illusion. Experience has worked against me. I sense the infinite as if the invisible chasms of space, the whole universe, had opened up on every side forever reducing and expanding. I have unpleasant anxieties about the stability of the floors under my feet like walking across an ancient and decaying bridge of brittle planks and fraying ropes. These are simply similes. How can I write this about my mind? How do I report this to you with comparisons for it seems incomparable?<br /> My isolation, my solitude, has become a thorn. This is a peripheral occurrence of the extinguishing of many long cherished comforts and abstractions. I have heard that when Howard Carter was opening the chambers of King Tutankhamun’s tomb he saw some ostrich feathers that had lain untouched for 3000 years. They were, for a short second as they had always been, but beneath his new breath and the air of this latter world, the feathers collapsed, they disintegrated. Imagine this as my former sense of things. The winds that strike me are profound. Unfortunately, I do not seem to have the integrity of a feather. The transformation is a sentence I have earned in my indulgence. I have long been a candle claiming responsibility for the dawn and the dawn is progressing to a sunrise, very shortly all my claims will be revealed as lies. Even I can’t begrudge it.<br /> If you do not know me (whoever should come to read this) I am somewhat well known as an art critic, philosopher, and historian. A profession I was very proud of. It is the poorest of professions. I am neither a historian, nor am I an artist. I tend to think history may be a bit of an error, and I have never made a piece of art (in fact I am only beginning to reckon what art is) in my life. I offer opinions. That is what I do. I use the “halo effect” to advantage. I know names, movements and periods in regard to art. I was once referred to as “the art maven” and this familiar but dismissive title has become too sticky. There are endless papers written in specialist’s language about the propriety and theory of criticism. I have written some of them. I have also written at length on aesthetics and attached myself to various philosophers and antique opinions. Who doesn’t love Descartes and his “cogito?” I believe Dante describes the situation of attachment to aesthetics in the inferno (under the guise of opportunism): “I saw a banner there upon the mist. Circling and circling, it seemed to scorn all pause. So it ran, on and still behind it pressed a never-ending rout of souls in pain.” Of course this can be seen in every movement or philosophy in art- the opportunist's banner whose signs and insignia are every changing. Let me repent anonymously here. I am very well paid for my articles, lectures, even consultation. I considered myself a bridge between the esoteric and exoteric, a translator of the mystical artist to the public. A translator who approved or disapproved of what he was translating. Of course I am educated, I have my proper degrees, but I no longer have the vanity to claim my employment is due to a superior eye or deeper understanding.<br /> That is terrible. It is stupid. “The eye” of the discerning! How superstitious! What nonsense! Croce, perhaps, opened this door. No I won’t assign blame. It is shifty to do so. I am the fool.<br /> Allow me to expand on Shakespeare “In the land of the blind the one eyed are kings.” Consider this, if the land of the blind has no one eyed to be kings, who is left? Would it be unlikely to assume that one or several of the blind might delude themselves into thinking they were seeing, or even suggesting a certain elite “blind sight”? When this “blind sight”, this terrible example of opposites together, is assumed and given a proper language, even an expansive Ptolemaic explanation, is it an error to consider that it is believed? In the land of the blind the blind become kings. Now consider this, these blind become tyrants, fragile tyrants whose reported powers must remain elusive, occult, because examination of their powers will prove they are only blind men. One last consideration: among the blind are born those with full sight, what happens when they appear?<br /> I am a charlatan. I did not believe this at the start. But this is the truth. I am not feeling sorry about this; it seemed like the truth when I flaunted my “blind sight”. If this scenario of the blind is in any way a model of the world of art, then let me answer what becomes of the sighted children when they appear. They are blinded. Somehow, it seems, there are some who evaded this blinding. Those unblinded fugitives have found a cure to our blindness; they developed their own sights that no socket, full or empty, can evade. It is sight, alive, and woe to the blind. This blind man has been administered three real visions, and now my sight is overwhelming me. It is dismissing me.<br /> The first time my eyes opened was at a private showing of a painting.<br /> I have many, many friends and acquaintances. One of my closer and more insistent friends had discovered a new young artist. These discoveries are very important to the aimless and those lacking talent; they believe it implicates them with the arts. It shows they too have the certain sensitivity that makes one an artist, even if they do not produce art they can perceive, and make in a professional sense, artists. As a professional critic I had to deal with such individuals whose wealthy circles tend to include both opportunists and actual artists. These are my clients. I must instruct them as doctrine demands, who is and who isn’t a real artist, who is and who isn’t innovative, what is and what isn’t art. My criteria were, admittedly, strange in retrospect and seem to apply to other matters, such as who is the artist, what was his history, socially what role does he play, what was the deeper sophistic meaning of his work, is he a product of structuralism, anti-structuralism, and importantly for me was his work malleable enough for me to use in my inflated descriptions.<br /> My friend was manic when she called. It was not the usual purring that underlies the poses and cadences one affects when they are being sophisticated; it was breathless and quick speech. I had assumed she had found a new boy toy. These were usually mediocre to bad art students whose feigned moodiness had captured her easy excitement. I was tired of these calls but I owed this friend a great deal, and she knew it. It became implicit in our conversation that this would take care of my debts. I recall I fretted a bit to make the weight of this favor more impressive. The bargaining and haggling in the American social Bazaar is very subtle and filled with complaint. She assented to the leveling of my debts so I agreed to meet her young artist. I would magnanimously give him advice, perhaps gratify myself with an expansive filibuster on art, and then leave as pompously as I arrived.<br /> I was late for our meeting. I had been having dinner with my brother. I was tired and some small degree possessed by the spirits of three martinis. My friend ushered me into her ostentatious apartment. I made brief small talk in her lobby, before she dragged me into her reception area.<br /> It is the usual formula in a meeting to talk to the artist, allow them their say, after which you will view the work, and then analyze or opinionate based on their intentions in comparison with their skills. At some point an invitation to talk just below the surface of the truth is given. I will say something leading, such as: “What would you like to do with your art?” This is an invitation to discreetly discuss one’s greed and ambition. It allows me a chance to sense their chances of success, in the rather brutal but grinning world of art. After which I remain noncommittal pointing out strengths and vices in the arts. It is generally the case in a private meeting to refer to the “art world” as an outside entity, a tyrant, whereas in a crowd, with plenty of shielding you can make elaborate rude commentary on behalf of the “art world”. I was preparing to offer my private treasons and excuses in their usual form.<br /> I was never given the chance to mount my bench. I was marched in front of the painting directly. (See painting in photo section). <br /> It was not a large painting, perhaps 36”x 30”. At first it appeared to be a young girl. I recall he later said she was supposed to be Sudanese. She was wrapped in a wrinkled hood. The background showed an angry, stormy red sky over jagged hills. It was like the aftermath of a great fire. It was well painted, nicely composed: skillful. I was pleasantly surprised. I remember thinking this artist may be worth consideration.<br /> My gaze shifted slightly as I was making to turn and address the artist whose presence had been on my periphery since I entered the room. It was then the painted girl moved.<br /> Allow me to clarify. I had been looking at her from about a foot away. Her expression was placid. It appeared the eyes were painted to be unusually penetrating, but her expression was calm. When my eyes moved a fraction, and her expression changed. The face became tinged with anger. It seemed to glare. I stared back at the painting and the girl’s face changed again: she smiled subtly. I could feel my breath become short and unsteady; my heart beat rapidly and I began to perspire. Such was my physical response, mentally I felt as if suddenly I discovered I had been dreaming, I even tried to rouse myself. A wave of panic and exaggerated emotion crept behind my eyes. I wanted to weep or laugh hysterically, but I could do neither. I just teetered suspended on the precipice of that moment waiting. What I was waiting for was very clear, I was waiting for more. I was not disappointed. The more I stared the more the painting transformed. The face became placid again but then the clouds began to move, and ghost faces mingled in the yellow hood around her head. Again her face called my attention. Her features became clouded and indistinct. Within that cloud a muddy checkerboard pattern emerged. I sought to regain her face with surprising urgency. I felt security in her face in comparison with that muddy pattern. That pattern seemed wrong, wrong as only a dream or hallucination can seem wrong. I hunted for her face and was met with more than I could bear. Abruptly the face reemerged, but it was not just her face. It became a Proteus of faces which my mind chased. Faces replaced that one face, and no feature settled. Her features recombined and displayed an ever changing population staring from beneath her yellow hood.<br /> I was terrified and amazed. How long the painting and I stared at one another I cannot write and is perhaps irrelevant. I suspect it would not have ever ended. Its transformations would never cease, and I began to wonder if the painting wasn’t an oracle or clock showing all faces that were, are, and will be. I stepped away in sudden panic realizing the painting might become a mirror. Looking back I should have wondered something more troubling: those faces were not, are not, and will never be. I may have been looking at impossible people. Their only life was granted by my eyes and my breath and their potential population was infinite. Eventually the artist spoke: “Did you warn him about the painting?”<br /> I stumbled backward staring around the painting, still very tempted to look at it. Finally, I murmured, “What? What does that mean?” My sense of alarm was rising. “Have I been drugged?”<br /> My friend laughed, she grabbed my arm comfortably and led me to the sofa. “No, no, of course not, I haven’t done that to anyone in years.” That bland joke, attempting to hint at some false daring or previous mischief, helped me back to myself. It was the language of deluded exchange in our finite world; it was a petty, banal (effective), effort to belittle the experience of the painting. I needed ground and that joke, which was all such a cliché of naughtiness, provided it. How foolish of me to confuse the ground with hot air.<br /> “Isn’t Aaron’s painting fabulous? He claims it doesn’t ever stop, not even when you look away. Isn’t that right Aaron? Aaron please introduce yourself!” My friend was giddy. I could feel giddiness rise in myself. I wanted to praise the young man; I wanted to talk to him. But my fears had not subsided. I am aware that people who are the victims of insult will try to align themselves with those who have insulted them, they will toady and placate and feign secret understandings with their oppressor. This is because contempt is contagious and the insulted do not wish to incur the insults of the several who may be witnesses. I had the unmistakable urge to toady. Believing what I believed I constructed a suit of arrogance for the young artist, I assumed in some yet undetected way I had suffered insult. I quickly defended against a strike that was never administered. I believed he was attempting to better me. I became cold and smug.The young man did introduce himself. He also elaborated on his warning. “It isn’t that the painting won’t stop, it becomes epidemic in the Dionysian sense. It is a divine infection. I asked Marcel to warn you before you looked.” Art is filled with snake oil salesman. Artist statements are full of false claims and polysyllabic words, self aggrandizement, and mysticism. I immediately assigned this young man’s statement to these categories. I was dismissive. I spoke to him with disinterest and vanity. This was a mistake I am willing to admit here. “Aaron” was not a stereotypical artist, nor was he a typical artist. He was very well kempt, calm but quickly interested, and free of melodrama. He was a normal man. He did not wear his eccentricities on his sleeve, nor did he otherwise flaunt them. I could ignore him in a crowd of three. This does not mean he was without mystery. He exuded mystery. It was clear upon first glance his mysterious qualities were difficult, well maintained, and honestly, too much work to penetrate. This reckoning of mystery as normality was more generous and apt then I could claim to have made before I saw his painting. It was an infection. What I had assumed was artistic bragging was, in fact, a clear statement. Having been a liar and dealt with liars for so long, I assumed it was the rule of statements. I was wrong.<br /> Feeling bested, although not admitting it, I later read up on Dionysian “epidemics”. I would use this trivia as a tool to later impress should I meet Aaron again. I would attempt to refute his claims. Being a historian, even of art, I was very familiar with Dionysos, through viewing Renaissance paintings, through reading Nietzsche, and I had also examined vases and other work attendant to this Greek god. I am by no means an expert. Of course, I considered him in the sense portrayed by Nietzsche, or painted by Caravaggio, or DaVinci. This god was a symbol or an emblem. The “epidemic” description was something different. By the time I learned of it, the epidemic was being felt and I could not refute it. An epidemia was an “arrival on the land” or to “be upon the people”, otherwise called an epiphany- a manifestation. It referred to Dionysus’s arrival and the spread of madness before him. He was the infectious god.<br /> Aaron was claiming his painting to be a germ of madness, or divinity. I must admit while I stared at it, that is how it seemed, but I did not account for its more subtle powers after had I left its presence. It takes time to understand the infestation of madness. It seems so familiar, so close, so unbelievable, and so far, all at once, ignorance seems preferable. Dismissal is the hope tried by all who are over come. Like a child with blankets over his head warding off the forces menacing him, I tried to blind myself to what had been awakened. I even wished to scoff. It was somehow galling to peripherally notice it was my subject and slave, Art, which had quickened the madness. I could not scoff as it was, even then, even through my denial, it was true: he had induced a divine infection.<br /> Although he was a pleasant enough young man, something disturbed me. And as I’m sure, Dear Reader, you will sympathize I assumed he was the source of disturbance. I did not assume I had been given the first dose of self disgust, I assumed he was disturbing. I was a king among kings, a being of free will; I had seen it all and was trusted for my opinions of all of it. When not adequately self assured I could reach back and rely on venerable tradition, greater authority, on which I could depend. But this intruder had dismissed it all, seemingly without even being aware of it. It is difficult to be magnanimous with a mouth full of manure.<br /> In such a deliberately intimate, enclosed, room I had little to say or do. I could not lose myself in bookshelves, or foreign ornaments. The room was barren and so one could discuss art without distraction. The best I could do was maintain a smirk and pretended to be jaded. Though somewhat hysterical my friend was an astute woman. By the look in her eye I knew she was aware of my discomfort; she knew I was overwhelmed. Not that it was hard to notice, my clothes were soaked with sweat.<br /> They spoke amiably of several subjects, sometimes art but not conspicuously. I remained aloof, acting as if I were listening. I must confess Aaron was a very nice and subdued fellow. But I would not bow to him. In Caravaggio’s day, artists, even friends, would pass in the streets without acknowledging the other, without “raising their hats”. It was a sign of power, a submission to those above, to lift your hat first. Friends did not speak for years waiting for a hat to be tipped their way. I was behaving in this fashion. The truth is it was my desire to tip my hat but I was immersed in habitual games of position and could not guess when it might be time to be humble, even when I was humbled.<br /> It is still a question in my mind: did I like the painting? Where can I start? What criteria do I use? The painting, as far as technique is concerned was good enough, but the paint was apparently, meant to be dismissed. The pigments were truly a “medium” a bridge to some other device. What was I to gauge? Was it art? Not in the terms I was taught. But what was it? This was some time ago, and I have gone out of my way, to avoid the young man, though he has twice crossed my path.<br /> I have seen another work since that evening. It seemed to carry the same epidemia as the portrait. Thinking on this next work makes me hesitate, for it was desirable. I wish for more of the work. That probably doesn’t clarify the sentiment, or give it enough thrust. I am well aware of how melodrama has become the relay of sentiment in writing and speech. It is repulsively telling how removed we are from the living. I saw the next work I will describe in a gallery. Looking back it couldn’t have been placed in a worse setting.<br /> My wife and I were invited to a not-so-intimate intimate gathering of artsy friends in Seattle. The invitation was extended by my good friend, Martin. Martin is a respected collector, with unusually fashionable taste. His collections toured very widely in Europe, and rarely in America. His pieces are select. Only the best and most lucrative are gathered to his collections.When the invitation arrived, we excused ourselves from any other engagements, and made arrangements to attend Martin’s soiree. This was certain to be a gala event. The invitation, which I have saved as a souvenir (and have committed to memory in pathetically religious adoration) read:<br /><br /><em>Dear Friends,Please make yourselves available for a truly profound viewing experience Sept. 15, ----. What you will witness will forever change your perspectives. Please R.S.V.P at the attached address no later than Sept. 2 Marty</em> <br /><br />It would be a habit for me to write in a smug tone about how I craved for social attention and the deferred opinions of the vulgar. Art venues have a very wicked habit of luring the vulnerable to pettiness and pretense. I did not care about art. Art as I look back was an opportunity to not only point out the emperor was naked, but to point it out while I was naked. I was not insincere when I thought I was an art lover, I just mistook what art was. The above opportunity to "change my perspectives" seemed like a beacon to either debunk an upstart, or attach myself to new and improved art. Which ever the situation, I would need to get some prior information. My persona would need preparation. I would like to clarify; this bogus persona was not perpetual. I was normal and good with friends-friends with little interest in art. It was professional. It was going to work, and loving my job which was, admittedly, to promote vanity, it was to create a false demeanor.<br /> Gathering information was not easy. No one knew anything. Martin, much like the rest of the certified professionals in our society, was (I was going to write gregarious but as this is a confession of sorts let's be a bit more frank) a loud mouth. Bragging is part of the reward in art. Rarety and who owns what is most rare needs gossips, and deliberate information leaks. This is very profitable. Most people know this advertising tactic through tabloid news on Hollywood celebrities. Auction houses and private collectors use these same tactics, but in a more elitist setting. So you can imagine how strange it was that nothing was leaked. The usual channels of information were untrafficked. The only thing that was offered and this so generally it was believable, was that Marty had not seemed himself in the last few months. By report he seemed nervous, or under stress. He had lost some weight, he was distant. This up coming opening was beginning to ring alarm bells. It was not advertised in any journal or art periodical. It had not been previewed to critics, or reporters, it was by invitation only, which is not the most successful marketing stratagem. What is more I had had the unenviable experience of touring the gallery where the opening was going to be held. It was a smaller venue, usually dealing in reproductions and decorative art, that is, "schlock." The crowd would not be a very large one.<br /> Just before the opening some word leaked out, unreliable word I should add, that Martin had invested a huge sum of money in the artist and the subsequent marketing of the artists work. It was intimated it would be very unusual.<br /><br /> September 15th arrived, and our anticipation was to be sated. We had no idea how much so. I was prepared, so I thought for every variable. If it was good, bad, or other, I was ready. I had dozens of things to say. I researched regarding every rumor and hint (sparse as they were). I suspected the oddity of this event would attract the most important of my peers. I was not going to be unprepared.<br /> When we arrived, formally dressed and hungry, my wife and I were quickly greeted and ushered in the front door. It was somewhat ominous. The gallery was closed. I usually expect the milling and socializing of the cultured spilling out into the streets at an opening event. Cocktails (once literally a cocktail with the feather in it) and exotic snacks with various French and Italian (even Russian lately) names could be expected. But we were ushered like fugitives in the underground to the back offices and then to the door of the basement. There were several people already waiting and clearly annoyed. I did not know anyone, and what is worse, they were dressed very casually. We seemed like caricatures of a 1920’s fat cat and his wife. It struck me then, very forcefully, this was not going to be about me, unless of course I made an ass of myself.<br /> More people entered, until two rooms were filled in only security lighting. Someone made an inappropriate joke relating our circumstance to that of victims of the Nazis in a boxcar. This was offensive for many obvious reasons, but was also jarring because it voiced a certain quiet fear that some dangerous trick had been pulled. Very quickly, when expectation is not met, small but strong paranoia can appear. We were very relieved when the basement door was opened and no Panzers stormed out. An 18 year old usher in a red vest was all that emerged. She didn’t say anything just smiled a self conscious, but not bashful smile, and waved us in.<br /> The basement was very spacious, and a longer descent than I had expected (for some reason I was thinking of the basement stairs of a duplex I rented when I was 23.) I was a bit heavier then and I could feel 40 pounds of luxury bouncing and jouncing stair by stair restrained only by tuxedo. This seemed another demerit from my dignity. At the bottom three sets of risers, like those used in elementary school chorus recitals, were set up in an arc before a white curtained wall. There were only two spot lights directed at the curtain as illumination for the room, but they were sufficient.<br /> After asking the usher, someone courteously called out “stadium seating”, and everyone gave a forced chuckle. My wife and I sat together, a pair of sore thumbs. I was very conscious of my dress and becoming more so by the minute. This tell seemed to be broadcasting. My clothes were accidentally revealing more of my pretence than I could have dreamed. I was an imposter, but regarding what? My wife, I should add, was only momentarily embarrassed, and then preceded about her business. She is far less an imposter.<br /> The seating ended up elbow to elbow, not very comfortable, I assure you. Those risers were not cushioned, and before all was said and done I became very aware of the bones in my buttocks.Finally Martin entered the room, and made his way before the curtain. He was followed by a very tall lanky fellow. This new man seemed entirely made of elbows. Martin looked well, healthy, even strong. He was dressed in a casual jacket and jeans, and seemed very excited. He was expectant, and assured, I could not help but forget my silly clothes. Something was really going to happen. My instincts flared and I became excited as if by contagion. This was not going to be hype or a prank.<br /> Martin made speeches before everything. To get a glass of water Martin would ask for silence in a room and describe how important water was to one and all. For this brief moment he seemed reluctant. He said, after uncharacteristic stammering, “Dear friends, thank you so much for coming to this unusual event. You may be questioning the wisdom of the choice to attend, as rough as it is. Regretfully I can’t tell you much about what is to come, I mean both here and after you go to your warm homes. You won’t see anything quite like this again. It is a shame, and also a blessing. You will not believe what will happen when this curtain is parted. So without further indulgences, let me present the artist, Mr. David _____.”<br /> The tall man of elbows awkwardly made his way to the front of the curtain. I was expecting a self referential speech describing the validity of his work, first through art history than some anti-classical pinnacle. At least, I thought this in part, the excitement had not waned to fully accept this idea.<br /> In his right hand he held the handle on a plastic box. A lens peered out amid the usual swirls of design that accompany up to the minute electronic appliances. He did not speak, he gestured and said a half word to the two young men controlling the lights. “Wait!” this sharp bark made all of us jump. The artist made an earnest face as he adjusted his plastic device. He smiled up at us blushing, I believe, “That wouldn’t have created a very good performance if I made you all blind.” I became uneasy. For a brief moment with the Sudanese girl, I thought I was going blind.<br /> The lights went out, and the tall man turned on his plastic box, what I first thought was a portable projector, but I do not think this now. For a moment I feared I was about to endure a performance piece. The curtains were pulled aside and what appeared behind it, revealed by the indirect light of the box was blank wall.<br /> “If you all direct your attention to the center of the beam of light” which he promptly directed to the blank wall, “I would like to begin my tale.”<br /> In the center beam of light, isolated, an island of vision surrounded by the geometric lightening provided by our eyes, was a painting. In a moment I will change the form of narrative, as it will better relate what was seen, but for a moment let me describe something jarring. The light was not a projector. The light from the beam was slightly shaky as it was hand held. The painting did not shake. What is more, the painting seemed to spread out in the shaky perimeter. It was something about the nature of the light on the surface of the wall that revealed the painting. As we would later watch his small spotlight travel and unravel his illustrated narrative we realized not only was he traveling this broad surface and using his light to reveal an enormously elaborate painting, but he retread portions and a new painting was revealed where another had been.<br /> I will here switch to 3rd person and try to tell the story we heard it, including descriptions of the illustrations as it was seamless whole.<br /> “Before the Hejira and after the age of the Jamshid who’s starry cup witnessed Kai Khosrau there was a war. Some have said the war was in Khurasan and its hero was Idris, other say it was in Meshed and was at the command of Shab. The tale has been abandoned to whispers and obscure scripts. All the accounts, however, agree it was Shachar the Sabian that secured the victory.”<br /> “Of Shachar I will tell only the end of this war for that is when his wisdom was miraculously revealed. Shachar sat in despair, alone in a field.” Again, this is a combination of the spoken narrative and the paintings as it was slowly revealed. “The war gear of his men were scattered around him. Their final camp site was abandoned litter. Insects claimed the abandoned war prizes, now abused and filthy. Shachar sat still and tired. His once handsome face was leather stretched taut against sharp bones and hollows. The face that was once harsh and proud had been broken by privation, duration, and loss.”<br /> “A short time before he sat Shachar had sent the closest of his lieutenants from him. He released them to try as they may to escape punishment. The war was lost. They would find little left of their villages, or families. The reward for their struggles and loyalty to him would be mourning.”<br /> “On the perimeter of the field the arms of the embracing forest shielded Shachar form sights and sounds not far away. Just beyond the eastern arm of the forest waited Belchir Ibn Melchir and his legions. These armies knew fresh infantry, a sea of foot soldiers all armored and spiny with weapons, generals and the young princes, sons of Belchir Ibn Melchir, eunuchs and servants attended, the priests were there, and the diplomats. They were preparing for a feast day.”<br /> “Belchir Ibn Melchir had sent envois to Shachar’s camp giving detailed instruction for the rites of surrender. Shachar sent back his reply. At the first break of sunlight the following dawn Shachar would present himself to Belchir Ibn Melchir and meet his fate. He would arrive alone, unarmed, standing upright. Belchir Ibn Melchir received the news with satisfaction.”<br /> “Shachar waited in the field, stark and empty, as the sun slipped below the horizon. There Shachar waited, hoping for the sound of birds, or beast. No song from the Archons would be his servitor. He abandoned the hope the angels would deliver him, but perhaps he would receive some comfort from them yet. In bodies of light they mapped the sky. As he had come from dust, so would he return to dust, and the stars would witness this without surprise. In a language he did not know his story too, was written in the heavens. He ran his hand through the dust at his feet and wondered upon which heads he had strode. He thought it likely the dust beneath his feet had once sported crowns, but here it was brought low, hidden under grass and ferns. That field was surely a looking glass that told him the one certain future. “Dust unto dust and under dust to lie, sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and sans end…’”<br /> “He brought his dusty hand before his face, looking at his kin, and he was curious regarding an old question.”<br /> “The sun was nearly gone. The forest could not hide the armies further. The smells of campfires and cooking met Shachar’s nose, and the sky behind the trees glowed. Shachar had not eaten in days, and his head ached from hunger, and his belly turned. He felt slightly sick, but too drained to give this suffering its due.”<br /> “Shachar stood to draw in air, to ease his belly with memories of food. He was met with the stir of his own filth and sweat. He patted himself and clouds of dust poured from him, while his clothes cracked under his blows. He was disgusted by his filth. He became angry with the protuberance of his knobby bones.”<br /> “Flowing not far within the confines of the field was a small but deep stream. Shachar ambled to it with bony angularity, like a door frame under an enchantment to move. He painfully disrobed, and set about bathing. Tomorrow he would transform to dust, but for now he was a man, and water was welcome on his beaten, scarred clay. He would not face Belkir Ibn Melkir clothed in fugitive’s grime.”<br /> “He soaked in the water for a time. His mind was surprisingly free, but also very aware of time. He wished for better moments of ease. He brought his hands to his face, rubbed his eyes, wrung his beard. His pale hands were visible in the star light. In ways they were nebulous, insubstantial, indistinct. He brought his hands close to his eyes, then held them far and said aloud, ‘Perhaps this is their truth.’ To himself he thought, tomorrow if Belchir Ibn Melchir follows custom I will ask this question.”<br /> “He dried in the warm night air. He dried his poorly washed clothes like spinning swords in the old martial exercises. He had difficulty pulling his clothes back on as they were still damp.”“He ate nothing, he had no fire, he did not sleep, he only had the stars. He watched them spin, the fixed and the wandering. They marked time but largely ignored time. Their dance was the concern of men it did not trouble the stars themselves."<br /> "As a boy, he had gone on pilgrimage with his father. They traveled to the Pyramids in Egypt. His father told him stars are not time, but describe time. In those distant fires were maps of all their temples. Those angels were the places of memory, and the visions of their idols, the entire story of man.”<br /> “He believed these stories, but could not discern the memories of his home or temples in those far lights. He wished to take asylum. He would go to Egypt again, he would follow the Milky Way and it would lead him to Troy, or Rome, or Harran. There were so many stars but too many letters for a man to read.”<br /> “The night passed cold and slow. Shachar spent much of the night with his arms up stretched to the sky, watching the silhouette of his hands.”<br /> “Blue tinged the vault of heaven and the stars eased their labors. All but one. The morning star seemed flared and defiant. Sitting close to the horizon it retained resplendence. The sky brightened, and the star remained. Shachar used the star as his beaconas he tromped through the grassy field and then the dim forest, to meet his end.”<br /> “He emerged from the forest at the proper moment, for the sun just settled on the tips of the tallest trees. Shachar lost his breath at the expansive vision of war before him. Belchir Ibn Melchir’s legions flowed out before him. Their aim and attention dropped fully upon him. His hoped finally melted away. Standing at the forefront of the armies was Belchir Ibn Melchir. He was on horseback, his head high. Belchir Ibn Melchir was rotund and oiled, clothed in jewels and ceremonial armor. Behind him stood generals, advisors, his thirty sons, and behind them were innumerable men regimented behind flags and totemic insignia. A forest of spears and swords were raised in triumph, and a great roar erupted from all throats excluding Belchir Ibn Melchir. Shachar nearly collapsed.”<br /> “Belchir Ibn Melchir languidly raised his hand and silence descended. Shachar swallowed very hard. A rough swallow. He straightened and stood as if his body remembered pride. He sent his gaze to meet Belchir Ibn Melchir.”<br /> “’Shachar! For you folly will end here, for it is here you will be finally counted wise and sound. For here you have surrendered to the hands of fate. You were as a sheep before the lion, and it is futile for the sheep to struggle so, for God has made them both, and made the lion supreme. But I am more fierce than the lion!’ Belchir savored the sound of his words and spoke them heavily with great gestures. ‘I am also more merciful. Shachar you will not be made an example, for you have many qualities I admire. I will not allow you to be tortured. Your death will be the death of a man, though you now look an animal. Come forward, let my armies see you. We will then take you into custody and execute you, without delay.’ Belchir smiled widely, almost like a spoiled boy.”<br /> “Shachar paused before he replied. ‘Belchir Ibn Melchir. I submit you have triumphed in this war. I agree I am defeated. You have not asked that I bow to you or your generals or armies, and for this I am grateful. Let it never be said Belchir Ibn Melchir is an Emperor without courtesy. Let it never be said Belchir Ibn Melchir does not observe the old traditions and piety. You are the victor and I am the dead. But I would ask one thing of you, and this has been the way of victors for all time. Will you observe the final request of the vanquished?’”<br /> “Belchir Ibn Melchir seemed to have expected this and so grinned. “Shachar, you know these requests have conditions, they are not absolute. I will grant your request as long as it does no harm to me, or my own, and as long as it does not interfere with my more extensive wishes.’”<br /> “’Belchir Ibn Melchir, I do not ask any demands, or reprieve. My request is far more humble than this. My final request is the answer to a question. It is a question of philosophical import.’”<br /> “Belchir Ibn Melchir seemed pleasantly puzzled by this request. His fat thick brows rose high above his wide nose. He laughed a roaring, scornful laugh. ‘Of course, Shachar, I will grant you this. What is your question?’”“’What is the true size of my hand?’”<br /> “Belchir Ibn Melchir laughed so hard he wheezed. His legions attempted laughter in sympathy. He lifted a fatty hand and pointed at Shachar, ‘Measure his hand!’”<br /> “Shachar held up his own hand, ‘No, Belchir Ibn Melchir! That will not answer my question.’ Shachar’s hand was held high and he slowly displayed it to the legions. ‘Consider: when you bring your hand close to your eye it looks large. When you pull your hand away it seems to diminish. Children know this. But I would like to know, as my eyes will not tell me, what is the size of my hand?’”<br /> “Belchir Ibn Melchir’s mouth hung slack. He turned his head with difficulty and looked to his advisors stupefied. His face immediately soured. He roughly ordered a eunuch forward, this was one of his philosophers and advisors. The eunuch bowed, and trotted to stand behind Belchir Ibn Melchir’s horse.”<br /> “’Shachar, the answer to your question is known to me, but it is a small thing! It is beneath my majesty to address a child’s question! But I have granted your request, and so it shall be answered!’ He kicked the eunuch forward. ‘This one will answer your question!’” Belchir Ibn Melchir seemed unduly troubled by his inability to answer such a strange question. Perhaps that mighty army, those wolfish generals, the serpentine sons were not as tightly bound as they appeared. Was that a shadow of unease that darkened Belchir Ibn Melchir’s face?”“The eunuch seemed very nervous, but he quickly built a long toothed smile. ‘The answer to your question is: your hand is the same size.’ He bowed and began to back away. Belchir Ibn Melchir smiled.”<br /> “Shachar also smiled a sympathetic smile and shook his head in negation. ‘Still you have not answered my question. It is, of course, the same size as itself. This does not answer my question, for it still remains, what is the size of itself? And again, what is the size of my hand?’ Belchir Ibn Melchir, you have given your word, here, before the strength of your armies, to answer my request. Are you unable to grant this? Is this not a disgrace? After all of our violence am I to topple you, and the wits of your ministers and vast armies, with a child’s question. Was this the vulnerability I should have exploited, and stood where you now stand, our positions reversed?’”“Belchir Ibn Melchir shook with rage. He called the eunuch to his side, drew his scimitar, and with a great ponderous swing, cut the eunuchs head from his shoulders. He roughly turned his horse, nearly toppling the animal, and approached his son’s, his generals and his ministers. He held the bloodied scimitar before them. He could taste their rising scorn, their doubts and he knew to crush them with fear, for if he did not the day may rapidly change the balance of power. Murder was very close to the minds of his court-it was their gift, but it must not be turned against him. Belchir Ibn Melchir growled low as he passed in front of his court. ‘Do not look at me with blood in your eyes! You dare! Wipe your chops, there is no prey here! You are my prey! You are mine! And so I deem to pass the burden to you! The answer to this question will be found before the noonday sun or I will take the heads and hands of all of you!’ Belchir Ibn Melchir called forth his personal guard and ordered them to stand weapons drawn man to man with each of his generals, sons, and ministers. As one the leaders of the army called forth messengers. These messengers were dispatched with the question to each captain, who then relayed the question down the lines of command until each soldier heard.”<br /> “Shachar became dizzy with a wave of hunger. His head ached, and his eyes watered. He had said all he would to another man on this day.”<br /> “Shachar squeezed his eyes shut until the dizziness passed. The world was amazingly silent. When he opened his eyes, his vision took in a nearly comical sight. All the advisors, all the sages, and warriors, every last man in the vast army stood waving there hands forward and back before their eyes. Every face was quizzical and uncertain.”<br /> “The hours passed and the sun rose. Sweat poured from every brow, not from overwhelming heat, but under the burden or death. The swaying hands did not cease, but varied in speed and angle. Sometimes they would cease moving only to begin again with greater confusion. Even Belchir Ibn Melchir stared at his hand.”<br /> “It seemed a spell was cast. The legions of faces had lost their liveliness. The armies of hands were becoming still. Like the cessation of disturbance in a pool, the actions of the armies slowed. It seemed a trance was falling. Shachar looked up at the sky. It was far from the noon hour.”<br /> I must now return to my narrative to describe the rest. The painting which had unfolded with the traveling light became slightly obscured. It seemed to take on blotches of absence- scotomas. If you suffer migraines you will understand what I mean.<br /> Sight by sight the light exposed the perspective of different soldiers. It seemed as though we blinked, and it took on a new perspective every few seconds. Each time an eye opened a hand appeared in its center and behind, at various points of view stood Shachar. Hands of different shapes and characters popped in and out of our vision, making Shachar the magnetic constant in this parade of perspectives. Shachar was near and then far, but most impressively, he changed under the point of view and social biases of each soldier. He was Shachar in some general way, and in no way a caricature, but some feature in each changing view became emphatic. The transformations that changed Shachar were amazing. In one soldiers eye his tattered clothes became emphatic, in another his starvation, in another he seemed proud, in another he seemed filthy and small. We were given peripheral observations of a man as seen by many men, and it was done with subtlety. It seemed natural. We were allowed to see through the eyes of others to read fear and power of other men-impossible men who did not exist. After a short time it seemed these myriad Shachars were building a composite, a truth, as if we these sights were building the first vision of something ideal. An absolute Shachar seemed to be under construction.<br /> These perceptions were becoming deeply marred with the blotches of absence. Just as something seemed to be entering clarity it was being obscured. For a few moments I thought I was beginning to have a migraine, the effect was so convincing.<br /> The armies continued to look at their hands. The narrative had paused for a moment. The light did not cease to travel the wall, as if imitating our eyes, seeking out something to see. But it could find less and less. And I became somewhat nervous because I was unsure if it was the work or my vision. This kind of suspension is very uncomfortable. It is an unpleasant intellectual rebellion.<br /> The artist continued: “After a time Shachar began to understand the stillness of the army. Still with little hope, but more days and adventures before him, Shachar stumbled away from the still army. After he had walked some short distance, he heard the first howls and cries that initiated a mass panic.” He granted us the illustrative perspective of Shachar, and interspersed this with the blotchy perspective of the mass. “The armies of Belchir Ibn Melchir, including Belchir Ibn Melchir had all fallen into an abstraction. They were tricked into regarding the deceptive nature of vision. They held a mirror to sight. They were lulled to answer one of the forbidden questions. They....” my eyes hurt and seemed to involuntarily cross looking for sight, “…all …” the images were fading even when Shachar was shown, “…went…” suddenly the absence took over and I could not see, I reached out for my wife, “blind.” Had I noticed, and not been ready to panic, everyone gasped and became utterly silent. The spot lights flicked on again.The lanky artist stood before us satisfied and smiling. Behind him the wall was completely blank. We all looked around to ensure our vision, even stupidly measuring our hands.Martin was up in front of the room giddy and gesturing for us to proceed up stairs. Everyone laughed. Like we just stepped off a roller coaster, everyone was tussled. We must have been squirming in our seats, though I must admit, I did not notice any such fidgeting. Someone tried to start applause but, it fell dead. Applause seemed a little inadequate. We may as well have set up barking like seals.<br /> We were escorted upstairs to the main gallery by ushers, and it was then some wine and cheese were served. The artist appeared like some figure from Oz, all sticks and pulleys. Vivaldi was playing, people were milling, but in an unnerving silence. We were all still trapped in that world. We were still with Shachar. After a time a crowd gathered around David and everyone managed to overcome their awe, and sense of awkwardness to ask questions. The evening decayed from there.<br /> I did learn some interesting details, by listening to the questions thrown at the artist. It was his first piece. It was not for sale. It had taken him 12 years to create. After a short time the crowd broke into pairs and the theories began to assemble regarding the plastic box. That is was a projector was one theory, another was that box was a flashlight of sorts, but with various colored lights that reflected or were absorbed, and these lights revolved. I thought these were unsatisfactory ideas, and still do. Too many aspects of the work are left unanswered. And although it is intriguing, I think in the end it is not my concern how he did what he did, but more importantly what did he do? He erased us all. I was not me for a time. I jumped body to body, a ghost. We became swept up in the senses of another, in the sights of other eyes, and for a time we were whatever identity he provided. We were, briefly but with lingering aspects, Shachar, Belchir Ibn Melchir, the sons, the army, other men. But what will not dissipate is the variable Shachar; the multiple visions of Shachar that nearly gave us an ideal, an eternal experience.<br /> I had to leave. Somehow normal people were too bland to endure. Shachar was more real. They seemed less effected by the work than I was, and it felt offensive. I began to feel with some certainly the first feeling of disconnection.<br /> The populations of the impossible never people that radiated from the Abyssinian girl, the shifting characters of painted fiction presented in the story of Shachar that I had just seen (that I had just been) seemed to hint at a depth behind the easy surface of sense. If the universe we inhabit is infinite, this other thing, an impossible universe, is more. ! squared or ! to the ! power. It is participating with shadows, only these shadows are more substantial than granite. Illusions seem to describe the bedrock of truth. Reality, at its best, is incomplete. My sense is these works describe a fact: we are illusions to something more startling. It almost seems like a form of solipsism, or a taste of the Hegelian Absolute.<br /> I complained I was feeling slightly ill so we left the reception. On the ride home we attempted to discuss the work, but my wife became nervous and evasive. It felt like we were trying to discuss something shameful or intrusive, or a violation. I cannot explain this.<br /><br /> There was one further piece I would like to mention. And though I am suspicious of threes for the superstitions surrounding this number, it does feel like there is some uncanny relationship between the pieces.<br /> I was at a funeral. I should mention I am, as is normal I believe, deeply troubled by funerals. Perhaps this is old fashioned of me. They seem due homage. Mourning seems like a properly lonely state, and is honored by reluctance to approach. But the world is has truly become a farce or is it still in the tragic stages? I’ll let Marx or Hegel worry over this. This funeral was a “celebration of life” or so the flyers reported. Flyers for a funeral. It boggles the mind. I am disgusted with the idea of a funeral as a celebration. It is morbid, like a clown face painted on a corpse. If life has been good and gracious, virtuous or honorable, its passing will be terrible for a light is gone. Maybe I am being sentimental, but this seems a decent enough sentiment and I won’t lightly throw it aside. Life should be celebrated as it is lived (or condemned). These should occur during our brief span. Post mortem gaiety seems like a really tacky excuse to have a party, or a show put on for an audience of fellow mourners. It is pathetic the dead can become a platform for attention and vapidity. Leave the dead some dignity!<br /> I write with vehemence about this for a reason. The dead man at the funeral meant little to anyone (myself included). That may be cold to write, but it is true, nonetheless. In most circumstances I would have performed as is expected and acted sorrowful, but I had run out. My sense of doubt had matured into self disgust and disgust for all things like me in my isolated field. When you first catch on to the fraud, the first whiff of your own weakness and pretense, it is the most profoundly irritating experience. When I had first been willing to scorn the pieces of art I have here described I was so solid, and knew all of the rituals and acts around me to be real, but after it seemed the worst farce.<br /> We stood around the coffin as it was being lowered, and everyone chatted. Martinis were passed around. It was a monstrous coffin. As if ironic or a joke, it was covered in tinsel and garlands and hundreds of bottle caps. It looked like it was dressed as a gypsy for Halloween. I felt my face scrunched in disgust, and I could not unknot it. In this well manicured graveyard, silent and still, even solemn, we stood out like a glittering pimple. It was like watching the most desperately resentful teenagers crying out for attention. Each mourner was talking and laughing a little louder than their neighbor. One man wore a Technicolor kilt, another man was in flamboyant drag (can’t drag sometimes be subdued?) One woman dressed like she was just arrived from a swingers convention, all in holey fishnet and mesh, and I assure you she was not someone you want to see in fishnet and mesh with holes. This display of scandal might be forgivable if this was teenagers, or even twenty three year olds. But our youngest mourner was 38, our eldest was in his early seventies. This was all false.<br /> In a moment I realized I did not want to stay and would not stay. In mid sentence I strode away from some shrill harpy and set off across the graveyard. It was Scrooge like, after seeing such cold self interest I suddenly had the urge to sense some human feeling. My head felt swollen and my eyes ached. People of a class and culture whom I had striven to join were transforming before my eyes. They were like the frightening puppets on Mr. Rogers. Every face had some “Lady Elaine” quality, or the worst of Venetian Carnival masks, elongated and heavily accented with makeup and paint and shiny grease. They were spangled monsters, twisted people. Perhaps this is all subjective, or perhaps they were cells wracked with disease. I was having the godfather of anxiety attacks.<br /> I was jarred into some reality, or some more calm state, by a simple sight. People. Real people, plain, dull, people. It occurred to me the funeral was unpeopled, a bunch of empty coats. The mourners were behaving in some alien manner and it was very lonely. When you are in a crowd of empty men you suffer the effects of isolation, and possibly sensory deprivation. These real people were not here for my entertainment, nor did they petition me to act as audience. They were solid. They had concerns out in the world. A young man stood beside an old man who knelt, both apparently paying respects at a grave. The young man looked somewhat bored and disinterested, but there was also some sense of warding. His young face squinted and searched passively. He was here for the old man, it was apparent. The old man was hunched forward, sitting on his knees. He was concentrating on something.<br /> They were straight ahead of me, so I kept on my way, and was prepared to quickly sneak a gaze at whatever was happening then leave them in peace as I went to find my car.<br /> The old man was drawing on a small tablet. The young man, and this may be generous, he looked about 16, watched me walk up with some interest. The old man did not shift a hair as I passed.<br /> I had to catch a glimpse of what he was drawing. This was unusual and my instincts informed me to keep alert. Something about this moment seemed portentous, and far more “magical” than anything they had attempted at the sham funeral.<br /> I paused and looked over the man’s shoulder from a respectful distance. The drawing was beautifully done and very simple. It was a portrait of a young woman, face front, neither beautiful nor ugly. He was drawing in pastels on what looked like an old Fisher Price child’s chalkboard.<br /> I spoke quietly to the young man. “I’m sorry, very sorry to bother you, but may I ask what your father is drawing?”<br /> The young man looked away with disinterest while he spoke, as if the act of communicating made me safe, or he had sized me up and I was not worth barring. “He’s my Grandpa. He does this every week. He makes me bring him here on Sundays. This is my Nana’s grave and he’s a sketch artist. He draws her.”<br /> I looked over the old man’s shoulder again, and saw he clutched a tattered black and white photograph of the girl in the hand that clutched the chalkboard. The drawing was far more lively than the photo.<br /> In art you often hear hyperbole regarding the effects of a work. Everyone attributes some voodoo and magical other worldliness to simple drawings. It validates them (both work and observer) in some petty way. I am aware of this and I would like to communicate I am not suggesting this silly superstitious pose when I say the work was better than the photograph. The color would lend “betterment” if nothing else. But there was more than just the addition of color to quicken the picture. The face was different, it resembled the photo but was not the same, and the difference was subtle, more expressive. Certain of the facial muscles were flexed that lent a “telling” quality to the face.<br /> “Again, I’m sorry, but do you think your grandfather would mind if I watch him draw? I am very interested in art and his work is beautiful. I truly do not wish to intrude but it is remarkably beautiful.”<br /> The young man squinted down at his grandfather and put forward my request in what sounded like Italian, but I do not know for certain, it could have been Portuguese. The young man answered with as much disinterest as before, “Sure he won’t mind, he doesn’t even know we are here. PAPA! This man wants to watch you!” The old man grunted but continued without interruption. I drew closer, careful to stay out of his light. His hands were steady and always in motion, but not ever frantic. It was fluid and graceful drawing. He applied each detail with careful but certain attention. He knew what to do with clarity, but he was cautious in application. Each hair was present, each flush. Some aspects were eerie. As I watched I became aware of how the blood supply would have colored her face, blushing the tip of her nose to the bridge. Hidden aspects of her physiology and anatomy were navigated and added as a light smoky blue tracking around the thin tissues around her eyes, or the cracked pink of her lips and the pale skin that circled and then radiated toward her nose and the sides of her chin.<br /> As he drew he mumbled, sometimes chuckling, sometimes it sounded ironic, or even righteous, but the silences were painful. When he stopped mumbling it felt tragic, as if his trance was coming close wakefulness, and the knowledge the face he presented was a meanness, or trick But he would dive deep again, and pick up the strains of the mumbling.<br /> He nagged at the picture with his pastels and with the eraser. When one feature seemed impossible to correct he moved onto another, only to return to the previous feature and alter it in some subtle way. I thought I was watching a perfectionist, and it brought to mind the image of a sculptor who, ever dissatisfied with one angle or another of his masterwork, chips away at it until all he has left is chips and powder.<br /> I misunderstood. I watched for nearly an hour before I did understand. The drawing of the young face I had first seen had evolved, it had aged. With small steady progress he was animating the face. Her mood had darkened from the first version I had seen, her face had become more angular and stark. As I came to this realization others quickly followed. His mumbling and grunting were in time to the changes of the face. He was reliving her.<br /> He continued, and I did not grow tired of watching. His humming dialogs rode a pendulum of moods. At times the face became lovely, at other moments plain, or very expressive. It was angry, disdainful, happy, sly, and worried. In an extraordinary feat he drew her face in deep sorrow, I knew it to be mourning, and yet it was here most lovely. Her pleasures and sorrows took turn dominating her face. With mastery he aged her. He did not use a guide. He did not have further photographs or reference, only the clarity of his memory.<br /> His mumbling became les frequent. The woman was fairly old. That might be incorrect, she was worn. The most terrible sorrow, to touch her face had marked it and was not diminished though other expressions passed beneath it. Along with this, some wrong had settled into her features. Some corruption that cannot be misidentified appeared as slight hollows in her cheeks, and eyes, and a slackening of her cheeks, which did not have enough substance to become jowls. She thinned, her eyes became large as if in frightened realization, and then they became tired, sunken, weak. Her decline was terrible and my throat ached. I felt the muscles in my chin tense and the corners of my mouth arched down to camouflage the possibility of weeping.<br /> The old artist began to weep. From the angle behind him I could see his jaws clench like a pulse the closer he came to her death. And then the moment of her death appeared in a series of colors too easily placed to believe. Less than a dozen strokes of chalk and she was dead. The face was barren, and terrible. The muscles evacuated tension and the eyes …what other term can be used but dead? Her eyes were dead, that horrible unfocused, sunken, vacancy that is apparent in the eyes only with death.<br /> The Old man wept unabashedly. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket wiped his tears and quietly spoke, but I do not know what he said. The phrase wasn’t addressed to me. I am content not knowing, though I will say it sounded sorrowful or regretful. He took the tear damp cloth, wrapped it around his index finger and marred picture by smearing a cross over the board. He took a small water bottle from his pocket, poured it over the board, and using the handkerchief cleaned away the face in muddy streaks.<br /> I did not weep, though the feeling offered itself. The old man stood with some strength. When he unfolded he was surprisingly tall. He was several inches taller than me, though I had thought he must be shorter as he drew crumpled over (perhaps because the perspective of the woman was drawn eye to eye, instead of from above, I confused his height.) He carefully folded and placed the soiled kerchief in his pocket. He finally seemed to acknowledge me, with a small, maybe slightly embarrassed, smile.<br /> He patted his grandson on the back before putting his arm around him and they set off. The old man nodded to me in goodbye as they walked off.<br /> I puzzled over this for some time as I stood above the woman’s grave. I wondered what the old man did with his neatly folded handkerchief. Did he simply wash it or was there more to his ritual of cleaning away her image with tears? Did he keep all the soiled kerchiefs, each a history, a body of memory? It didn’t seem unreasonable that he might keep any and every sacrament, as his weekly dedication demonstrated, he made new icons of her to venerate if only for the time he spent near her grave. I considered the idea he did keep a collection of kerchiefs, and it struck me these started to take on some impossible aspects. I wondered if those dirty cloths were all the same memories, and marked the days on a calendar that actually extended beyond her life. I wondered if he altered her life making it more ideal some days and beautiful, or if he ever held resentments that colored her time, or even if he created fictional events to add to her life. I realized the ideas began to resemble my old manner of thinking; I was trying to impose scandal upon him. He had shown me another miracle of art and my habits strained to pollute it, and bring it low.<br /> I realized much of what I deem art was a vain attempt to bring the powerful down, to diminish what was overwhelming and steal its powers. I wanted these strange things to accommodate the small, claustrophobic, world I was inhabited. As with the other art I have mentioned here this last left me bereft of cleverness. It stole away the walls of my habitat. I am confused by what I have seen, but I no longer feel the desire to dismantle wonders to offer my confusion a balm.<br /> I am uncomfortable inside my skin. Treading the familiar grounds and habits of my professional adulthood is unsatisfactory. Seeing the common, the ironic, the disgraceful, feels like I am being force fed something noxious. I may have been fed manna and now TV dinners (or Gallery or Museum Dinners) seem unsavory. Many of the so called graces and all of the expressions made by my intimates or associates sets me scowling (or create a guilt that I am not scowling.) I have seen things that dictate I dismiss fools, and frauds: I can’t help but obey. So here we reach my dilemma. My standards and expectations are ruined, which is something for which I should be grateful. I am grateful but I am left with little. I survive, and survive well enough for it to be seen as to be called luxury, on the corruption of these greater things. I regret to write I love my luxuries even as I see them dismantle wonders. I have also found I love art. In a profound way, I have been shown an impossible world. The clash between my vices and this undeniable virtue does not seem to alter either abstract, but it is tearing me apart. I mentioned I sense another me is emerging, another self, and this is true. It is not so simple as suggesting I have changed. The arts I have seen have “installed” another man, a better man, inside my head. I want him to win, though it frightens me that I would be swept aside. He might pull apart my world; tear down my structures and theatres. This shabby theatre deserves destruction.Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-68905758624138690022008-09-04T10:19:00.000-07:002008-09-04T10:58:32.581-07:00Art and InfluenceWhen I asked a friend who was the most influential voice in art, the answer was given Arthur Danto.<br /> I am an artist, and when I heard my friend say that Arthur Danto was one of the most influential voices regarding art and the supposed “art world”, I had to admit, I had no idea who Arthur Danto was. That may seem innocent enough, and not unlikely. The isolated social structures and elites in art seem proud of their obscurity and one must be an acolyte of this or that movement or circle to know the local pecking orders. I rarely read magazines on any point in the political spectrum, so that I was unaware of the art critic for the Nation isn’t that telling in any direction either. I didn’t feel especially ashamed that I didn’t know who Arthur Danto is. What puzzled me, what I found worth consideration, was after asking around to various artists I know and with whom I correspond, I found very few knew who Danto was, and no artist who did know mentioned any influence from this scholar. No artist I spoke with had followed the advice of Arthur Danto in regard to technique or subject, or complexity. Nor did they espouse his Hegelian philosophical standards. They did not seek to apply his philosophies to their work. They did not refute them or deny them, they were indifferent. <br />This could be a symptom of poor variety in my sampling. Though to excuse this I will mention the artists I asked, casually, were not all realists, they were artists from various movements and creeds in the arts. Seeing this lack of knowledge concerning the most influential voice I wondered what exactly was meant by influential. This word comes up often when discussing the arts, and I even asked about “influence”, as if cued, and didn’t notice it seems meaningless in this context. <p>What does it mean to be an influential voice in the arts? Let me remove “voice”, it sounds contrived and somewhat Biblical, or prophetic. I wouldn’t want the added, subliminal, sentiment of some magical power in speech added to this subject. So let me rephrase: What does it mean to be influential in the arts?<br />Let me here give over a quote from The Nation, a brief biography of Arthur Danto to see if any sign of influence is related:</p><p>Arthur C. Danto was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1924, and grew up in Detroit. After spending two years in the Army, Danto studied art and history at Wayne University (now Wayne State University) and then at Columbia University.<br />From 1949 to 1950, Danto studied in Paris on a Fulbright scholarship, and in 1951 returned to teach at Columbia, where he is currently Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy.<br />Since 1984, he has been art critic for The Nation, and in addition to his many books on philosophical subjects, he has published several collections of art criticism, including Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism; Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992); Playing With the Edge: The Photographic Achievement of Robert Mapplethorpe (University of California, 1995); and, most recently, The Madonna of the Future: Essays in a Pluralistic Art World (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000). He lives in New York City. </p><p>It isn’t the most recent biography, but it serves the general purpose of explaining, briefly, who Arthur Danto is. He is a scholar and a philosopher of art. This may seem venerable at first glance but I think can only be said to “look good on paper” and adds up to very little action or influence. This biography seems, like most biographical snippets, a marketing device used to legitimize an unknown person.<br /> <br />I read some of Danto’s writings, by no means all, but enough to lead me to believe, that his thinking on art is deeply flawed and teeters on faulty premises. At times his writing seems so formulaic and contrived that I almost felt embarrassment for him. If not actually embarrassed, I will admit sympathetic discomfort in someone who could so extravagantly and enthusiastically make mountains out of mole hills. I cringed to read the things he writes. These mole hills he tries to emphasize with florid descriptions. Regarding Yoko Ono’s “Cut Piece”:<br />“Ono sits impassively on the stage, like a beautiful resigned martyr, while the audience is invited to come and cut away a piece of her clothing. One by one, they mount the stage, as we see in a video at the Japan Society, and cut off part of what she is wearing. One of the cutters is a man, who cuts the shoulder straps on her undergarment. The artist raises her hands to protect her breasts but does nothing to stop the action. Ideally the cutting continues until she is stripped bare. I find it a very violent piece, reminding me somehow of Stanley Milgram’s experiment in psychology, in which people are encouraged to administer electric shocks to the subjects (who pretend to be in agony). The audience has overcome, a bit too gleefully, the gap between art and life-it is after all a flesh-and-blood woman they are stripping piecemeal with shears. It reveals something scary about us that we are prepared to participate in a work like that.”<br />Reading this I find I am gritting my teeth and squinting due to the heavy handedness and silliness that proceeds from the first line. Let me rephrase the “masterpiece” as he terms it in the common speech:<br />Ono sits on the stage. The audience is invited to come up and cut away her clothing, piece by piece. They do so; aware that she is willing to be nude (or semi-nude) in public, in fact she has set up situation that allows her to be so. Cut piece doesn't have many alternatives. If no one participated in this artsy and righteous strip tease, it would have simply been "sitting on the stage piece."<br />A message is meant to be contrived, because of the cutting, and the message is supposed to hint at something dark to legitimize this silly piece. Silly people often suppose dark is deep. Some guy takes the implied dare and is the first to cut away a piece of undergarment. How scandalous (if one is 13 but annoying to anyone older). It is nothing at all like Milgram’s experiments, which are really creepy and disturbing- the subjects of the experiment were unaware of the experiment and were led to believe they were torturing someone, and pressured by authorities to do so. The Ono piece is cooperative silliness. It is only similar to Milgram’s experiments in that the subjects, the audience, are duped into thinking that they are participating in a situation which in fact they are not. The similarity is someone is deceived, and pressured into doing something. As opposed to the Milgram experiment which was dire, the Ono performance was pointless and decieving the audience they were participants in a cultural wonderment. All deceptions are not equal. It is not as Danto suggests above like they are pressured to perform the forbidden act of cutting away garments and stripping a woman. The cutting away of garments is completely understood to be voluntary and okay. I believe certain strip shows have a similar premise, where “tear off” lengths of costume are lightly held by the audience and the dancer dances away from the pieces of her costume until she is naked. Only the shears are missing, but the strip tease is not meant to legitimize itself with “dark is deep” and a guy with scissors in a strip club seems a bad idea. A bad idea that should be brought up here. The strip club is actually dark and deep and possibly dangerous (notice the bouncers, drunks and not uncommon fist fights) and they are trying to induce the opposite- a good time. It seems to suggest that Yoko Ono and her audience are play acting at something interesting and failing to create anything actually interesting.<br />Danto’s language is curious. Attempts to lead one to think along certain lines like: “until she is stripped bare” makes him untrustworthy. The same phrase could easily have been stated “they cut her clothes off until she is nude”. This phrase doesn’t have the same sentiment as “stripped bare” –utter vulnerability (or is it udder vulnerability?) But then it is one of the possibilities though not as apparently cooperative. Even if Ono wants to relate the idea that she is stripped bare and one knows this, whether or not it has worked is not a given. In fact that she has performed this piece more than once, and conceived of the piece it is hard to imagine she feels vulnerable and laid bare. And what is more is why is laying oneself bare (or being naked in public) "like a martyr", of interest in art- or anywhere else? Contrived martyrdom on stage is not very convincing or interesting, and is not at all what is advertised. There is no martyrdom. The audience has to agree to act and think like fools and accept silly premises they would reject in other settings. And that is not the point of the piece, as might be argued. No one learns anything from this, nor do they benefit in any way. What it more is the "martyr" imagery is specialized to those who have no knowledge of the history of martyrs. Ono wasn't Jeanne D'Arc on that stage. At one point she even seems somewhat peevish one participant is taking too long and upstaging her. The audience feels the same and starts to heckle the man. Kind of juvenile and silly. It reminds me of the girls in freshmen photography classes who invariabley photograph themselves nude, and then explain that these vain nude photos have deep feminist messages in them. Often, I have found, as these girls get older they laugh these pictures off as just wanting people to see them naked. Fair enough, that is honest and even exected, the false and righteous message is what is troubling.<br /></p><p>Danto goes on to describe another piece of Ono’s work called “Fly” where a fly walks on a nude woman’s body, and an annoying soundtrack can be heard in the background. “The soundtrack is uncanny, and we do not know if it is the voice of the fly, the suppressed voice of the woman, or the weeping voice of an outside witness to what feels like- what is- a sexual violation.” Well, maybe, but I doubt it. Danto backs this assertion by mentioning Ono’s credentials as a musician. Why we need to know this is unclear as the piece, unless one is willing to stretch unreasonably and start making up their own themes, is a fly crawling on a nude woman with an annoying soundtrack. The soundtrack sounded like someone futzing around with a violin, or a kazoo. The whole thing is, as one might expect, as interestig as watching a fly walking around on some person. It is in fact less interesting then a fly crawling on someone witnessed in person people often swat at flies, and freak out when bugs are on them. What could be considered an "action scene" for this type of interesting art. One need not follow some repetitious and peculiarly scandalous theme of “sexual violation”. Just the mention of “sexual violation” as a theme makes some especially weak minded persons shudder in awe. But it seems strange that this theme of “sexual violation” is indulged and promoted, in case someone forgot about rape. And though sexual violation is a shocking and terrible thing, it doesn’t give power or force to supposed art pieces claiming it as a subject. It seems a little too much like desire for attention. What is worse is it is exploitive and profits (not necessarily financially) from sexual violation. As a means of communicating ideas of “sexual violation" as is claimed, “Fly” fails. As a piece of art anything that implies “sexual violation” fails. Sexual violation is not a standalone issue. It involves history and personal histories. Sexual violation is not an ideal but has particular, personal results. This is why it is horrific. One of its more terrible and tell tale aspects is silence not howling. This silence is consuming and painful, not dramatic and symbolic. An example of a work of art with something like a theme of sexual violation is Sir John Everett Millais “Order of Release.” I would suggest anyone look this painting up. Its narrative is about sexual violation and manipulation regarding the release of a prisoner to his wife. She has had to trade for his freedom. I won’t offer any poetic descriptions of the painting. You can see for yourself. It is also worth mentioning, I read another critical essay about "Fly" that described this piece as a conceptual "absurdist" work, and this essay described another piece as sexual violation instead. This "choose-your-own" movement or issue strikes me as very suspicious. If experts and scholars are fumbling in the dark and describing the emperor's new clothes as completely different outfits, say bermuda shorts vs ski gear, how can they possibly be accepted as experts. It seems important to try to connect silly things to very serious things even when no relationship exists. That the critics and essayists on this work are inconsistant, unsure, and yet "sell" it just the same is telling. That they have a set body of possible, controversial, or cutting edge lables (all meaningless) to work with is disappointing.</p><p>Let’s look still further at Danto’s phrase “the gap between art and life.” He borrowed this phrase from Robert Rauschenberg: “Painting relates to both art and life, I try to act in the gap between the two.” Danto explains, “’Overcoming the gap between art and life' had at once the ring of a metaphysical battle cry-like closing the gap between body and mind-and a political slogan promising to abolish privilege. For Rauschenberg, however, it more or less meant giving himself license to make art out of anything: 'A pair of socks is no less suitable to make a painting than wood, nails, turpentine, oil, and fabric.'" Now it may be that Danto is a so blindly fanatical for art in all of its manifestations (or any claiment to the title) he cannot see things clearly or soberly. And you can forgive him on this basis. I, however, do not believe this is so, and think his acceptance of this nonsense, while claiming himself a professor of Philosophy, is unforgivably sloppy. Here is why: painting does not fill in a gap between art and life. Art and life are not separate things. Art is an experience in life. There is no gap. Paint is a material used to induce the experience of art when configured in certain ways (not in all ways), and painting is the act of configuring and applying the paint. This is done by living persons. Painting does not fill in a gap between art and life, as it is an activity within life, that is, it is part of life also, if one chooses to do it, and it can induce the experience of art, which is also a part of life, as can other triggers, such as music, or dance. These are also part of life. Paintings have a relationship to art at times in that one can trigger the other. But neither is separated by a gap from life. “Art” and “life” here mean nothing. They are meant to be magic words which can be used to say nothing but sound like something is being said. "What is Life?" "What is Art?" Two questions many people cannot answer and so leave untouched and unexamined due to an assumed difficulty in answering. One need not arrive at a definitive answer to either question to see through the silliness of the idea of a gap between art and life. To maintain this idea of separate entities, Art and Life, one must dive backward through time to some very superstitious thinking, and elevate these venerable words to divine status akin to “God”. <br /> It does sound like closing the gap between body and mind, and is just as silly. As Borges wrote “you are your body and you are your mind and the two are difficult if not impossible to separate”, or as Bertrand Russell observed, a perfectly healthy, intelligent man becomes an idiot when iodine deficient. Body and Soul, Body and Mind, Art and Life, are poorly categorized when taken as divine beings.</p><p>Though very fine for Rauschenberg and it reads as brave, giving oneself license to make art out of anything has some obstacles that are not simply brushed aside by will and license. First, art is not induced by just anything. Though one may try anything they want and may achieve success with many as yet unknown things and combinations, any thing will not induce an experience of art. The things used to make paintings, such as paint, oil, wood, turpentine, etc. are not lawful heavenly bestowals, but evolved and changed to efficiently suit certain purposes. All kinds of materials were used, and many were rejected because they were not very useful. One painter used his own earwax to make a paint, few others have followed done likewise. Many painters found agreement in some general materials such as the above mentioned materials. They gave themselves license to use these materials. They did not find that the usefulness or novelty had been extinguished when Rauschenberg made his comments, and many still haven’t found a satisfactory extent to the potential of these materials. Now let’s get back to Rauschenberg’s sloppy statement which Danto has borrowed. Like the gap between art and life, Rauschenberg has a problem with categories. A pair of socks is a description of the way materials are put to use. Socks are made of cloth, say cotton or nylon. What makes them socks is if this cloth is used to cover the feet to warm them and separate the bare foot from the shoe. A footlike form is also helpful in "sockiness" or is it "sockitude?" This use can be changed, and one could paint on cloth that could also be used as, say, an artist canvas, or cloth used to smear paint, or even cloth placed in a setting. Notice “socks” can be magically transformed into “puppets” with the simple application of buttons. The problem as yet is, cloth formed for use as foot coverings, has very limited use as artist supplies. This is not because of some rigid doctrine, but simple common sense. Flat planes are often used in painting because they are easy to access at least a full half in one expanse, and then easily apply well tried and ever useful techniques such as perspective. These techniques have not been used in every possible manner and have much left in them to explore. The simplicity of the flat quadrangle or circle removes unwanted complexities in materials that would, if present, need to be surmounted to induce the state of art. Socks seem less suitable for an experience of art through painting, but seem just fine if you want to paint on or with socks. With the latter idea I have yet to see socks and paint combined to induce art. Maybe it is possible in some manner, but seems an excessive effort, and has yet to happen. Socks haven’t really caught on as good painting materials, because they aren’t - especially when used to make art. I will confess, I have on several occasions applied paint to old socks, but this is because I was using them as a piant rag.</p><p>Danto does something interesting after discussing Rauschenburg which will take us away from Danto and back into influence. In his book Unnatural Wonders, Danto wrote “The essays that compose this volume were written in the space between art and life, which has been my intellectual habit since the 1960’s, as philosopher and as art critic.” He claims for himself the artist’s declared position between art and life (Danto introduced the subject to implicate himself with it). He suggests it as his intellectual habit. This shifts him away from being a simple critic or philosopher but adds him to the roster of heavenly beings between Life and Art. He espouses nonsense for the sake of vanity. He is attaching himself to a cult object to reinforce his influence.</p><p>Enough about Danto. I placed his ideas under scrutiny for a reason that I hope is clear. The most influential voice in art offers some unstable and hollow ideas. If these ideas are influential it should be alarming. It should be alarming because these ideas have passed with little resistance or examination, and because influence in art would seem to be an external issue to art. Influence with art has to do with who controls what activities are termed art, and thereby can define markets, masters, and geniuses. It would seem influence in art is a nefarious situation.</p><p>The problem of influence isn’t just suspicion that one is being asked to admire the emperor’s new clothes. The problem arises, as with a religion, where emphasis lies. Which persons or actions are important and influencing or influenced, if at all? Let’s take Christianity as a case in point. If influence were exerted in which direction would it go? Do the prelates influence the laity? Does the laity influence the prelates? Do either of these influence Jesus Christ? Does Jesus Christ influence either the prelates or the laity? There are examples in history of the laity influencing the practices and beliefs of the clergy, and likewise there are written works of the clergy complaining about their elite status and actual faith as opposed to the laity. There are examples of conflict between local priests and monks claiming their influence should supersede the influence of the other. Popes have altered the supposed words of Christ and God, as have scribes. The priests have been found to be criminals and have suffered the outrage of their flocks. Looking at this from outside the ranks, it seems that “influence” in any direction are localized instances of social pressure, and self interest, dressed in the garments of a creed. Christian doctrine, writings, and even Jesus, need not be present for the pressure of influence to occur, and these seemingly important bases are commonly ignored. Influence has little to do with what is advertised, namely, Christianity.</p><p>This religious example is very close to the situation in the arts. Very close is incorrect, it is the same. The “art world” and the offices, movements, orders, and parties which are presented in social forums and venues are the tail end of the Reformation. I will discuss this more shortly.</p><p>To consider influence as described with art we should consider the desires of the actors. There are different groups with different desires each tugging an edge of the same garment. Primary among these would, it seems to me, be the artists, but we should perhaps start with the experts, then collectors, and merchants, and following these would be the ignorant masses, upon whom a great deal is inflicted. Let’s discuss experts first and then go on to artists last.</p><p>What do each of these groups desire and what ways can the others shape the behavior and perceptions back and forth? <br />Let’s take scholars first, as I first introduced a scholar, maybe this is the best place to start. I think it would be naïve and ridiculous to proceed from the idea that the scholar is coming from a position of love of art, or philanthropy. The scholar can be considered synonymous with the expert. To describe their desires and motives, it must first be understood that art is, again, unimportant in any terms one might consider art who, say, simply desired to experience art. Their purpose and actions involve authority, hierarchy, deception, and obfuscation. Their interest is prestige and authority as an expert. This involves such things as disregarding facts and science, as these threaten to undermine the magic charms, and rickety reasoning of the expert. Examples of this can be seen in the documentary “Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock” by filmmaker Henry Moses. This film gives the story of a 73 year old former trucker, Teri Horton, and her attempts to authenticate and sell a Jackson Pollock she purchased in a thrift store for $5.00. Even after the discovery of Jackson Pollock’s finger prints on the canvas, and paint consistent with the paint on his well preserved studio floor found in microscopic speckles in the painting, experts refused to acknowledge authenticity. An expert formerly affiliated with the MOMA in New York City, replied, that though science is interesting it doesn’t prove anything. A painting is not factually a painting attributed to an artist until it is, and I am paraphrasing, given authentication as a bestowal. Until experts allow it, a work is not art. What this indicates is that fact is irrelevant according to the expert. The “art world” is here assumed as not an art world but an entirely different cosmos where physical laws, and fact have tiny importance, or even more laughable, do not apply at all. This special cosmos has rulers and priests known as experts. </p><p>This is not laughed away, though it is ridiculous. It is a very ancient and superstitious cult. Attendant to this superstitious mime of another special cosmos where the rules of the expert apply, are “mouthes”, incantations, ritual gestures, and speaking in tongues. <br /> <br />The “art world” as charted by the expert demonstrates an interesting shift in value. Value in the ranges of the experts is based in art business: art as stocks, and investments. Prestige has a high place as well but is derivative of financial matters and does not stand alone as a value. The expert takes the position of declaring what is valuable. Their bestowals can include the designation “important” or that work is executed by a “Master”. How one becomes a master or what constitutes importance is largely nonsense, gibberish, and magic words. Vague terms, and very poor attempts at poetry are used and are the easy clues used to discern the hocus pocus. These terms tend to imply that only sensitives and prophets can understand them. Declarations on the “Use of…” this that or the other quality like color or texture, as well as claims of jokes (which are invariably humorless) that are hidden and subtle, place the non-expert in a contemptible position. A position that could lead to scorn if they attempt to dismiss the nonsense they are given.</p><p>In regard to the expert it must be kept in mind their demand is to accept fantasies, and boogey men. It is a power play, and an overt power play. Bertrand Russell once wrote “Since power over human beings is shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than pleasure.” A step further than this, a step to even greater demonstration of power, is to cow the victim into admitting they like what they do not, and even volunteering to suffer it, contrary to sense or pleasure. If one sits and watches an art expert at work (whether dealer, or curator, or teacher) they give over a hard sell. A hard sell with deep scorn and derision, name calling, mockery, and brow beating. They attempt wit, but it usually fails, people will laugh, but the nervous laugh following release from direct stress. Under stress people will accept a great deal of nonsense.</p><p>For example in regard to the word “Master” the meaning is not one would accept in regard to any other profession or endeavor, as the word is meant in the “art world”. If one is a master of something, the general meaning and understanding gives over the idea that the master has a thorough knowledge of something with which they work. This is not what is meant by “Master” in the “Art world” of experts. “Master” among experts is something like a saint, but also a magician. It is the erection of a personality cult to a “Master” in the arts. Picasso describes this, situation mentioning how it is not the artist’s work that matters, but who the artist is. In other words, the work is a magical souvenir from an art deity. As you will be aware, name value is paramount, regardless of the work in the “art world”. This is because it is a magic charm, a sliver of the true cross, the index finger of John the Baptist, or any other bogus trinket sold to the gullible or greedy (the greedy will sell it later at a profit to another gull.) Master is a synonym for Saint, God, or Angel. Experts include inflated histories and legend to the “Master” when missionizing them or when attempting to derive authority from them. </p><p>In any other walk of life, anywhere outside the art world, this would be considered stupid, which is the great triumph of the expert. They can flaunt their overtly silly powers, the ridiculous fantasies, in front of their victims, and know the victims will defend then and support them, when reason is introduced. The purpose is to make a joke of people, control a crowd, for others to see and admire, and fear. To induce futility to opposition is another purpose. </p><p>The expert is not an expert of art. Of those I have spoken to I have been consistently surprised at how little expertise they have. Often they can tell anecdotes about the artists with whom they have casually acquainted themselves. This sometimes consists of a story about the artist’s rude behavior (as if this is admirable or meant to evoke some affection for eccentricity). Always trivia is offered. On occasion dates are used to scare, or names of obscure patrons are offered up. But any information that is not superficial is unknown. The trick is to include dates, names, foreign terms, or authorities to intimidate and beguile. The same areas of weakness demonstrated in high school history exams are exploited by the expert. The expert preys on ignorance, flattery and bullying.</p><p>Their influence cannot be said to extend to the arts. Their interests are not the arts, but are instead prestige and power. Art is a convenient, easy and malleable garment in which they can dress their power hunger, but it is not the hunger itself. I know of few artists who worry or adhere to the demands and advice of experts, and those who do tend to be very small groups, who as artists have no great sweep of influence, and often leave art aside as a hobby. This is because a necessary aspect of expert rivalries is supplanting the next guy. The transitory loyalties given by artists to experts are based in obscurity and fashion trends and vice versa. Fashions change quickly, and the artist who was “influential” standing on the train of the expert is quickly thrown off in favor of better pickings. This becomes tiresome except to the most deeply invested. Often this rung of the art world is based in totalitarian attempts, that on a large scale fail miserabley. Orwell describes some aspects of totalitarianism that fit the attempts of the expert very well:</p><p>"From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revelation of prominent historical figures. This kind of thing happens everywhere, but is clearly likelier to lead to outright falsification in societies where only one opinion is permissible at any given moment. Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth."</p><p>The art experts success in respect to power is inflicted only on a small group that consider themselves elect, and are of little concern to the rest of mankind.<br />I think “experts” as an influence can be dismissed in regard to art. They are not concerned or involved with the arts. They do not produce or know art, nor do they especially like it. They do not negatively affect art either. They do however know bureaucracy and “organizations” that claim power over arts. But this is an attempt to install authority where none is necessary. Their reach and prestige is very limited and falls short of actual influence. In what may be an ungenerous personal opinion, I think experts are a generally unenergetic and unimaginative group, whose pretentions tend to counteract their effective tactics.</p><p><br />With some acquaintance of the expert and their lack of influence, we can go onto another group, the collector. I recall reading, I think two years ago, an article in The Guardian about the 100 most influential people in the arts. The top spots were taken by business men, experts and dealers. This is mysterious, and misrepresents, in the way of propaganda, art and the arts. What this was a description of economics. Who has the most money in the arts is not the same thing as influence in the arts. What is more is with the power of advertising and expensive galas, the issue becomes even more clouded. These are diversions, and possibly entertaining and glamorous, but have little influence. These events are for collectors, and buyers, as are lists such as the 100 most influential people in the arts. These are ads. </p><p>The business of trading what the expert has certified, falls to the collector and the dealer. Collectors have some interesting motives, especially the top collectors, and they do hold influence. They, like the expert, desire power, but their main occupations and work is not exclusively tied to arts. In a Roman sense of civic duty many collectors find it important to maintain and keep collections which are donated to the public, or open to the public, also having the benefit that the collections holds their name, and subordinate the names of the artists within the collection. This almost implies some part in the production of the work, but is a vanity. As with the Romans this is very prestigious and is a testament to their wealth and power. The Steve Wynn collection, for example, is a collection of names showing how rich is the collector who owns those names. It is aristocratic. Teri Horton’s difficulties in authenticating and selling her Pollock are not based on concerns of the painting. They are because she is a lower social class. Pollock’s paintings are not the possession of the lower social classes. If they were they would diminish the value. The purpose in owning a Pollock is to own something that proclaims prestige, and elitism. When the rabble gets their hands on it, what is it worth? <br />Prestige is not the only motive, and sometimes not the strongest motive. Sometimes it is only a temporary motive. Resale is also a strong motive. Collectors from all over the globe have been known to purchase works by artists they do not know, and whose work they will never see. It is stock. After maturing for a year or two these stocks are sold for twice the purchase price. Proper advertising for these business deals involve the above galas, magazine articles, etc, etc.</p><p>Sometimes collections can become very specialized and collectors will collect the rare and extravagant, with no plans to sell. Other times they may collect all things regarding a single subject. I mention this because, as with the expert, this has little to do with art. These are concerns regarding ownership and sale of valuables.<br />This is not to say there aren’t some collectors of art who love art. It is to say, that when it comes to collecting, love of art plays a small role. Also it is saying that collectors do not influence art.<br />Objections to this have been raised in discussions, by pointing out art markets are an undeniable part of art and the art world. I would continue to reject this in regard to the subject of influence in art. I would point out that art existed prior to the current state of economics and the art world, or art markets. What is more is the art markets and world are incredibly unstable, and competitive, so do not exist as anything like actual structures or ordered systems but are a convenient general description of the opportunism and greed surrounding art, whatever form it takes. Though they may influence each other, collectors and experts do not influence art. This becomes very clear when you ask the simple question: What is art? They tend to have few answers, and when answers are provided they are usually silly.</p><p>People who buy art are not necessarily collectors. An art buyer is just this, someone who buys art. Too many motives exist for the art buyer to be tackled. They are not influential to art. It hasn’t been my experience that art buyers put much effort or thought into being an influence (unlike the expert and collector). I haven’t heard anything to this effect either. There don't seem to be movements started by art buyers to promote their candidates or products as they have none. The art buyer seems to be self gratifying, and benign.</p><p>The Art Dealer is a troublesome issue, both in regard to influence and in attempting to generally describe who and what they are. Dealers are not a single entity, or movement. They range from elite dealers to simple salesman. As the simple salesman it is not uncommon that failing at art dealing these salesman turn to real estate. There is no real difference in their selling tactics, and the two things are related in a way as many lower wrung art dealers concern themselves with home décor. The elite, inner rings of dealers are something like car dealers who know how to throw a good party. These two things are also related. Knowing how to indulge people and appeal to vanity is very important. Their influence (top to bottom) is surprising. When successful, these people are not stupid. While experts and collectors deal in their private realms and arenas of concern, the dealer is closer to the public. Whether elite or common they perform the same function. While experts attempt to assemble doctrines as rival popes, and collectors interact like princes, the dealer is the missionary and parish priest. They know their flocks and how to speak with their flocks. They know the hopes and fears (as small as that may be regarding art) of their flocks. Often they act like museum docents and will recite contrived histories (often packaged by art publishing houses) as if they were speaking casually. Strangely, like the local priest, the flock will follow the dealer’s doctrines and interpretations believing they are the doctrines of the Pope, never knowing the difference between the words and concerns of the expert and that of the dealer. The higher wrung dealer may eventually find himself as an expert or consultant (just as medieval bishops were elevated as political offices from the secular realms), but the lower wrung dealers don’t need to elevate themselves to be influential. Though the expert may content themselves with wrangling over occult art doctrines and philosophies, the average dealer actually creates the common language and conceptions of art among the general public. The public who watches television, reads local papers, attends local events, etc. repeat and follow the conceptions and creeds of the dealer. Often dealers need only mention New York, or a famous name to press their ideas, and silence doubt. Invariably these dealers tie themselves, as much as possible, to local or regional civic institutions. Appearing on boards, committees, and councils, they acquire influence over what will be presented to the public. What the public has learned and what they believe is art is largely due to the art dealer. It might be assumed that the art educator has something to do with this and so they do, but they also know art under the beliefs of the dealer, not the expert. The dealer’s speech is a common, easily understood and accepted set of rules and flatteries. Even if one has been educated in art, their art education is subordinate, as may be imagined to their desire to teach philanthropically. Both teachers and dealers refer to “getting things out there” and making art as though these ideas are important if only symbolic. There is a superstitious belief, a folk belief in the magic and goodness of art. This supposed philanthropy, and optimism, is a simple device they can be used to profit. Often dealers will, while hinting at aristocratic hopes and classiness, give over a claim of community and artophilia. All they do, it is claimed, is done for love of art, and the artist, and only in a remote and secondary way is business involved. A newspaper headline I came across offered: “le commerce d’art: Passion, more than money, is at core for gallery owners”. The Frenchisms are annoying but not directly the fault of the dealers interviewed. It also restated the idea more thoroughly, “"A passion for art, a close relationship with their “suppliers” and the love of going to work every day are why most gallery owners are in business. And it’s not an ordinary business: Their interest is more about the art than making money and more about working together than being competitive." This is, of course, silliness and marketing, and it is not unusual. The idea is perpetuated that the art dealer is doing everyone a favor. By extension art institutions, and committees peopled with dealers and marketers, stress they are also there to do everyone a favor, though the nature of this favor and the evidence of the favor are unclear.</p><p>There is a form of influence that the dealers exert which have reverberations and is visible. It can be observable. In this they are more potent than the expert, or the collector. The dealer, like the expert and collector, are not interested in art. Some would argue that interest in art is unnecessary, and in personal conversation with dealers they have gone further and declared interest in art a stumbling block. One dealer informed me that artists starve because they get in their own way, where a dealer who is not tied to the work can acquire it cheap and sell it at a good price because they have no personal interest in the thing. Sentimentality is detrimental in sales. Perhaps this is true, and one might be tempted to credit them for their honesty, unlike the snake oil experts, and aristocratic collectors. But that credit may be premature. </p><p>The art dealer is a salesman, and deals with product. It is unclear if art is a product, but it doesn’t matter whether it is or not sales can still occur. Often when paintings are sold as simply paintings, anonymous and uncertified, they are deemed of little worth. Instead, following reason given by Picasso, the thing, the painting, the product is irrelevant. It is who made the product that makes it important. This then makes art a service. A somewhat mystical service, but a service. It isn’t quite like the average service one might expect from a trained professional. It is like the services performed in a carnival side show, and the dealer is the carnival barker. You know you are going in to the side shows and freak shows to see something fake, or something scandalous. In either case, the subject of the side show is placed in a setting; a set might get the idea across more clearly. A fictional environment is created to accommodate the nonsense narrative and mystique the barker is weaving. This is influential. Artists attempt to adhere to the fictions of the barking dealer. They will change their work, alter their demeanor, and espouse contrived and hollow ideas.</p><p>The seeds for this are implanted early. As I previously mentioned the art dealer is the source of art education. The simple reason from the perspective of the dealer is education allows them to prepare futures adherents. All the terms and ideas of the dealer are repeated in the schools. I recall field trips in elementary and high school to art galleries. We were informed of the graces of the gallery. What is more, the teachers in art classes prepare art students for submission to art galleries, by setting up their own internal galleries and shows. <br />This educational element is especially disturbing. I would like to quote Bertrand Russell on this point: “The power of education in forming character and opinion is very great and very generally recognized. The genuine beliefs, though not usually the professed precepts, of parents and teachers are almost unconsciously acquired by most children; and even if they depart from these beliefs in later life, something of them remains deeply implanted, ready to emerge in a time of stress or crisis. Education is, as a rule, the strongest force on the side of what exists against fundamental change: threatened institutions, while they are still powerful, possess themselves of the educational machine, and instill a respect for their own excellence into the malleable minds of the young. Reformers retort by trying to oust their opponents from their position of vantage. The children themselves are not considered by either party; they are merely so much material, to be recruited into one army or the other. If the children themselves were considered, education would aim at making them belong to this party or that, but enabling them to choose intelligently between parties; it would aim at making them able to think, not making them think what their teachers think.”</p><p>Russell’s reformers and their retorts do not exist in educational systems with regard to art. I recall challenging the ideal of the gallery in a high school art class and the teacher informed me: with thinking like mine I would end up “living by the river.” This may turn out to be the case, but this does not preclude knowledge of art. Observing students it is not hard to see they often alter their thoughts and opinions based on the favor of teachers. I recently took a pre-test version of the SAT test. On taking the test and checking my score I was surprised to find how many of my answers were wrong in the reading comprehension section. Going over those answers, I analyzed them to see where I went wrong and compared them to the correct answers. In every case the answer I chose was logically correct (or as close as possible with what was offered.) I knew a lady who worked creating the tests for one of the testing companies that make the test prep for the SAT. I asked her what went wrong with my test, and proposed the idea that it seemed it didn’t matter what the correct answer was in terms of logic, but rather correct in terms of what the tester wanted to see. She informed me my idea was exactly right. The students need to navigate through the classes and their teachers, and give the answers teachers want to hear, or else they will not succeed in their college classes. This submissive conditioning monopolizes art education.<br />It is interesting where I live the more successful galleries and gallery owners are also tied to cultural and art educational committees. These committees and institutions continually stress their position as educators. I was informed by a disillusioned member of one of these committees that the “cultural” and “educational” aspects had to do with business interests in town and nothing to do with art, or “culture”. It was meant to educate, and train people to heed marketing calls. </p><p>The terms and ideas of art given as education are the same terms and ideas to be found as the premise of gallery sales. My mother, who is also an artist, recalls when schools introduced these and excluded all other possible ideas of art in the 1950’s. In the current situation 50 years of childhood indoctrination are in place.<br />Contemporary artists (in the temporal sense not any movement) have been trained to pander and respond to the desires and standards of merchants. I do not mean to suggest that merchants are evil, or sneering should be their due. I mean to suggest the interests of the merchant are not the interests of art and should not guide expectation or the behavior of artists. Nor should the desires of merchants be the standard of art generally taught. Education is influential. It does not produce art, it clouds, blinds, and redirects. It offers unfounded and mysterious ideas. Some ideas are that artists are oppressed, art is created by magicians, people have to go learn secret art languages to understand art, art is filled with messages, art is expression, art is emotion, art is therapy, every idea is sacrosanct, and many other stirring, mystical notion - superstitious notions. None of these hold water, but are good for fables to induce sales. Each idea has a valuable, market tested, notion from freedom fighting and heroism, to magic relics and snake oil. Again the carnival barker, but as if the carnival barker was also the mayor and head of the school board.</p><p>What is alarming is some very insightful and smart people will parrot the dealer party line with great sincerity. Tolstoy, in What is Art notes a similar idea, and I didn’t agree with his theory of art, but I do think he was onto something about the susceptibility of even very smart people to the halo effect of art. Art has had a very strange history, and has a reputation as “the extraordinary experience.” Art, regardless of party lines, has a subterranean tradition that hints at the uncanny. People desire this uncanny, indistinct, thought. In some cases, people accept something as art without scrutiny that they would otherwise reject as hocus pocus. I heard an interview with what sounded like a very clear thinking and thoughtful lady. She was the interviewer, and was interviewing the author of a controversial book about standards in fiction. To validate a counterpoint she mentioned that Jackson Pollock has given us a new way to see. This struck me as very strange, because it was meant to be understood- a given or accepted idea that was unassailable. What exactly does “new way to see” mean? I’ve seen this phrase elsewhere, especially in hagiographies about artists. It is a sales statement, a vaguery with mystical sentiment, but meaningless. There is no new way to see. Maybe x-ray photos or infrared imaging are newish ways to see, but on examination no, no they aren’t, they just use machines to translate data to be accessible to our old way of seeing. “New” is the key word. Just like New and Improved dish soap. </p><p>As an example of the extent of this influence, and doctrinal connections handed down to the unsuspecting I would like to point out a simple but telling example. It is very common that books, including college text books, having anything to do with philosophy, politics, psychology, or other subject implying intellectual sophistication have cover illustrations taken from a piece of 20th century modern art. There is no reason for this, and at times the philosophy, politics and psychology is contradictory to the views of the artists who adorn the covers. This is irrelevant as the artist is just there as a signal to the gullible. New improved art is intellectually superior to old art, and any book showing the new art must be equally new and profound. Books that do not fit, and must be seen as quaint are usually covered by a painted portrait, Renaissance scene, or statuary. It is unclear why a 20th century painter who is not a modern artist (in any sense derivative of the art movement) does not adorn the cover of a science, or philosophy book. It is not subject matter, as many modernists took on ancient themes. It is the signal style used as a marketing device that fools the consumer to think they are smart, deep, profound, and sophisticated. The connection between intelligence, depth, profundity, or sophistication are unclear, but are touted as the advertising line of dealers for this art. Many of the artists whose work are validated in the 20th century as Modern, post modern etc, and who adorn book covers are watered down derivatives of Hegel (1770-1831), so not as fresh or immediately important as they may appear. The artists work is placed on the cover for the same reason the “NEW” and “NOW” stamps are emblazoned on cereal boxes. <br />The influence of the art dealer is very real- in a negative way. <br /> <br />The artist is a complex issue and their influence is questionable. This may seem strange as it might be supposed the artist is extremely influential in regard to art. But the issue is clouded. As mentioned above, with the art dealer, definitions and ideas of art have been distorted. Artists are products of the educational system. Artists are not clearly identified. Who is an artist and who is not has become vague. Some artists have been trained to deny or evade the claim, humbly. How art became a princely position one would humbly deny is mysterious. It may be within the last two centuries with the “birth of the Artist” as something other than a person who does a thing but as a social icon. Whenever it was the lofty position is now denied by many who are reluctant to claim it. Equally many who claim the title should not. The position has become so muddled that it is even claimed everyone is an artist. This is in contrast to the exalted artist and could probably be termed the “vulgar artist”. There are artists but only to the elect who can understand the cant of their work. Imitations of science, politics, and religion abound with the artist supposedly acting the role of the scientist, politician, or prophet. There is a more touchy feely and less elite group who take a very Protestant turn in thinking of art. Art is a direct revelation between the individual and art (or God), and no man can dictate art to another, but we are all infused with a soul or rather the ability to make art. And due to the mere fact that an ensouled person has made it, all art is divine- regardless of its form, thoroughness or how effective it may be. It should not be thought that Protestantism frees one of elitism. Elitism and snobbery are constants in the arts (which should inform you that something is fishy.)</p><p>This idea of art is actually Protestant, and the ideas are derived from the Reformation. Art has become a religious issue, but in secular clothes. The terminology and the rationale were used in the Reformation. The clearest example that comes to mind is Conceptual art, which follows the lines of Iconoclasm. Conceptual art is based in an ineffable idea or concept. The “idea” should not be considered in a psychological sense, but a magical sense, or very roughly on Plato’s theory of ideas. The Concept or idea is Eternal and cannot exist in a state of becoming. That is, it doesn’t exist in time. After this initial theft of a philosophical concept, it then becomes entirely superstitious and an argument regarding whether god can inhabit stone. The ideas are given automatic importance simply because they are ideas. And these potent, important, eternal ideas cannot be truly described with material objects. The inventors of conceptual art, such as Duchamp, were involved with “anti-art” movements, and later carried the idea forward by attempting to dismantle traditional ideas of art as worthless. The Iconoclasts had similar ideas regarding God as ineffable and eternal, unable to be portrayed in materials. They also sought to destroy traditional icons (they followed the Biblical commandment regarding graven images.) The Iconoclasts destroyed icons, and this can also be said of conceptual artists. When conceptual artists argue their points they use the argumentation of the Reformation substituting “Idea” for God. They, like the Protestants in the Reformation oppose an old church. This old church of art does not exist, but the restrictions and failings of the Catholic Church are somehow applied to art, though the Church is not mentioned explicitly. The church is replaced by classes, educational levels, or other fools. Conceptual art and Dadaism have a tradition of scorn, jokes, and sneering. Jacques Barzun mentioned the problems with this situation:<br />“Nowadays anything put up for seeing or hearing is only meant to be taken casually. If it holds your eye and focuses your wits for even a minute, it justifies itself and there’s an end of it…<br />What I am bringing up for scrutiny is that if modern man’s most sophisticated relation to art is to be casual and humorous, is to resemble the attitude of the vacationer at the fairgrounds, then the conception of Art as an all important institution, as a supreme activity of man is quite destroyed. One cannot have it both ways-art as a sense-tickler and a joke is not the same art that geniuses and critics have asked us to cherish and support. Nor is it the same art that revolutionists call for in aid of the Revolution.”</p><p>That museums and important shows include art unable to convey ineffable ideas, sometimes “absurdist” presentations or jokes, undermines the purpose behind museums. Artists tearing down art, or claiming it is impossible is contradictory.</p><p>To be fair, though I don’t sincerely think the things are related, signs of distortion and self doubt infest the so-called Realists. (I say “so called” because they are not exactly Realists in a technical sense, as Realism was a late 19th century movement and has little in common with paintings or artwork that looks like something real, or recognizable.) The self doubt has become so ingrained that assurances of past saints and genealogies, art blood lines, are used to verify ones status as an artist. As if attempting to show aristocratic lineage, Realists often trace their techniques and training back to the Great Masters. It is difficult for me to look to badly on this practice as it is somewhat acknowledged in some Realists who are more and more insisting on an Age of Reason within the arts. These artists would prefer to keep the techniques without the aristocratic tones, and leave the saints and bloodlines behind. In my opinion this seems very good in that what was good from the past can be maintained, without inhibiting or passing reactionary judgments on new inventions. It may have an undesirable effect for some, but one I think is good. It would diminish the snobbery and aristocracy in the arts relying only on results and thorough scrutiny on the part of artists. This said, the aristocratic, reactionary, tendencies among realists is prevalent.</p><p>This is just a small section of a confusing dilemma. Other “artists” and types could be brought in and we would be no closer to discovering what an artist is, exactly, and then what is their influence.<br />We can state, fairly clearly, that the influence of the artist is minimal to such things as the art world. But the art world, and its citizens, as I have hopefully shown, are not concerned with art, and the dealer only in so far as they can obscure and hide art to make anything they term art saleable. We can also state, with artists denying their actions, and non artists claiming abilities they do not possess, that without identity, personal identity or surety of their own endeavors, an artist can have little influence even on art.</p><p>There is another problem to consider with the artist, and it deals with the direct meeting with the dealer. It has become a standard belief that artists are mad, and foolishly some artists have adhered to this silly steroetype. But the stereotype is a market invention. As are ideas that artists should starve for their labors, artists are unable to function without agents, artists are mystics, etc. This creates a general image of the artist as a fool, or an idiot savant- a genius and a fool in useful ways. This is contrivance, but artists assist this degrading nonsense. They do so because it is traditional to do so, but also out of desperation. The starving artist is a real situation, though there is plenty of money in the markets that trade art. The artist has no force on this market, and this is due to laziness established in the past and made tradition at present. The dealer exploits this, but the artist performs it. The situation is described in the inquisitors speech to Jesus in the Brothers Kramazov: </p><p>"Oh, never, never can they feed themselves without us! No science will give them bread so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.' They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious. "<br />And this is exactly what happens. Artists gladly turn over all freedom, choice and controlover to "art executives" and merchants, without seriously considering the idea that they should feed themselves, or take control of their own works. They accept the situation, somewhat gladly, and indulge in their claims of madness and fallibility. This may say something about the characters who call themselves artists, and it may equally tell a great deal about who exploits them.</p><p>It would seem that an artist should be ultimately influential to art. They are derived from art, especially skilled in this thing, and decide what parts they will relay and what parts they will enlarge to pass along. This might be assumed. But more and more, artists accept stereotypical roles, styles, and directions from non artists. They dismiss history, accept social pressures, they are destructively passive and cowardly (whether this is due to conditioning or not is open to discussion.) <br />Artists may be overmatched. They are certainly out numbered. The thing, presumably, that occupies the artist’s time and energies is the furtherance of art. The social, political, and economic chess games involved with the “art world”, the decoy given to mass audiences in lieu of art, is a secondary or tertiary concern. To those who profit from art in various ways (such as those cases listed above) their “art world” can be a full time job. Part of their prosperity is based in victimizing artists, and exploiting the weaknesses and inability involved with the attempt to serve two masters: art and the art world. This exploitation, all of their professional energies can be used to undermine and dismantle art. Again the Inquisitor in the Bothers Karamazov describes a like situation with the church, and how it had to destroy the words and freedoms given by Jesus, in Jesus name.</p><p>I hate to admit, artists have very little influence on art. This suggests something important. If those who do influence art, the dealers, do so in a negative way (they obscure art from knowledge and knowledge of art is necessary for art to continue) and those who would be artists are not even sure if they are artists so cannot be said to add anything to art, then we can say knowledge of art is diminishing, maybe even gone. Knowledge of art, and experience of art, is of primary importance to its propagation. If no one knows what art is, no one knows if they have or have not experienced it, aside from being present when something someone has reverently termed “art” is passed under their nose. Then it has to be admitted art is lost. The destructive influence has succeeded. It is important and a good sign that the negative influence must be continually inflicted on the hapless. This means some impulse is not easily snuffed out.</p><p>I should probably mention there are conspicuous, even propagandist, claims that there is more art now than has ever been before. This may seem to deny what I am offering here. But this suggestion of prosperity is easily handled. It falls to pieces when the question “What is art?” is posed because no one seems to know, or will even discuss the idea (as if it were taboo), especially those claiming to be artists. When they do their definitions or ideas are alarmingly uniform, and more alarmingly dismissed in light of science. In fact the definitions are usually a century or more old when many aspects of the functions of the brain were not yet discovered. The concepts of what art may be are antique, and long since demonstrated as faulty. But even without this question the claims fail when one asks for clarity on what makes an artist, and why would certain things be called art, as opposed to others. How do we know this army of artists and all their products are art at all and not, as it seems, just some stuff that was made? All we can really say about the claim is that many people find it important to say they are artists, and it is important for some interested parties to advertise the health of art, even if they cannot back up this advertisement. Beyond this the claim of health is dubious.</p><p>There are things to consider. If the most influential force in art is destructive and this destruction is enacted through obfuscation, the likelihood of a cure seems doubtful. So much of art has been buried and removed from experience it seems difficult to rebuild what has been lost and it often seems doubtful whether it can be restored, or furthered at all. No one knows what or how to pick up the baton. Dealers though destructive, are not destructive in an active and cunning way against art, or the generating factors of art, even if they were at one time. The art dealer is also a victim of their own procedures. They behave in a traditional role of carnival barker, but could not innovate this barking, and do not know the base upon which it is built. They are in the same straits as the artist who does not know what they do or why, and cannot press forward. We are destructive or impotent traditionally, not through individual circumstance, or discovery. Likewise we are defensive traditionally- bickering over subjects that are long dead.</p><p>I once proposed a hypothetical situation I would like to bring up again. Let’s consider the first artist. We don’t need to connect this person with any age or movement specifically; we just have to place them as the inventor. When this first artist created their first artwork they cannot have had in mind the idea “I want to make a piece of art”, because no such thing existed, and they could not be attempting to remake or re-induce this “art”. The first artist was doing something else. Art was a side effect. This isn’t just hypothetical. Much of the history of art, even stretching into the 20th century (outside cosmopolitan and sophisticated centers) was the result of a separate endeavor. Artists created things to make doors, or thresholds, “holes” in the cosmos, vehicles in which to ride and visit death, rebuild the dead, etc. They did not set about making art, they set about going somewhere or manifesting what was magical. If it worked it was called art. Nothing was made to fit in a standard of art. Like magic charms certain spells and techniques were found to be effective such as paintings, songs, statuary, etc. but the intent was not to make art. If the first artist was not attempting to make art, but did so, why would we assume the second artist attempting to make art would succeed? Would it be unreasonable to think that the second artist, removed from the generating intention of the first artist, would only imitate some qualities of the first artists work, and create a diminished thing? To carry it further, would the 70th generation artist bear any spark of the motivating factor of the first if they are only attempting to imitate the product of the first artist? It would seem to me the chance of making art would grow more remote the more one tried. To create art, it seems one must be doing something else aside from making art. It seems that art would be a side effect or vehicle. </p><p>Let’s take the vehicle idea and look at it like this: If the first artist had made a boat to sail to a destination we can understand the process. The artist would have to experiment, and invent to build the thing that would allow him to get across the water. Instead of joining the artist in his adventure, the following “artists” would rebuild the boat, simply for the prestige and wonder of having a boat. Having a boat may be fine, but if you don’t know how or why to use it, it is silly. What’s more: the following artists try to sail the boat on land without altering it, without a destination. They just want the boat, and they expect the boat has magical properties. They remake boats without reason or cause. This isn’t a silly model. This situation has occurred. It is called imitative magic, thanks to Frasier, and has myriad faces.<br /><br />The next artist would perhaps like to travel over land somewhere or go to the moon more quickly and to some end. They would then create art as a side effect of their other endeavor. They would not be the second artist. They would be another first artist. Art doesn’t have a lineage, and every artist is a first artist, though the experience of art has been well known and wide spread.</p><p>Influence in art outside the reach of artists does not stand alone as a malady. There is something that has allowed this to occur. The potential for commerce, even commodification, has been in place for a very long time, and yet have been ineffective. All of the “corruptions” in the arts are borrowings from old manners, ideas, or practices and applied to art now because they can be. Some situation in art has gradually weakened and allowed other matters to intrude, where previously it was held sacrosanct, and was untouched. This can be traced fairly far back into western history, and seems to have relationships to courts as opposed to the peasantry. Welsh court bards complained of the corruption of the poetic laws, and the lowering of standards among the lesser peasant bards, for example. Plato gives distinction to art as something already at odds. He mentions “techne”, and forms of craftsmanship involved with creating likeness, but he avoids “art”, and its related concepts which were termed “extraordinary experience” and connected with the divine and magic. Plato suggests art is dangerous because of its ability to create illusions and alter emotions. With Plato there was a conflict the intellectual propriety maintaining control of one’s sense, and the “arrheton”. Plato dismissed art as illusion and suggested his Republic could do without. This shows that art was still powerful and known, if held in counterpoint to a more controlled and what was assumed a practical set of ideas. Greek religious rites and festivals were “arts” that were healthy and vibrant concurrently with skepticism and attempts at science. Even now, with art’s religio-magical history, it isn’t in conflict with science and reason, or religion. </p><p>Some component has been slipping away, where before it seemed somewhat unassailable. If you accept what I have claimed above, that art is negatively influenced by dealers, and an “art world”, and you may be tempted to believe that the component has something to do with money. And in some simple ways it does. In a complex way it does not. Dealers should be susceptible to art as well they should be under its influence. Plato did not deny the power of art, he did not prefer it, but he also noted you could tell a people by their music. Dealers should not sit outside its influence, nor should experts, collectors, or other indifferent persons. The situation of a most influential should never have come up. Dealers should not, even through education, have the ability to blind.<br />Art was a rarity, and people would travel distances to experience art. It was not everywhere, and aspects of art prevent it from being everywhere (I won’t get into that here). People are born unaware of art, but its rumor was enough to kindle fame and excitement when art was remote. If art is missing now, it should be easy enough to excite people to seek it out, as it is, by its nature, incredible, exciting, and interesting.</p>Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701847656220526311.post-11854750161453978032008-09-04T10:06:00.000-07:002016-07-12T21:51:24.072-07:00The StrangeTale of The Dollhouse<br />
I will address your inquiry directly, as it repeats the same errors of every reporter, journalist and researcher thus far. I feel no need to offer further defense. I do think a summary is in order to, once again, correct some misconceptions. Briefly, it has been said: every man who hates women only hates one woman. In ways I resent that this saying has been applied to me, for in my pride I believe myself to be far too complex for so simple a sentiment, and what is more pertinent, I cannot claim to hate women whatever my difficulties with them may be or have been.<br />
Concerning the doll house and the mysterious events surrounding it, I am a very distant and peripheral participant. Perhaps, I have called up some attention, invoked it, and placed myself as the focus of speculation through my bombastic claims and articles on the subject. On retrospect this was over enthusiastic, but based in sincere interest and confusion.<br />
Regarding my relationship to Anne, we were friends but this did not extend into the personal relationship that has been suggested by some. We were never close. I can safely say she is the strangest friend, and the most distant friend I have ever had. The scandalous conjectures are baseless, and I know nothing, with certainty, of her fate.<br />
It is true I am in possession of the only known "evidence" that the doll house existed. This is three old Polaroid’s- all three unsteady and blurred, and an impossibly elaborate blue print, tattered and in parts illegible. This is all that has been assembled from sources other than Anne, and these pieces of evidence may well be hoaxes or concoctions. When I obtained the blue print it was intimated it was a first prototype rather than the end product of the doll house. The internal documentation of the doll house is confined strictly to my note books based on conversations I had with Anne, and later, just before her disappearance, Anne’s diaries.<br />
The diaries must be viewed in some context, or perhaps with some allowances. One of these allowances might include Anne may have gone insane. The diaries are filled with essays, thesis, and half thought notes in the clearer portions. The less comfortable sections involve unsteady philosophical tangents on the metaphysics of the doll house. I am uncertain if metaphysics can be applied to a man made structure, but she uses the term "metaphysics" in her essays several times. Borrowings from Plato and Aristotle are evident, and retuned, or perhaps a suggestion of an occult language used to describe universals and forms, respectively, is tentatively offered. The underlying assertion aims at the realization of eternal perfection resident in the doll house.<br />
I cannot dismiss this lightly as the thinking is subtle and quite honestly I don’t fully understand many of her references and conclusions. As these were private diaries, I suppose this is forgivable and understandable. They certainly are not proofs, but let me state they are still profound, and difficult to assign to sanity, or delusion. The last several pages of her final diary are apparently diagrams of patterns from linoleum floors whose geometry has been translated into musical notation. This seems the intent, but whether this is accurate or possible is outside my easy understanding. The reason for this exercise is unclear in the writing and may simply have been a puzzle for her amusement.<br />
The full account of Anne's history with the doll house was first given to me the night I met Anne at a social gathering. The nature of this gathering is unimportant and all but forgotten. This gathering was neither oriented toward business, nor celebration, but with the misleading claim of both. As can be expected it was tiresome and boring. The boredom was lifted when I was introduced to Anne.<br />
Before this strays into the usual common, and faulty, assumption, let me relate I was not romantically moved by Anne. I will offer no descriptions of how she looked then or what I thought of her as these will become sentimental narrative. I will end up painting her instead of offering events. I feel it very important this account tread as accurately and purely as possible. I don't want to give over many "seemings" as they are too easily misinterpreted. I will say she was subtly odd in our surroundings, but not jarringly so. Her speech was strange, very clear, and precise, and with something like an accent just below the surface. It wasn’t clearly identifiable. Not German, or Italian, no real or constant hints of foreign linguistic patterns, it was more that her English sang a different song than all other English. Cadences and tones were patterned strangely. It was not histrionic or pretentious. At times her speech seemed harmonic to surrounding conversations (which made it hard to hear her) and at other times especially as she began her story, it clashed with the other voices in the room. As I’m sure is apparent, her voice was a distraction that called attention to other oddities that radiated from her casual and normal character.<br />
I was formally introduced to Anne, by a mutual friend. This friend seemed uncomfortable with her and was overtly shifting a burden onto someone else. Admittedly she was a beacon of silent calculation in a room of pandering laughter and overzealous business cheer. Her expressions were very calm, with no trace of a polite, social, smile. As has been related in several articles (usually with some unspoken implication of guilt), I have little tact. Perhaps it was thought best for the health of the party the two worst guests should be brought together and thereby spare the others. Whatever the reason, Anne was an instantly fascinating turn in the evening. After our initial greetings, and the departure of our mutual friend to circulate, Anne began talking. At first it was awkward as it seemed neither of us had much to tell the other. Abruptly as if she had come to some firm decision, her manner changed and I felt her focus on me. (I apologize if this seems inconsistent with my above claim to tell a pure factual story, but there are portions where my perspectives of the facts need be brought up, and concerning Anne’s charisma or personal aura, I’m afraid I have little external data.) She said "I am going to tell you a story."<br />
Here forward I will relate what she told me at the party as clearly as I recall, and this account will be supplemented by what little information I have been able to connect or uncover since my involvement. My speculations will be easily identified by uncertain words such as "seems" or "it is likely" etc. I will keep these to a minimum.<br />
On her sixth birthday Anne (her last name is still uncertain) received a doll house from her paternal great uncle, apparently called Henry Told. Who Henry Told was is entirely unclear. The name has been connected with several hoaxes and criminal scams since the 1840’s in England and the U.S., and is apparently akin to John Smith and John Doe as an overt means of noting a pseudonym. This pseudonym is very often connected with trickery or mysticism. Whether Anne was aware of this is unclear. The name should not dismiss the reality of the man. I have been contacted by anonymous persons who refer to Anne’s uncle indicating there is more to tell concerning him, he is indeed real, but I have uncovered nothing substantial.<br />
The doll house was 3’x3’x1½’ was a scale model of a narrow, simple, two story house. The house could be opened by means of a hinge descending one of its narrow sides. When opened the house revealed eight rooms. The left side of the house contained a dining room and family room on the bottom floor, two bedrooms and a bath on the top. The right side contained a kitchen and study on the bottom floor and the top floor was completely dedicated to a library. By Anne’s account the top floor was meticulously decorated and detailed. Miniature furniture, tiny paintings, lampshades with minuscule hand painted floral designs, drawers that could be opened in carved cabinets but most notable were the books in the library. The books were painted onto carved wooden blocks that fit onto the bookshelves. The choices of books depicted were extremely unusual. Included were Defoe’s Robinson<br />
Crusoe beside a copy of the less well known real account of Alexander Selkirk, the man upon whom Robinson Crusoe was based, by Captain Woods Rogers: A Cruising Voyage Round the World. Also present was the Divine Comedy, Don Quixote, the Count of Monte Christo, Euclid’s Elements, the History of the Rechabites, the High History of the Grail (the Perlesvaux), Plato’s Timeaus and Critias, Proclus’ Elements of Theology, the Picatrix, and several dozen other puzzling titles. This must be deemed a first clue to the intended purpose of the doll house. It is, of course, ridiculous to assume a six year old would know or care about these titles, when surely most adults have only met with a few of them. That they are not books must be held close to the surface. These were only names, titles. The books existed but not for Anne on her sixth birthday. This could either be construed as a private joke of the doll house’s architect, or as will become more evident, the beginning signals of manipulation.<br />
Anne had the doll house for two years without dolls. As she related dolls were not given with the doll house. This was deliberate. It seems it was a condition of owning the doll house, one accepted by her parents. I was told when Anne first received the house she improvised dolls out of some cloth she segmented with string. Her parents reprimanded her, insisting she play with the house, without what they called "useless toys." On scrutiny that phrase would indicate the doll house was not seen as a useless toy, it might be suggested they considered it neither toy nor useless. Anne described their attitude as a "Demand to meditate on the doll house." Little of this demand is open to verification as any information of Anne’s family, excluding Henry Told, has vanished. Anne insisted her parents held the doll house in deep regard, if for no other reason then its material value. They insisted she take very good care of her gift.<br />
I would not like to psychoanalyze this story, as I am so poorly qualified to do so, but their insistence on the value of the house may not have been innocence or greed. It may have been strategy. At the age of eight, with all other toys removed, and no other activities of note, Anne became very weary of her Gift. She was bored with the few variables of play offered by a miniature house. One day, in a petulant and spiteful mood, she took to abusing the doll house. This abuse was nothing overtly destructive. She removed the blocks of books from the library shelves and with her thumbnail began to carve notches in the soft pine edges. These marks were simple tight lines. As she progressed along one block her thumbnail penetrated unexpectedly deeply. A gap had been covered with wax. As she cleared away the wax she found that it had obscured a separation in the wood that could only be a cap that fitted on the end of the block. She removed the cap and found within the block a tightly rolled length of paper. This was the beginning.<br />
The paper when unraveled gave fairly simple instructions on how to "more fully open" the doll house. It took her several weeks to completely understand what the scrolled paper suggested she do. The paper referred to keys, items in the house that when shifted or placed in certain combinations opened latches. She experimented with theses keys in private. She discovered when the latches were undone the doll house, unfolded. Walls and floors unfolded like cheap game boards, but interlocked in geometric, architectural precision. The house doubled in size. New rooms appeared: a chapel, an observatory, a dungeon, a torture chamber, and a room that was filled with clocks. The most compelling new addition was the addition of a human figure. An old wizard or alchemist in heavy robes was illustrated on the wall of each room. It was something like an illustrated children’s book across the new walls. Unlike a children’s book there was only one phrase written above each picture, "Where will you find Prometheus?"<br />
This mysterious question did not, at first, capture Anne. She did puzzle over the illustrations and enjoyed the drawings of the old man. She attempted to narrate what he was doing room to room. She gave answers to why he stood scowling in the chapel, why he grinned at the stars in the observatory, why he was chained in the dungeon, why he was absent in the torture chamber, and why setting clocks in the room of clocks.<br />
With little else to do but consider the doll house, she became very familiar with the strange thing. It was nearly environmental.<br />
As with any environment it became extremely familiar in every detail. So much so she rarely thought on it further. It became boring, as it had before she found the opening keys. This situation of discomfort assembled she looked for anything new to relieve her boredom. Something was provided. In the room of clocks she noticed there were three clocks which were odd in details. One clock had no hands. On the other two clocks there were hands but no clock face. When she further inspected these clocks she found the clocks were thin circular pegs shallowly inserted into the wall of the clock room. She tried the pegs and found them easy to remove. On the backs of the pegs were further drawings. On the peg from the clock with no hands there was drawn a face of an anguished man. Likewise the pegs from the clocks with hands but no faces had drawings of hands; one right hand and one left. The right hand was drawn pointing, the left holding a full bag.<br />
After this discovery Anne began to search with extra attention. She quickly learned the system of labor and reward the house offered. She thoroughly searched and rearranged what she could in the doll house until she uncovered the remaining parts of "Prometheus."<br />
She eventually affixed all the parts of Prometheus onto the chair painted atop the wall of the deserted torture chamber. (The hands were attached to the arms of the chairs, the face above the back of the chair, the feet onto ends of the chair legs etc.) A torture device rendered above the chair was designed to look like an eagle, suggesting something of the myth of Prometheus. The house’s architect apparently had a strange method of education, and mnemonics.<br />
Prometheus led the clues forward, as his right hand, index finger extended, was affixed in its proper place. The finger pointed to a wall of the observatory. This wall, apparently, held a stylized Renaissance astronomical map. The finger pointed to the constellation Bootes. Anne investigated the wall and found the wall paper was a decal that was intended to be removed. Beneath this decal she found a tarot card, the hanged man. Written by hand on either side of the figure were the words "Judas" and "Prometheus." As is not uncommon, the hanged man held sacks in either hand (as the left hand on the Prometheus chair did.) Whether these sacks were meant to indicate the sacrifice for Zeus or Judas’ thirty pieces of silver at the Potter’s field is unclear.<br />
In any case, the back of the tarot card (when the card was removed) gave further instructions for opening the house.<br />
The doll house had many such puzzles. As she matured Anne went through what could be considered initiations, grades, and levels, all encased in the lessons of the doll house. Each task grew more difficult, more expansive, more varied. She was guided through history, philosophy, mathematics, art, calendars, astronomy, and several subjects as yet unarticulated by disciplines of their own.<br />
She explored, and expanded, the house by roughly two year intervals until she was eighteen. When fully unfolded the doll house took up most of her bedroom. The house was cleverly assembled to open in convenient parcels, while other sections remained unfolded. This, however, did not assist the inevitable limits imposed by the physical structure of the house. When fully extended the house was very fragile, no longer a house but a sheet.<br />
Anne attempted to describe the final puzzle of the doll house to me, but I regret to report (as I have before) it was too complex for my easy understanding. This last puzzle solved, the house gave over its final revelation, as it became a giant geographical map, with one 16th (or so) of one corner devoted to an architectural blueprint of another house. The details of the map were vague and yet precise. What geography the drawings mapped was entirely vague, and unnamed. The only clear location, was a point on the map marked "you are here" with a road that trailed at an unknown distance (the scale was not given) to a location marked with an "X". The road of this map was identical to the real road which ran outside her home, but no other detail of the map matched Anne’s location. Though the map was apparently a fiction, the directions from "you are here" to "X" were accurate.<br />
Anne restored the map to its original shape, placed it in her car, and (with the help of a smaller copy of the map she drew by hand) she set off for "X."<br />
After a drive of roughly an hour, Anne arrived at "X." It was not, as might be guessed a house just like her doll house. It was a house. It was a bright, somewhat plain, painted brick house in a suburban neighborhood. It was two and a half stories, and visibly empty. Among my Polaroids, there is a photo of a house that fits this description.<br />
It was neither a frightening nor conspicuous house. To describe it as average suburban would be factual.<br />
As I mentioned, she found no trace of habitation. After a short trek on a plain sidewalk, and weedy garden, she touched the house. She described the front door as oaken and carved in imitation of a Scandinavian church (which doesn’t quite agree with my Polaroid or her drab description of the exterior of the house-make of this what you will.) Within the tangled designs in the center of the door was a brass knob, which she carelessly turned, and thereby, entered. The door was not locked.<br />
This is the story as it went that night. She had moved into the house, by her own account. Whether she purchased the house, or was squatting I do not know. If you are familiar with the general outlines of the rest of the story you will know it is irrelevant whether legality was obeyed.<br />
Let’s be clear. I never went to the house. I never discovered the neighborhood where the house sat. Everything about this is by report. It may all be lies. What I saw Anne do, and what I experienced have convinced me only to the fact something was, and likely is, very strange. Murder may well be included in this strangeness. Then again it may not.<br />
I will continue. When Anne and I met, she had lived in the house for roughly a month. I found this story interesting enough, and we agreed to meet again at some later date. I gave her my phone number, which she sparingly dialed. We did meet several times over the next few years and can even be described as friends. We were never very close, but we were able to exchange casual stories in a passive conversational way, and I aggressively listened to her outrageous house tales, with the excitement with which she told them. It was our only real point of relationship. After a time my interest in the possibility of the doll house, and the real house became distracting. Consideration of the "doll house conspiracy" became my favorite pastime. I endeavored to research, very superficially, some of the strangeness attached to the story, notably "Henry Told." The more elaborate and unlikely the story seemed, the more I enjoyed thinking on it. I waited patiently, but hopefully to hear from Anne at more regular intervals. It was like waiting for one’s favorite author or musician to produce their next work.<br />
Anne didn’t disappoint. When we did meet, on those sporadic occasions, Anne offered some rare narratives. She reported that the house was continuing her education. No longer was she dealing with models, but with actual instruments, puzzles made of real things. Though uninhabited when she arrived, the rooms were sparsely furnished, but highly decorated. One room was empty except for a podium with a lone book open to a certain page (Anne, stubbornly, refused to tell me the book), another had a tapestry and mirror hanging in a room decorated with veils with cherubim embroidered on them. Another room had several musical instruments: viols, saxophones, flutes, etc. These instruments were intended to be musical instruments but not by their usual design, instead the clues indicated they were to be used as percussion instruments. These oddities confused and excited me. Anne, however, seemed bored. She offered that when solved the solutions to the rooms combined to make still other puzzles, and that as these puzzles separated "like cells" they became more diffuse, more mundane. The puzzles were becoming a description of everything in concurrent time. They were not puzzling, they were descriptive. They were a language of puzzles to describe what is plain. To me they were puzzling.<br />
As might be expected, this too was a puzzle. After a time, Anne found that the puzzles were not describing something. It was what they were missing. Eventually, every corner and scratch of the house directed Anne to every other divot or blemish until she was roaming in circles. She was caught in a Labyrinth. The Adriane thread was more of a spider web entangling her, than a guide line. But something was wrong. Something was not described. It became more conspicuous when she retread her steps. Something was being avoided.<br />
In the painted caves in France there are ancient scenes of animals, and whatever their purpose, they have been crowded onto walls and ceiling. In the earliest used caves something is emphatically missing from these paintings: humans. I believe this might indicate something of the feeling, something was missing. Something was noticeable by its absence.<br />
So Anne paused. Perhaps feeling somewhat burned out, she started dismantling the puzzles. (Not unlike her petulance as a child marking blocks painted to look like books.) She informed me she was simply taking the riddles down, when she made a discovery.<br />
Following the signs the riddles posted, she had ignored her native thoughts, her own mind. She had become so immersed in unraveling someone else’s devices she was not thinking as herself. When the signs were removed and her simple senses, such as sight (and its without symbolic interpretation), groaned back into use she noticed she had never looked at the house.<br />
She was unaware of where she had taken residence. She noticed, for the first time in the several months she had lived there, a door she had not entered. It wasn’t a hidden door, but could have been any easily visible closet or bedroom door leading from the living room. When she opened this door, she found a stair descending into a lower level of the house she had not known existed.<br />
This brief moment of sunshine provided by her thinking was rapidly clouded by riddles once again. Perhaps "riddle" is the wrong word. Riddles are bait, lures, or guides. What she found no longer asked anything, it no longer enticed. It was the prize, the treasure which one tolerates riddles in the hopes of catching. Make no mistake; it was not a restorative treasure. It was nothing to bring out, and spend or glorify. It isn’t like fabled treasures, something that sets things aright, or fills the miserable gap eating away at hope. It was a treasure built only for someone raised and instructed by chimeras.<br />
The stair led to a chamber very deep below the house. By her description the chamber was roughly the same size as the house below ground level. In the center of the chamber and encompassing most of its space was a strange structure. It was roughly spherical, but often interrupted by angles and beams. It was a chaos of doll houses. A structure braided from models of architecture. This monster was thousands of walls, pillars, window panes, casements, doors, thresholds, furniture, and so on. It must have looked like a rubbish heap pushed down hill as it swirled. Perhaps not, by her description a fall would have been far more fluid. It moved, like a clockwork, shifting, locking, sticking, dropping, swinging then redirecting its weight. She said something about its angular jerks looking like breaking joints or bones. The horrible image that comes to mind is the bodies bulldozed into a mass grave. Doors opened and closed, windows passed in slow rotation, models of furniture poked out and slid back. Cracks and rents appeared in the familiarity of "Houseness", the interiors and inner workings of the house were revealed and again eclipsed.<br />
Anne wasn’t sure of any set size of the thing as the dimensions altered. The mechanisms of its body reduced and enlarged it (she claimed in some sense like a heart beat, but without the regular pulse.) She also indicated that to further ruin any sense of size, the chamber was painted with false perspectives to look larger than it was.<br />
As you may have read in my earlier articles on this subject, this thing was a continuation, or a conclusion to the riddles in the doll house. It, like the doll house, worked. It was not an elaborate piece of Modernism, or Post Modernism, place aesthetically under the house. Anne informed me (after a cluster of our informal meetings) she began to receive revelations from the structure. She began discussing a grand order. She referred to "mechanisms of Timely sense." Every thought she told was elaborate, and complex.<br />
She attempted to explain the structure under the house. She told me, depending where you stood in the chamber, and where you gazed into the mass, you would see a different vision. For example if you happened on the correct series of winds, doors, and cracks, the interplay of light and shadow processing toward the depths of the structure would create optical illusions, or shadow plays. Likewise, this interplay of light and moving geometries turned and assembled into momentary faces, scenes, and even progressions amounting to narratives. This should, perhaps, not be considered cinematic, but rather interlocking. The sights would assemble then disassemble. Through these odd pictorials, and shadows plays, Anne told me she had observed Noah build the Ark, the Battle of Poitiers, and Aeneus carrying Anchesis from Troy.<br />
We met much less frequently after this. I did, on occasion, receive invitations from Anne for lunch, or coffee, but the span between visits was many months, and even year by year. When we did meet it was difficult to keep up with her thoughts. The stories became more dubious. I should write at the time I accepted them dubiously. I thought healthy skepticism was the same thing as intelligence, so much of what she said that was unorthodox; I held in my cheek but did not swallow. She told me that the cacophonous structure was a musical instrument as well as a visionary one. Apparently from somewhere in the room an opening vented a steady breeze through the structure. This breeze was bent and squeezed through the ever moving object, and was transformed into music and voices; much of this depending on where one stood in the chamber. She said at certain spots, on certain days you could ask questions and the chaotic mechanism would answer like an oracle. But as if a joke, the oracle would answer with what were clearly lies. Because of its oracular function she called the thing, the "Sybil." Whether this was a joke of her own or other insight she gave no trace by her expression.<br />
Our visits were pleasant enough, but I began to harbor reservations about Anne’s beliefs. In our fine civilization, so full of talk of tolerance, I believe I am the last person who will admit to judging another’s beliefs. I did judge her beliefs or what I thought I understood of them. Her tones were never those of a mystic, but there was always a safe area where I felt free dismissing portions of what she said. We always spoke of the uncanny which she was directly experiencing and I was only given through description. My own experience, my intellectual habits, at times sneered at what she reported. I thought she was becoming a crank, a talkative failing mystic. I was corrected. I should have been less smug. She was never hysterical or manic, never irrational or zealous.<br />
I was forced to release my notions of her folly through an experience of the uncanny.<br />
One of our visits took place at the Zoo. This was where she wished to meet. She said she wanted to watch things move in their natural speed. We met at the aviary, I was several minutes late, and she was gracious enough not to mind. Most of our small talk is lost to memory, and Anne seemed somewhat preoccupied. I am terrible at small talk, so we walked silently through the aviary. The large room was encased in Plexiglas. Real and fake trees were densely scattered around a wooden walk way. Larger more exotic birds were kept behind subsections of Plexiglas, while smaller more common species flew around fairly freely. We roamed silently side by side when the small talk dried up, and we simply watched the birds.<br />
The birds flitted back and forth occupied at various tasks or interactions. Anne began to speak but her discussion began with some very opaque concepts and I was slightly distracted by the birds, so I cannot recall how exactly we came around to the birds as a topic. We arrived at a bench and sat. I was trying to catch up to what she was talking about. Anne’s attention was concentrated on a cluster of birds that populated a thick artificial tree. As she talked I noticed her attention would go from tree to tree, her eyes, twitching quickly, watched the precise flight of the birds. This is what I first thought, it quickly occurred to me her gaze was out of sync with her subject. Her attention anticipated the motion of the birds. Where her eyes traveled is where the birds would follow. I was speechless, and instantly my skeptical defenses rose. Like watching a magic trick, my senses sought the inconsistency in the illusion, and could find nothing. It appeared she was using mind control on the birds. I checked for evidence that might have drawn them: bird feeders, small insect hives, the start of nests, but I found nothing.<br />
With a feeling too embarrassingly close to hysteria I jumped to my feet and accused her of this very thing. She smiled and summarized her discussion, which I had rudely ignored. The Sybil had shown her, at an accelerated speed the lifespan of certain birds. Their motions when densely packed into short interval revealed patterns that could not otherwise be easily observed. These patterns were the form of the species, not the individual organs or body of the birds, but special defining attribute was this motion, this danced pattern which took up lifetimes. Being patterns they could be predicted and expected. She was so used to watching the birds in rapid, artificial, motion she was able to predict where they would light, far before the impulse fully grabbed the bird. She informed me, people also have a "long pattern." She said that these patterns interact with other patterns. There is a special pattern of birds and another of people, for example, and they form something other than themselves given enough time.<br />
I didn’t care to ask further. I didn’t believe what I saw. What is worse is I felt like I was being indirectly infected by the Sybil, because I instantly took to wondering what the "long pattern" of the Sybil and Anne might construct.<br />
Anne changed visibly the next time I saw her. Her appearance was drastically different. I must say when I first met her Anne was rather plain, even drab, if charismatic. It was roughly a year since the aviary when we met again and the difference was remarkable. She was beautiful, beautiful in some profound way.<br />
I don’t propose to write a paper on aesthetics, or even qualify myself by denoting grades or kinds of beauty. The same is true of "profundity". I will simply offer that when I think back I still become, perhaps the word is "confused", that something could be so pleasing to my eye. And yet it didn’t involve lust or ingratiation. I have said I was not romantically involved or moved with Anne, and this was still so. She was untouchable. Like something Holy. It actually sent a chill and fear into me. I do not think I stopped blushing (more out of my inappropriate staring then being caught in sexual trance.) This was obviously not the effects of new wardrobe, or diet. There was something frighteningly pleasing and august in her. Looking back I will offer this: the muscle of her face, her expressers, seemed to narrate (?) something. Her face had a musical quality that brought memories of a foreign sort into my thinking. This memory is difficult to relate for I am not sure my image of her is my own. I suspect she "installed" something into my senses. Like a painter or writer, her face described something imaginary, but used all the forms of truth to do it. Please, grant me this failing in the story, I cannot say how or why she was beautiful, but it was horrific in how pleasurable it was. It was horrific is the sense of instability of my "self". For a few uncontrollable moments, I could have sworn I had done things that were heroic, and I almost told lies (lies prefabricated outside my mind) about my heroism.<br />
Crowds hovered as subtly as possible around her (men and women) and she seemed aware. I think her expression was indulgent or magnanimous, and with all the distance these words imply. Perhaps she watched the "long pattern" of humans and invented ways of manipulating it. If this was so, it may explain something else that seemed strange in her. She seemed to have one shadow in her radiance, in brief flashes she seemed regretful, even palpably lonely. This added to her beauty, and contributed to the desire to claim some heroism. If we had become tools to her, it appeared her long search for dolls to people her doll house was proving unsatisfactory. In a simply human, common, sphere it is difficult to find moments to assuage loneliness. How much more so for Anne who was flaring into something very unique? With whom could she relate, especially if she had the knowledge to become people’s wills?<br />
Eventually I worked up the nerve to ask her about her change. Her answer was unusual. She told me the Sybil was something like a possession machine, or reincarnation machine. That what people saw was the memories of thousands of lifetimes, and experiences swimming across the fabric of her face.<br />
This sounded like madness. I still think this was the turning point. This was the moment when she reached her zenith and was still in the air before a rapid fall. Reincarnation and possession seemed very religious themes, like a reversion to something small and articulated. Like the protection or plans of God are inherent or working in a good harmony. This seemed in opposition to the chaos and free fall her invisible teachers had offered thus far. It seemed unlikely they had led her so far to simply say something so trite. Perhaps, again, I underestimated her statement.<br />
It was two and a half years before I saw Anne again. When I did see her, her high pitch of beauty was fatigued. She had a strange aura of weariness that hummed steadily in her every movement. Her face that had written our minds so clearly, and hypnotically, had become strange with slight ticks and spasms. Her face was still lovely, but there was something urgent when you looked at her, like running out to see a sunset that is failing in vibrancy, but still beautiful, or quickly trying to memorize the radiance of a rainbow that is fading. It was difficult to talk with her long, as her beauty seemed to have become polluted with Turrets syndrome. Her beauty and gestures were surges of unharmonious expressions. Like those "memories of thousands of lifetimes" were all trying to press out at once. Her control of this revolt was flagging. I wondered if the fluttering waves of expression were accidental imitation of the Sybil’s clockwork; as if she was beginning to speak in the "language" of the Sybil.<br />
It was at this time, or shortly thereafter, the misunderstood statements were made. It was in a very benign conversation that all rumors of animosity, and failed love affair were born. I had offered an account of what I had observed in Anne to a colleague, as it had troubled me in a surprisingly dramatic way. In the conversation I had offered a description of Anne’s beauty, and what I believed her mental state to be. I had suggested it was possible she may end up on the streets. My intention was: I thought she may end up one of the population of the urban insane whose lives unfold very rapidly in the streets. It was interpreted that I was suggesting she would become a street walker. Because my colleague had misinterpreted the entirety of my concerns, the descriptions of her beauty, and possible insanity, became the embittered complaints of a lover spurned. This is entirely puzzling to me, and such a far reach to manufacture scandal it seems ridiculous. It has been offered as quote, "I could barely tolerate her presence" and "I always suspected she was a liar." I never made these statements. Likewise the statements I am a homosexual, Anne’s murderer, or the "The Real Henry Told" are equally untrue. It must be noted all these suggestions followed Anne’s disappearance by over a decade.<br />
I saw Anne twice more. The first of the two, Anne was unwilling to discuss the Sybil. She asked many questions about what was happening "in the outside world." She asked about me, loves I may have, the weather, news of politics, or personal tragedy. Every story seemed a weight to her. Each story seemed to drain a bit more of her color. I spoke much, probably the most I had ever said to her. I talked about good news, I had become engaged, and I talked about my observation of events. I pontificated and swaggered and joked, but nothing seemed to be heard in accordance with my intent. I felt like I was failing her as good company, and so tried hard to cheer her. She calmly took my hand and said, "I know."<br />
She turned and walked a few steps away, and as if she had forgotten something said, "We’ll meet one more time, okay?" I assented and she strode away.<br />
The last time I saw her I had just moved into a studio apartment following my broken engagement. I was embittered and very depressed about my confinement to bachelorhood. My fiancée had dismissed me rather flippantly, and in response I shut down socially. I spent three months stewing and unraveling. Strangely at this time my career was prospering. Several of my articles were published in national venues, and I had received two research grants of substantial sums. Unexpectedly, Anne arrived at my apartment. I am unsure how she found it.<br />
Anne was ragged, emaciated. Her hair was lank and tangled. Her face was ruddy and exposed. She was very dirty. The precision of her gaze, her intense focus was overwhelming. I was struck dumb. This will read as very bad. I cannot think of any legitimate way to offer this, so I will proceed in the ridiculous way. I knew she could grasp my every thought as I thought it, and every root of every particle that had assembled the thought. The precise calculation of her movements and her following gaze made me certain she could kill with her hands. If previously her beauty was hypnotic, it was her menace that then had reign. I will not waver from the statement she impressed fear into me.<br />
I greeted her lamely, as my alarm could not be disguised. She said very quietly, very plainly, "I know everything." Do not look at this and feel embarrassment at what I wrote. I realize it reads as a stupid and funny phrase. It wasn’t funny, and I do not know what to offer except I cowered under this statement. It seems in my memory twice as chilling, because it should have been ridiculous.<br />
She walked to my desk, took up a pen and paper and wrote out a sequence. She then told me to read the paper. I explained I could not. I wasn’t sure if it was a mathematical formula or cuneiform. The sequence of signs, that I stupidly discarded later, were not numbers nor were they letters, but could have been mistaken for either.<br />
She asked "Did you read this writing?" I replied "I see the writing but cannot read it." She smiled as if somewhat relieved and said, "I have saved you from knowing." She walked out my still open door returned a moment later with her diaries, and left without a word of goodbye.<br />
Shortly thereafter police investigations began. Anne was missing and suspected to be dead. Who would have reported her missing is unknown to me, and frankly I find it suspicious. As if her disappearance and the investigation into it were a performance. As far as I know she had very few friends, and no family (the police informed me her parents were deceased.) I have considered these events over the years, and have met few answers. No one has ever found the house to my knowledge, neither have they found the doll house. What I hold has been acquired from Anne, or through anonymous correspondences due to my articles on this subject. I believe I am the only person who holds this much evidence and it is meager. In ways I hope this was all a young woman’s contagious delusion, or a hoax. I don't actually believe it is a hoax, but I can't reconcile that it is fact either.<br />
It was my own essays on Anne and the Sybil that first alerted the mystics, and conspiracy theorists, and though a profitable market, they are poor company. They are prone to gossip. I have been reported in collusion with extra terrestrials, Atlanteans, transdimensional masters, and Satanic cults. I have also been pestered by "initiates" and the "spiritually sensitive" who wish to know my secrets. I have no secrets. I am an observer to lives, I have come to believe, and I should not be confused with the living.<br />
I cannot scorn these persons too much as I relate to them in ways. I am still intrigued by Anne and the Sybil. I have been unable to let this mystery loose, both out of pity for Anne and insatiable curiosity. What drives this may be a desire for the restoration to sense, for Anne has presented me with the hope that sense is a failed endeavor. It is very uncomfortable to have one foot on the boat and one on the shore. I continue to ponder these events, but will write no further articles, essays, or editorials following this letter.<br />
Before I end this letter, I would like to mention two ideas that were presented to me. A very good friend of mine, a philosopher, offered me his thoughts on this one evening in a college bar (we were far too old to be there). My friend suggested the "Sybil ontology". He suggested the Sybil might be the "bone of the universe," or a description of the bone of the universe. By this I think he was indicating it was something akin to every possibility. It was without set space or time (as is everything) but in likeness to everything, even times and spaces that never were and never will be.<br />
The second suggestion was related to the first. The Sybil might be Sin, or the Devil, or the first and only lie. He suggested the Sybil was still the bones of the universe, but that the universe was dependent on the instability, and "mixing of attributes to impossibility" in the sense it corrupted the Universe. He suggested without the constant impossibilities of the Sybil the universe would cease to progress. It is the motor of the universe through violence and frictions with order and sequence. The universe is the product of an ever unfolding lie. Limitless in attributes that stir the universe, and limited in structure so as not to fully invade- the Sybil is bound by its form. It may only describe.<br />
These philosophies are poetic. I would adhere to neither idea. It may (or rather may it be) a hoax. Thank you for your time,<br />
Respectfully<br />
E.A.Paul Mellenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546871960061314104noreply@blogger.com2