Posts tagged Grotesque and Honesty

Lamentation II The moonlight reflects dimly off Julie’s white eyeballs.  They hold still - impossible to read in the darkness.  Shadows have always been her friend.  They hide all her physical insecurities.   Only in darkness can she be judged by her personality alone. Just before she blew out the candle, her pudgy face conveyed the deep disappointment that formed after her vulnerable smile faded.  She will never be hurt like this again because she will never reveal herself like this again.  Her true self will exist permanently unilluminated, in fear of the pain that can come with honesty.   ~ü [This is a film treatment for a series of five lamentations.  Lamentation I is here.  Lamentation III is here.  Lamentation IV is here.  Lamentation V is here.] [Painting: Alphonse Mucha Woman with a Burning Candle (1933)]

Lamentation II

The moonlight reflects dimly off Julie’s white eyeballs.  They hold still - impossible to read in the darkness.  Shadows have always been her friend.  They hide all her physical insecurities.   Only in darkness can she be judged by her personality alone.

Just before she blew out the candle, her pudgy face conveyed the deep disappointment that formed after her vulnerable smile faded.  She will never be hurt like this again because she will never reveal herself like this again.  Her true self will exist permanently unilluminated, in fear of the pain that can come with honesty.  

~ü

[This is a film treatment for a series of five lamentations.  Lamentation I is here.  Lamentation III is here.  Lamentation IV is here.  Lamentation V is here.]

[Painting: Alphonse Mucha Woman with a Burning Candle (1933)]

Lamentation I Jack is laying flat on the concrete.  A small puddle of blood is forming behind his head.  He is not breathing. This terrible outcome is the result of one small misstep.  His foot didn’t quite make it all the way off the curb.  His heel got caught on the edge and his ankle rolled, turning his entire body 180 degrees as gravity took over.  When he exited the small sandwich shop, he didn’t think twice about stepping off the curb instead of taking the ramp.   It was a sudden death that surprised everyone.  Although Jack never got the chance to consider what he had done, his family was shaken by the permanent change.  One small misstep altered the path of his loved ones forever. ~ü [This is a film treatment for a series of five lamentations.  Lamentation III is here.  Lamentation IV is here.  Lamentation V is here.] [Painting: William Blake, Nebuchadnezzar, 1795/1805]

Lamentation I

Jack is laying flat on the concrete.  A small puddle of blood is forming behind his head.  He is not breathing.

This terrible outcome is the result of one small misstep.  His foot didn’t quite make it all the way off the curb.  His heel got caught on the edge and his ankle rolled, turning his entire body 180 degrees as gravity took over.  When he exited the small sandwich shop, he didn’t think twice about stepping off the curb instead of taking the ramp.  

It was a sudden death that surprised everyone.  Although Jack never got the chance to consider what he had done, his family was shaken by the permanent change.  One small misstep altered the path of his loved ones forever.

~ü

[This is a film treatment for a series of five lamentations.  Lamentation III is here.  Lamentation IV is here.  Lamentation V is here.]

[Painting: William Blake, Nebuchadnezzar, 1795/1805]

ecantwell

Familiar?  Or peculiar?   ~ü [Image: Miru Kim, Performance Artist, 2011]

Familiar?  Or peculiar?  

~ü

[Image: Miru Kim, Performance Artist, 2011]

emptykingdom.com

There is confusion. There is fear. There is pain. There is loss. But there is faith. And hope. And love. And for one moment, not one person in the world takes anything for granted.  ~ theworldlooksatus

There is confusion.

There is fear.

There is pain.

There is loss.

But there is faith.

And hope.

And love.

And for one moment, not one person in the world takes anything for granted. 

~ theworldlooksatus


theworldlooksatus

Wonderfully prescient: So the revolution has begun, and as usually happens with revolutions, nobody can agree on where it is going or how it will end. Nils Nilsson, director of the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International, believes the personal computer, like television, can “greatly increase the forces of both good and evil.” Marvin Minsky, another of M.I.T.’s computer experts, believes the key significance of the personal computer is not the establishment of an intellectual ruling class, as some fear, but rather a kind of democratization of the new technology. Says he: “The desktop revolution has brought the tools that only professionals have had into the hands of the public. God knows what will happen now.” From a 1983 article in Time magazine declaring The Computer as the Person of the Year.  Ten years later, I was dialing into a local BBS (Bulletin Board Service) in my darkest teenage days.  The BBS’ name was Zeller Zone in Peoria, IL.  My terminal software dials.  681-8727.  The modem rings.  A handshake at 1200 bps.  Here were the like-minded.  Trading files, pictures and thoughts.  Ready to explore the breadth of good and evil.  The PC made the desolate isolation of high school manageable.  For better, or for worse.  That’s what happened.  People that wanted to think and act differently finally had a place to go. ~ü

Wonderfully prescient:

So the revolution has begun, and as usually happens with revolutions, nobody can agree on where it is going or how it will end. Nils Nilsson, director of the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International, believes the personal computer, like television, can “greatly increase the forces of both good and evil.” Marvin Minsky, another of M.I.T.’s computer experts, believes the key significance of the personal computer is not the establishment of an intellectual ruling class, as some fear, but rather a kind of democratization of the new technology. Says he: “The desktop revolution has brought the tools that only professionals have had into the hands of the public. God knows what will happen now.”

From a 1983 article in Time magazine declaring The Computer as the Person of the Year.  Ten years later, I was dialing into a local BBS (Bulletin Board Service) in my darkest teenage days.  The BBS’ name was Zeller Zone in Peoria, IL.  My terminal software dials.  681-8727.  The modem rings.  A handshake at 1200 bps. 

Here were the like-minded.  Trading files, pictures and thoughts.  Ready to explore the breadth of good and evil.  The PC made the desolate isolation of high school manageable.  For better, or for worse.  That’s what happened.  People that wanted to think and act differently finally had a place to go.

~ü

TIME

Consumerism - the elephant in the environmentalist’s room

Micah White -

Environmentalism is currently marketed as a luxury brand for guilty consumers. The prevailing assumption is that a fundamental lifestyle change is unnecessary: being green means paying extra for organic produce and driving a hybrid. The incumbent political regime remains in power and the same corporations provide new “green” goods; the underlying consumerist ideology is unquestioned.

….

The future of environmentalism is in liberating humanity from the compulsion to consume. Rampant, earth-destroying consumption is the norm in the west largely because our imaginations are pillaged by any corporation with an advertising budget.

bettyann

A fantasy for reality:

In discussing beauty in fairy tales and myths, Trebbe Johnson outlines how the beautiful is inevitably revealed beneath the ugly.  It’s not only for princesses and frogs:

show compassion;
acknowledge the sovereignty of the other;
confront the unbeautiful;
love actively;
turn suffering itself to beauty.

Trebbe Johnson, Beauty Redeemed, Parabola Magazine, Winter 2010-2011

Andy Goldsworthy, a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist once said: I find some of my new works disturbing, just as I find nature as a whole disturbing. The landscape is often perceived as pastoral, pretty, beautiful – something to be enjoyed as a backdrop to your weekend before going back to the nitty-gritty of urban life. But anybody who works the land knows it’s not like that. Nature can be harsh – difficult and brutal, as well as beautiful. You couldn’t walk five minutes from here without coming across something that is dead or decaying. Quoted from Luke Storms of Parabola magazine.  The Winter 2010/2011 issue of Parabola is on newsstands now.  It’s a beautiful magazine. [Painting: Georgia O’Keefe, New York with Moon, 1925]

Andy Goldsworthy, a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist once said:

I find some of my new works disturbing, just as I find nature as a whole disturbing. The landscape is often perceived as pastoral, pretty, beautiful – something to be enjoyed as a backdrop to your weekend before going back to the nitty-gritty of urban life. But anybody who works the land knows it’s not like that. Nature can be harsh – difficult and brutal, as well as beautiful. You couldn’t walk five minutes from here without coming across something that is dead or decaying.

Quoted from Luke Storms of Parabola magazine.  The Winter 2010/2011 issue of Parabola is on newsstands now.  It’s a beautiful magazine.

[Painting: Georgia O’Keefe, New York with Moon, 1925]

parabola-magazine