Auster/Asrat Interaction: On Beauty

Larry Auster took time to write this short post on February 21, 2013, when he was ill.

THE ETERNAL WORTH AND EXAMPLE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON

Two days before his birthday, Kidist Paulos Asrat has re-posted a 2004 entry of mine on the character and face of George Washington. She entitles it “Larry Auster and Reclaiming Beauty.”

Below is my full post, which I posted on February 20, 2013 at Reclaiming Beauty, and which is also at View From the Right).


Lawrence Auster at work on View From the Right

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Larry Auster and Reclaiming Beauty
Although Larry Auster didn't directly write about beauty, his work is infused with the desire to bring beauty back into our world.

One of the most memorable posts he did on art (and beauty) was his reaction to a bust of George Washington. The image of the bust he has posted is huge and takes up the whole screen, so that we, like him, can have as close a look at it as possible.

Here is his post, published at VFR on February 20th, 2004 (nine years ago today!), titled Washington's Birthday:

Happy Birthday, G. Washington! This Sunday we celebrate the 272nd birthday of the man who is justly known—though so few have an adequate understanding why—as the Father of our Country.

That the Father of the United States of America was one of the greatest men who ever lived, who impressed on this country his character, his prudence and far-seeing political wisdom, his extraordinary personal force modulated by his mildness and self-control, his dedication to classical ideals of honor and patriotism combined with his future-oriented grasp of an expanding America, his profoundly felt sense of America’s reliance on the protection and guidance of Divine Providence (and not just Providence, but Jesus Christ, as can be seen in his 1789 proclamation of a national day of thanksgiving), and his deeply experienced vision of the national Union, is something that we are still receiving the benefits of to this day, in myriad and incalculable ways, even in the midst of our current decadence, and even if we ourselves don’t know it and don’t care.

We are so accustomed to the Gilbert Stuart portraits, painted in Washington’s sixties when he was already showing premature signs of age (though his firmness of character was not diminished), that it can be a shock to see a more vital Washington. Here is a marvelously life-like image of the then 53-year-old Washington rarely seen by Americans, one of the heads sculpted by Jean Antoine Houdon from the life mask he cast when he visited Mount Vernon in 1785, now at the Museum of the Louvre in Paris. Houdon told a friend he was in awe of “the majesty and grandeur of Washington’s form and features.” One has the same awe at Houdon’s genius; it is to be doubted that any photograph could make us feel that we are as close to the living man as he really was:



Here is another head made by Houdon from the same life-mask, enabling us to look directly into Washington’s face as though he were standing before us:

In the moving final verse of Byron’s “Ode to Napolean Bonaparte,” the poet turns away in disgust from that vain French tyrant and looks westward to find a man who embodies true political virtue:

Where may the wearied eye repose
When gazing on the Great;
Where neither guilty glory glows,
Nor despicable state?
Yes, one—the first—the last—the best,
The Cincinnatus of the West,
Whom envy dared not hate,
Bequeath’d the name of Washington,
To make men blush there was but one!

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Auster/Asrat Interaction: Saving the West and Other Urgent Matters

In my last post, I wrote of my first posted interaction in November 6, 2008 with Larry Auster's View From the Right. I did a search at VFR's site to see if I was correct, and in fact, my first posted comment was as an anonymous KPA, in the article Minority Female Republicans For Diversity, written on May 9th, 2006. That is a couple of years earlier than what I thought.

Here is what I wrote in 2006 as KPA, commenting on the article:

KPA writes:

Mr. Auster,

I admire your fairness and generosity towards all types of people. Those who may have called you racist are using the term erroneously. Racial pride does not equal racist.

I had noticed your staunch support for Hirsi Ali, when I could see months before that she had no intention to really help the Netherlands, but was focused on her own status as female, Muslim (and I suppose black too).

Malkin seems also intent on vociferously asserting herself. I always find that such passionate self-justification (maybe to feel a part of the rest) is a symptom of insecurity and dare I say, inferiority.

Perhaps all these non-white women need to do is to have a certain humility. To agree and accept the fact that America was founded by other white nations. That a Philippino or a West African population could never have created what the British did.

And if that becomes too difficult, then stay away from public life, rather than eventually become hypocrites.

Although, one final thing that I may add. Race is war in a sense. Each one wants supremacy over the other. Rice may very well envision a land full of powerful blacks, and Malkin may lapse at times into a vision of a world of powerful browns.

Well, we certainly are headed for interesting times!

I commented on this interaction, again at VFR, which I wrote on June 19, 2012:

It was fun to go through your search engine to find my first emails to you. I used my initials KPA then, and I think I identified myself as being from Canada since the beginning.

From what I can find, my first email to you was on May 9, 2006. The thread was on how nonwhites, even the “conservative” ones, push for the advancement of nonwhites at the expense of whites, as well as on Hirsi Ali, Islam, Western culture, gender, and what I thought were race “wars.” Quite a post! And I declared myself your ally!

My second comment, in the entry, “The enemy is not jihad,” deals with more pressing and tangible material, namely: Islam’s incursions into Western society, from cultural strongholds to actual preparations for jihad. This was in September 2006. I am surprised that I understood (I think) the problem so well so far back, when few people were talking or writing about the reality of Islam.

It is interesting that Laura Wood, in her first email to you, was also concerned about religion (or the loss of Christianity).

It seems that spiritual and religious matters are at the forefront of the West’s problems, and the decline of religion makes it easier to dismantle the civilization.

Larry added the article I had written for VFR, Christian Tolerence, Islamic Jihad:

Also see the article Kidist wrote for VFR in 2007 (when she still was ID’d as “KPA”), in which she told how the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia’s tolerance toward its Muslim minority in the 16th century enabled the Muslims to launch a jihad.

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Addendum: The View From the Right search engine, in the right margin of the VFR website provides shortcuts to the posted articles.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Auster/Asrat Interaction And Saving the West

Below is my first posted interaction with Larry Auster, at View From the Right. The full discussion can be viewed here (with comments by other View From the Right readers).

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Kidist Paulos Asrat, a woman of Ethiopian origin who has spent most of her life in the West, writes:

In the entry on Proposition 8 being approved in California with minority votes, you wrote:

Warning to naive conservatives: this does not mean that we can depend on “socially conservative” minorities to save our culture. We, the white majority, have to save our culture. Minority individuals may be of help, but the minority groups as a whole are on the left and will not be on our side.

You are right. I grew up mostly in England and France (that was the nature of the exile my family had to take to avoid the massacre of the Communist dictator). My best friends growing up were French and English (I have a great love for England—especially Kent, where I went to boarding school). I had very little to do with Ethiopians, except what we got at home. Very few Ethiopians went to England or France—most went to Canada or the U.S. Growing up there doesn’t necessarily make one a non-leftist, but I have an innate attachment to these countries, and of course the West (much more so than to Ethiopia.) My uniqueness was in our isolation (although I never felt isolated) from Ethiopian culture, something which those living in Canada or the U.S. never experienced.

So, now living in Canada, it is with great shock that I realized all my Ethiopian relatives (and there are many of them in Canada and in the U.S.) are decisively leftists, except maybe one. And that their attachment to Canada or the U.S. was purely opportunistic. And even their children who grew up here at some point will complain that this isn’t really their home, or that they are being discriminated against, or they believe in the leftist programs like subsidized housing (for all those poor immigrants), or they question the truth behind 9/11, or slide in the superiority of Muslim culture in discussions, or they have a lingering scorn for Western culture.

I said a few times, in quite large company, that the majority of Ethiopians should just go back, since they are so unhappy here and are basically recreating an “exiled Ethiopia” in the snow and the cold. It didn’t go very well. But it’s true, better in a country where you feel at home, even if it means a lower standard of life. Plus, just as these people suddenly picked up and came out West, some with nothing on their backs, how much easier is it to just pack up and go back now that many have prospered?

The big surprise is that the group that I was born into, the Amhara, were the leaders of Ethiopia throughout the centuries. Even now, although another group is running the country (a Tigre, also from the north), he has the Amhara running the government for him. So, the Amhara should instinctively know about leadership, and how countries are run by the strong and the able, and if a weak group comes along, how detrimental it is to the nation as a whole. In fact, the Amhara lived by this strict strategy for centuries. But a few in the 50s and 60s, after being “educated” and “liberalized” (mostly, ironically in the U.S.) decided that equality of tribes was the most important thing. Thus Ethiopian leftists were born. And then came the Communist dictator Mengistu Hailemariam in the 70s (himself an unknown hybrid).

You are right in that if such a strong and confident minority group cannot see through leftist groups, and in fact hides behind them and even joins them, then who will?

LA replies:

I was so impressed by your e-mail, so interested to hear these personal facts about your background. What a strange world we live in. Because of Communists taking over your country decades ago, you grew of age in England, and then ended up in Canada, where you found that your own relatives were on the left and hostile to the very country that had provided them refuge from those Communists. And you, an Ethiopian by birth, found yourself identifying with the countries that were really the only countries you knew, while your relatives absorbed, or perhaps brought with them, the typical leftist minority alienation against those countries.

How can we understand the disorder of human existence, without seeing that it is somehow a distortion of God’s order?

Kidist replies:

Yes, it is a little mystical.

But, I am actually an optimist by nature. I think part of my “mission,” although I am not making it part of my life’s plan, only putting it in where it is obviously asked for, is to tell my relatives that their best bet is their own country.

I also think, after a long study of Ethiopian art and culture (as an outsider!!) that the Amhara have always identified with Western culture—I see this in the religious art, in the development of the alphabet, in the aesthetics of the people, in the great Emperor Haile Selassie, in the political and social organization of the Amhara (always thwarted by more aggressive southern tribes and envious northern ones), and even in the very leftism that the Amhara elite adopted! There is something in the “brain chemistry” that understands Western culture and thought. So I would say that the Amhara are the most Western of the Africans. So my association isn’t so strange, I think.

Finally, I think in a strange way I also bring these insights, more intuitive than intellectual at the moment, to the West. I can see how a confident country gets destroyed (almost) because of the false gods of leftism, how Islam can (almost) destroy a country unwilling to see its evil, how it takes a long time for people to realize their deathly (almost) mistakes. I have a lot of faith in the Amhara. I have a lot of faith in the West as well.

Plus I love the West. I have studied under it—the music, the art, not just studied them but practiced them as well. I am a part of it. I have never met an immigrant who has passed my rigorous criteria for being part of the West. It is a tough call, and your skepticism about true minority support of Western civilization is well-founded.

Kidist writes:

As I re-read my last email to you, where I wrote: “I think part of my ‘mission,’ although I am not making it part of my life’s plan, only putting it where it is obviously asked for, is to tell my relatives that their best bet is their own country,” it sounds as if I’m evading the issue.

Not at all. Even a quiet word of “Well, there is always going back” resonates, as shown by feedback I get months later. Also, I am not going to hold slogans saying, “Go back home,” but will consistently and continuously repeat my position in social and casual environments. Also, my general behavior and interpretation of things shows people my position. To be big-hearted about it, I just think that minority immigrants (and their off-spring) will be happier where they came from. I can see generations of discontent, bitter people otherwise. So, I’m saying this for THEIR benefit.

Finally, I am actually much more vocal about immigration, which is probably the more controlable factor.

LA replies:

I thank you again for this contribution to our discussion, and I want to add something. What is it that made it possible for you to see clearly this important truth about most non-Western immigrants’ lack of fit in the West—this truth that most contemporary white Westerners do not see? It is that for you, the West is not an abstraction. It’s not an idea of freedom. It’s an actual cultural tradition and way of being, which you yourself loved and chose to join. Furthermore, it’s not just the West that you see in real, concrete terms, but the cultures of the immigrants. They also are not abstractions but real people with real cultures and real ways of being. Therefore you understand that these two cultural substances, the West and the respective immigrant cultures, are distinct from each other and cannot happily co-exist in the same society.

Westerners cannot see this basic, obvious truth, because the modern Western mind only allows for universalist abstractions. In the name of the “equal dignity of all human beings,” liberalism strips away our actual humanity.

Kidist replies:

You say:

It is that for you, the West is not an abstraction. It’s not an idea of freedom. It’s an actual cultural tradition and way of being, which you yourself loved and chose to join. Furthermore, it’s not just the West that you see in real, concrete terms, but the cultures of the immigrants. They also are not abstractions but real people with real cultures and real ways of being.

That’s exactly right. Why is it so hard to see that? :-)

Sage McLaughlin writes:

I’d be gilding the lily by adding anything to your fascinating discussion with Kidist. I just thought you should hear that it is edifying reading, and illustrates why VFR is a treasure (if I may be so, um, sycophantic…).

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Daisies

Roadside Daisies
[Photo by KPA]


Daisies by the Falls
[Photo by KPA]

We are just beginning to see the beginnings of spring, and here are a couple of views we can look forward to. I took these photographs last May, 2013.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Museum of Beauty

Pope Benedict XVI said when addressing a group of artists assembled in the Sistine Chapel

Beauty, whether that of the natural universe or that expressed in art, precisely because it opens up and broadens the horizons of human awareness, pointing us beyond ourselves, bringing us face to face with the abyss of Infinity, can become a path towards the transcendent, towards the ultimate Mystery, towards God. [Meeting with Artists. Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI. Sistine Chapel. November 29, 2009].

In my last post, I briefly mentioned the idea of a Museum of Beauty. Beauty is best appreciated when it is seen. I think our perception and appreciation of visual beauty surpasses all our other sensory perceptions of beauty. Ideally, there is a plethora of beauty to be seen, from the buildings we pass by, to the gardens we walk through, and the dresses we see on people. I say ideally, because these days, we are living in a cult of ugliness, and finding beauty is like a thirsty wanderer in a desert finding water.

At one time, people created their surroundings with beauty in mind. They knew that what they saw affected them deeply, from the temporary pleasure at the initial viewing of a beautiful object, to the deeper connection beauty (the beautiful object) instills over time.

If one's surroundings are ugly, why bother to preserve them, or live in them?

I think this is the impasse we have reached now.

I cannot redesign our modern world around beauty, but I can try to create small islands of respite where beauty can be viewed and appreciated.

I hope my blog provides such a place. But the ephemeral world of the internet is not enough. We need concrete places where our thirsty eyes can be filled with the wonders of beauty

My idea is to create a Museum of Beauty.

This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. There are the following kinds of museums:
- The Museum of Natural History in New York, which looks at Nature
- The Museum of War, in Ottawa Canada
- The Museum of Science and Technology, in Washington D.C.

There is even a Museum of Bad Art (which I term as a Museum of Ugliness). So why not a museum of beauty?

There are many questions to answer. One of which is: Aren't there enough museums which show beautiful things already?

Yes, there is the Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan in New York, and many other smaller museums and galleries around the Western world which show art and other objects which are beautiful. But there is none that I can find which exclusively looks at beauty.

And modern curators are not interested in beauty. And the collections which they preside over which show beautiful objects are from past eras and centuries. Modern museums and curators do not want beauty in their museums. This often results with horrific and horrible things displayed in these museums, and museum visitors are hijacked to view them without complaint.

Creating a museum around a concept isn't a far-fetched idea.

Here are the working titles of my book project Reclaiming Beauty, around which the various sections of the museum can be created:

An Introduction to Beauty
- Seek and Ye Shall Find
- Beauty, Truth and Goodness
- Synthesis of Beauty
- Beauty in the Worship of God
- Beauty and the Transcendent
- Beauty and Humanity
- Beauty and Femininity
- Beauty and Masculinity
- How to be a Beautiful Movie Star
- Beauty: I will be your mirror
- Rejecting Beauty
- Elimination of Beauty

Beauty in Art
- Architecture
- Painting
- Drawing and Illustrations
- Film
- Photography
- Dance
- Design and Fashion
- Art Criticism

Beauty in Language
- Literature
- Poetry
- Writing
- Books
- Blogging
- Humor

Beauty in Culture and Society
- Religion
- Christianity
- Islam
- Myths and Legends
- History
- Traditions
- Conservatism
- Politics
- Immigration
- Multiculturalism

Beauty in Nature

Beauty in Science

Desecration of Beauty

Reclaiming Beauty

Even the last two chapters, Desecration of Beauty and Reclaiming Beauty are important. It is necessary for people to see how our modern world is destroying beauty,and how this is historically unprecedented: No other civilization aimed to destroy beauty. And I feel it is important to give guidance on how we can reclaim this beauty lost, since ordinary people have been subliminally hijacked into accepting ugliness as the norm.

I equate this "seeing" with Christianity. From the very beginning, God shows us his presence, perhaps the earliest being when he appeared as a burning bush to Moses, and later gave him tablets to read, with scripted words, rather than words to memorize and recount to the Israelites. These became the visual, written words: The Ten Commandments.

The ultimate revelation, at least in our era, is that of Jesus, who came to show us that God wasn't an entity in the heavens, but a real being, who disclosed himself to us as a human being through Jesus.

And the first words in Genesis, the very beginning of the Bible, are:

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.[see below for verses 1-31]

The light to see things, to view his beautiful creations.

But, light also enables us to differentiate and discern the beautiful from the ugly, and by extended logic to discard the ugly, or to reshape it to become beautiful.

In those first verses of Genesis, we do not read about the wonderful sound of the seas:

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good

.
We are presented with "the seas" as a visual differentiation between land and water. We may love the sound of the bubbling brook, but it is foremost its vision, with the grass and rocks around it, that captures our imagination.

Pope Benedict XVI said when addressing a group of artists assembled in the Sistine Chapel

Beauty, whether that of the natural universe or that expressed in art, precisely because it opens up and broadens the horizons of human awareness, pointing us beyond ourselves, bringing us face to face with the abyss of Infinity, can become a path towards the transcendent, towards the ultimate Mystery, towards God. [Meeting with Artists. Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI. Sistine Chapel. November 29, 2009].

My post "An Introduction to Beauty: Seek and Ye Shall Find" expands on this.

So, a beauty museum, or a Museum of Beauty, can continue with this movement of "Reclaiming Beauty."

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Genesis 1

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Beauty Museum

Influenced by my excursion in New York last month, I started to think about a beauty museum, which exclusively looks at beauty in its many capacities. The book that I am working on could be a working plan for this museum/study center.

Simply calling it a "Beauty Museum" should attract a bigger crowd than the usual fine arts people. Beauty touches everyone, and with clever targeting, even the Walmart crowd might come for a visit.

In any case, this is the idea I am mulling around. My website Reclaiming Beauty can be a forum for further discussions.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Light

Light fixture on ceiling of the Design Exchange, Toronto
[Photo by KPA]



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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Descent From the Cross

The Descent from the Cross, c. 1435
Rogier Van der Weyden (1399 or 1400 – 1464)
Oil on oak panel
86in x 103.5in
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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This Good Friday

Andrea Mantegna, Calvary

The above image is posted at Laura Wood's The Thinking Housewife. Laura has posted paintings depicting Christ's ordeals through these holy days.

Also, on this Good Friday, Laura reminds us of the darkness of our times, by posting an article titled New York: City of Mohammed:

NEW YORK CITY becomes more and more congenial to Islam by the day. The Police Department recently announced that it will disband a surveillance unit that sent undercover detectives into Muslim neighborhoods for the purpose of identifying potential terrorists. The program, started in the wake of 9-11, was dropped in response to civil rights complaints, including civil rights complaints by Muslims.

And, Bill de Blasio continues to pledge to put Muslims holidays on the school calendar. According to one estimate, ten percent of New York public school students are Muslim

It is not enough to "observe" Good Friday this Easter, nor to optimistically wish each other Happy Easter on Sunday. Our calling now is bigger than words and songs. We have our enemies to ward off. We have to prepare for this.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Art Thieves

No Title
Annie Macdonell

"The images in this series are scans of found 35mm slides. I came across a box of them next to the trash a few months ago. They were unlabeled, undated, and unsourced. I’ve put together a selection of 15, which now form a slideshow you can click through on your computer monitor. Maybe you will recognize some of the images. Others you may not recognize specifically, but you will certainly be familiar with their sources – art monographs, fashion magazines, notebooks and textbooks, technical manuals." [Annie MacDonell, Interview in Either/And] on her work Split Screen

MacDonell was a former classmate of mine at Ryerson University, where she received a BA in photography. She went on to get a Master of Fine Arts in Lefresnoy, a university in France. Here is more on her statement of her work Split Screen in Either/And:

The slides were produced on a copy stand which, before the flatbed scanner, was the simplest means of reproducing images. Each one contains an interruption of the image by the spine of the book in which it originally appeared. The visibility of the spine is what attracts me to them. It marks only one of the many transformations these images have undergone since they were produced by the original photographer or artist. But in doing so, it places the histories and genealogies of these images in the foreground. The slides were shot for pedagogical purposes, to be projected large in front of a classroom and discussed as a group. Before that, they were published in books and magazines, to be purchased and leafed through by individuals. And before that they were, perhaps, images matted and framed behind glass on a wall. Now we may be browsing effortlessly through them, each on our slick backlit monitors. But the spine’s interruption of the image reminds us of where they came from in the first place, and how our ways of encountering them continue to shift along with the technology that delivers them to us.

That is a lot of words for simply showing pictures from magazines which spread across two pages (split by the spine of the book).

Such is the verbose nature of contemporary "artists" who have a lot to say about their vapid works.

MacDonell's Master of Fine Arts thesis was "about representation itself, which has always seemed to me a more interesting conversation," as she explains in the Either/And interview.

What this means is that MacDonell, for all her "artistic" vision, is not an artist. When tested, she's probably not very skilled at any of these artistic fields either: Film making (taking out the camera, shooting images, editing those images, producing a coherent whole), painting, drawing, or sculpture (she's big on "installations" which to her probably constitutes sculpture). All her works are borrowed, which I term as stolen, from various sources. And of course, not from real artists, which would have given her some exposure, and eventually something to emulate, but from the photographs and films she finds in people's garbage bins.

What a macabre and nihilistic way to represent the world! And it shows in her disjointed, cut ups, collages and installations.

Art for this conceited individual is about talking about art, rather than making art. And these "found objects" have been her means of "conversation" rather than creation.

Below is a photograph I took about two years ago which is around a similar theme of displaying cultural and sexual messages through contemporary cultural signs. The original post, with my commentary is in Camera Lucida under The Sexy Escape.

The Sexy Escape, 2010
Kidist P. Asrat
Here is how I see the superiority of my work:
a. My photograph shows:
- Context
- Humanity - how ordinary people look next to these iconic images
- Architecture - how images are placed in or on buildings
- Real life - the images show ordinary people juxtaposed with the images, mannequins and shop windows
- Poetry - I try to reference these views to come up with some kind of visual poetry

b. Macdonell's images show:
- Disjointed images, shapes and forms: Her cut-off hands of the mannequin, her burlesque dancer revolving in a few frames of a film, have no connection to the real world, and rotate within the image's confines
- Focused on phallic: Almost all her work, at some point, narrows in on the male or female sexual organs
- Cut off from real life: Even though she says she finds these "objects" in people's trash, she isolates them from the owners, and creates her own, insulated world out of them
- Morbid: Her objects form a collection of "found" items which have been thrown away, and which had no use for their owners. She doesn't salvage them and bring them back to their original use (building a new mannequin to of the hand, for example), or elevate them by creating something worthwhile, but uses them to further degrade them.
- Nihilistic: She says in an interview: "The work becomes about representation itself, which has always seemed to me a more interesting conversation [than talking about the work]." The objects, the images, the sculptures no longer count, which means what they represent does not matter either.

Macdonell, and the string of "artists" of her era, are clever wordmongers. They have not talent in art, but somehow decided that they wanted to work in art. This proved difficult, and their way out is to "have conversations about representation," as they spitefully malign art and creation.

Here are links to Macdonell's works and interviews:

- Commentary on film installation Time is a One trick Pony.

- Cinema and Visual Pleasure at the 2006 Viennale

- Interview at the Mercer Union: Originality and the Avant Garde (on Art and Repetition)

- Grange Prize short-list interview

- Macdonell's website
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Easter and Passover

Moses and parting of the Red Sea, from Cecil B. Demille's The Ten Commandments

I wrote the article below in 2010, and it was published at Frontpage Magazine.

It is a critique of religion, contemporary American politics, multiculturalism, and Christianity. I am not a politician (nor a student of politics), but I'm surprised at how prescient some of my points were back then (this is four years before Obamacare becomes part of American health care)

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Reclaiming Religion From the Left
Published in Frontpage Magazine
April 19, 2010


[Commentary on the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 film The Ten Commandments should be screening this Easter on television, as it is an annual tradition. "Please check you local listings."]

Two television networks showcased Cecil B. DeMille’s epic 3 ½ hour The Ten Commandments this Easter: ABC and Canada’s CBC. The 1956 film had no need for our 21st century Computer Generated Imagery to convince us that the Red Sea was indeed parting, and that the “bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed” (Exodus 3:2). I wondered if the networks made this choice because there is really no superlative modern narrative of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection? We have Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ, but its gore and blood is too hard to take at Easter. The Last Temptation of Christ by Martin Scorsese is too idiosyncratic, and would be something to watch and study at another time in the year. There are plenty of bland and insipid made-for-television versions of Christ’s story, many of which are programmed during Christmas, but for some reason they were not screened this Easter.

Perhaps these channels chose to commemorate Passover rather than Easter, which fell around similar dates this year. Or they’re simply following the ritual of politically correct inclusiveness. Even President Obama has made Passover Seder-at-the-White House a new tradition, hosting it for the second time as President. No other President before him has hosted the Seder at the White House. Obama’s Seder started on a whim, it seems. During his campaign trail, two young Jewish aides were celebrating their Seder in a basement of a Pittsburgh hotel, away from home and family, when Obama joined their festivities.

Obama’s interest in Jewish celebrations may indeed be a liberal’s outreach to cultural diversity – after all, the White House now hosts Ramadan dinners. But, it fits his narcissistic personality, conforming the Seder to any situation he may be experiencing at the time of the holiday. At the first, impromptu, Seder in Pennsylvania when his campaign was steeped in the Reverend Wright controversies and was “in the desert,” as another campaign aide put it, Obama proclaimed “Next year at the White House” as an addition to “Next Year in Jerusalem” commonly said at the end of the dinner. Perhaps, as suggests Judi Kantor from the New York Times, this year’s focus could have been one of the universalist themes that Obama is so fond of: to free Americans from the bondage of capitalist healthcare and to give them the abundance of Obamacare.

The Center for American Progress has another suggestion. In it’s article on Obama’s Seder celebration this year, CAP cleverly used the Bible’s New Revised Standard Version to quote from Exodus 22:21: “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” Almost all the other versions use “stranger”, “foreigner” or “sojourner” in lieu of “resident alien,” clearly portraying a temporary dweller and not the long-term inhabitant that “resident alien” implies. The CAP’s advice to President Obama is that he treat Mexican illegal aliens with the same compassion they interpret from the NRS, and pass comprehensive immigration reform. But when we parse the words, it is clear that illegal aliens are not the “resident aliens” implied by CAP, but emboldened Mexicans, foreigners and strangers, who wish to take advantage of the lax rules and borders that makes it possible for them to enter and reside in the country with impunity.

One has to marvel at the President’s Seder chutzpah after his dismal treatment of Prime Minister Netanyahu during his recent visit to the United States. It is one thing to celebrate an ethnic festival, but another to respect the significance that the celebrants give their rituals. The Israelites that Obama commemorates in these Seders were freed from bondage in Egypt, and their descendants later received their Promised Land. Yet, Obama seems intent on removing this sacred land from the Jews, and forcing on them new enemies who are probably far more ruthless than the Egyptians.

Modern Christians are in as much danger as modern Jews. Our liberal neighbors, with their feel-good, made-up Christianity are destroying our religion and our communities. Liberal church leaders support issues ranging from comprehensive immigration reform to same sex marriage. Atheists, who have nonetheless constructed their own religion, now have their prophets. In the April 2010 publication of Vanity Fair, atheist Christopher Hitchens performs an iconoclastic dismantling of the Biblical Ten Commandments and then gives us his own petty ten. Like the Old Testament’s Jews, we have to trust that God will free us from our current tribulations.

In fact, End Time preachers use the exodus as an allegory for our liberation. Our ultimate release is entry into God’s heavenly land. But the Passover and Easter stories are also our personal stories. The journey from bondage to freedom reflects our own mundane ordeals. And we experience death and resurrection with each sin and atonement. Celebrating these holidays each year gives us the hope that we too will inherit our particular Israel.

The liberal, politically correct television stations were right after all. The story of Moses, recounting a people’s freedom from slavery, and culminating with the abiding Ten Commandments, was an apt choice for these holidays. Would that our leaders understand and practice its significance. Not just as at religious celebrations, but throughout the year.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Poppy Blossom

Coach, which started out as a luggage store, is now selling perfume (and handbags, purses, wallets and other leather paraphernalia - minus shoes). So far, I think it's become quite successful. I bought several years ago the Coach signature scent, but I found it too sweet. I remember finding Coach Poppy Blossom, but for some reason, I remained unimpressed.

Recently, I went to my favorite perfume store Sephora (where they give samples of scents for the undecided, or the searching), and got a tiny flask (worth about ten sprays) to test. It usually takes several minutes for the scent to release its notes, and even longer for the middle and base notes to come out. Many current perfumes lose their scent within a few hours, but the good ones persist for days.

I asked a shop assistant (a man, unusual for stores these days) what he thought of the perfume. He started a conversation by saying that he recognized the New York Public Library's pin I was wearing on my coat lapel (a logo of the library's lion head). "I worked there for a while last year," he said. "Oh really, what section?" "In the Judaica section, in the Dorot." "Yes, I'm aware of it, but I haven't visited that section... Are you Israeli?"

I asked him his national origin because he had a peculiar name (to me), and a clear Israeli accent.

"No, I'm Moroccan. But I speak fluent Hebrew." he answered.

This didn't ring true (or honest). He did not have an Arab accent. I figured then that he must be one of the many ethnic Arabs who live (or lived) in Israel.

"Do you speak Arabic?" I asked him.

"Yes."

"Are you Muslim?" I finally asked.

"Yes."

Then I thanked him and left.

In any case, he had no idea about the perfume I was asking him, as is the case with most of the staff I ask for assistance at Sephora. What do these people have to do all day but stand around? A smart manager would have them go through all the perfumes, section by section, and study all the basic information about them. And the smart employees would go home online and read up more on the collections.

Which is what I did.

Poppy Blossom was disconnected from the Coach line for a while, but it is back as a limited edition in some of its stores, and Fragrantica and the Bay also carry the line. It is a modest $45 for 30ml.

I have to add, though, there is no poppy flower notes in the perfume, despite the name. It seems like a branding strategy, where the collection's bottles come with cloth poppy flowers for hair or dress decoration: Orange/red flower for the original Poppy Blossom), green for the Poppy Citrine Blossom, and violet/red for the Poppy Freesia Blossom.

The "Poppy" seems to be the name of the woman this perfume was designed for. But what kind of woman is called "Poppy?"

Here are the notes for the Poppy Blossom:

Top: Lychee, Strawberry, Orange, Freesia
Middle: Lily-of-the-valley, Rose, Tubrose, Gardenia, Jasmine
Base: Pralin, Vanilla, Musk, Woody notes

It has the lily-of-the-valley that I wrote about here.

The scent does last several days. Its final notes are a light combination of the floral and fruit, with the floral dominating slightly.

It is the perfect scent for late spring and summer.

Osmoz says this about the perfume:

Description: Poppy Blossom by Coach begins with fruity notes of mandarin, strawberry and lychee. The heart is a bunch of muguet, centifolia rose, tuberose, jasmine and gardenia. The warm and gourmand dry-down mixes praline, vanilla, blond woods and white musks.
At a glance: A playful and optimistic scent
History: After Poppy, and Poppy Flower, a citrusy and sparkling fragrance, Coach introduces Poppy Blossom, a more floral and fruity scent. According to the brand, the perfume combines the vivacious energy of Coach Poppy and the floral femininity of Poppy Flower. The fragrance embodies a whimsical, modern and sophisticated woman with an exhilarating personality.
Bottle: Poppy’s signature flacon is reinterpreted with a red poppy-like ribbon and a golden juice.

The era of the individual perfumer is over. Although Karyn Khoury is attributed as Poppy Blossom's creator, she worked with a large team of perfumers to make the scent. She says about the process:

...We spent many hours with Reed Krakoff (Coach’s executive creative director) and his team, listening to their vision of the brand and customer.

[...]

The result is a beautifully blended fragrance with great presence, signature and diffusion, which represents modern beauty, elegance and charm.

But, the "nose" of the original Poppy is Celine Barel, who has a modest collection of perfumes, including one nice one she designed for Jessica Simpson (modern pop star).

This original bottle has no corresponding flower, and is a darker bottle with a chocolate brown ribbon, perhaps referencing that "modern woman," with notes which include light and stronger elements, such as cucumber, gardenia, jasmine, and "decadent" marshmallow.

This site describes this dichotomy best with:

Poppy Blossom combines the vivacious energy of Poppy with the floral femininity of Poppy Flower. This luminous and warm fragrance is inspired by the modern beauty of the Poppy Woman.

But, as I said earlier, if left to its own qualities, Poppy Blossom is light, fresh, fruity and floral, and is perfect for spring and summer.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Dancing with the Stars

Maksim and Meryl, dancing the Foxtrot
Meryl Davis is the Olympian figure skater from the US,who came back from the 2014 Winter Olympics with two medals, one gold and one bronze.

Derek Hough, the star dancer and instructor of Dancing With the Stars, choreographed the Ice Dancing routine, for which she won gold with her partner Charlie White (who is also competing in Dancing with the Stars this year)

Meryl is partnered with Maksim Chmerkovskiy, the competing "star" instructor of Dancing with the Stars, for the 2014 season.

Below is the video for week two, with her and Maksim doing the Foxtrot:



In week three, there was a "switch-up" of partners, and Meryl danced with Maksim's brother Valentin.

Here is the video, with her and Val doing the Tango:



Meryl is the talent to watch. She's received some flack for competing in Dancing With the Stars with her dancing background, but dancers are quick to point out that figure skating might actually be a disadvantage, for the kinds of moves that make up that discipline.

Derek won an Emmy for Choreography at the 2013 awards. For this episode of Dancing with the Stars, he choreographed the Dancing With The Stars Macy's Stars Of Dance. Below is the video:



It is a dark and sombre piece. But what is to be expected of young artists today influenced by vampires and dark fairy tales?

Still, the weavings of Derek's choreography shows true talent. Perhaps, at some point, he will find a better subject then death and destruction (or nihilism). The glimmer of hope is the beautiful young woman in the dance, who might be the muse trying to get out of the horror story.

But, at some point, beauty will have to stand side-by-side with talent, as I hoped at this posting in 2011 on another television dance competition, So You Think You Can Dance. One step at a time.

Dancing With the Stars is also one such show, where amateurs train for weeks to perform like graceful dancers. Some even succeed. And they can all go home and spread the message of beauty.

The Coveted Mirror Ball-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Lily of the Valley

From: Faberge from the Matilda Geddings
Gray Foundation Collection
Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York
November 22, 2011–November 27, 2016
[Photo by KPA]
Lilies of the valley are late spring flowers, but they reminded me of snowdrops, which are one of the first flowers to come out in spring.

Here's a closer look at the design of the lily of the valley (from the Faberge exhibition):

Snowdrops are slightly larger, and their flowers are more open:

Snowdrops may indicate that spring (true spring, not the calendar spring) is around the corner, if it hasn't arrived yet, but the lily of the valley is a more poignantly beautiful flower.

According to Christian legend, it is:

...known as Our Lady's tears or Mary's tears from Christian legends that it sprang from the weeping of the Virgin Mary during the crucifixion of Jesus. Other etiologies its coming into being from Eve's tears after she was driven with Adam from the Garden of Eden or from the blood shed by Saint Leonard of Noblac during his battles with a dragon.

The name "lily of the valley" is used in some English translations of the Bible in Song of Songs 2:1, but the Hebrew phrase "shoshannat-ha-amaqim" in the original text (literally "lily of the valleys") doesn't refer to this plant. It's possible, though, that the biblical phrase may have had something to do with the origin or development of the modern plant-name.

It is a symbol of humility in religious painting. Lily of the valley is considered the sign of Christ's second coming. The power of men to envision a better world was also attributed to the lily of the valley. [Source: Wikipedia]

Here are some symbolic meanings of the lily of the valley:

-Return of happiness
- Purity of heart
- Sweetness
- Humility
- Happiness
- Love's good fortune
- It is also believed that this flower protects gardens from evil spirits. [Source]

These are the verses from Song of Solomon (2:1-17), which mention the lily of the valley:

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.

As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.

As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.

Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.

His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.

I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.

My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice.

My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.

Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.

My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Spring Flowers (Bring April Showers)

Flower on the Atrium (across from the Coach Terminal)
Downtown Toronto
[Photo by: KPA]
It's not quite time for these flowers (they are from a Camera Lucida post from last May), and we're having a wet and cold March, and April started off the same. But, the showers should bring us flowers, soon.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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