"Philosopher Roger Scruton presents a provocative essay on the importance of beauty in the arts and in our lives.

In the 20th century, Scruton argues, art, architecture and music turned their backs on beauty, making a cult of ugliness and leading us into a spiritual desert.

Using the thoughts of philosophers from Plato to Kant, and by talking to artists Michael Craig-Martin and Alexander Stoddart, Scruton analyses where art went wrong and presents his own impassioned case for restoring beauty to its traditional position at the centre of our civilisation."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiajXQUppYY

wow lisa you're brilliant!!!

An interesting documentary.
Scruton is one of those rare living philosophers who doesn't go for postmodernist thought. He is quite conservative. His arguments for the reintroduction of the standards of beauty set by Plato and Kant are excellent but, I think, is beyond us now. Art has been deomcratized. It has been taken out of the hands of artists and placed in the hands of anarchists. The main purpose for art now is to shock. This is why we have things today like Pisschrist and no David. This is what happens when you try and level society, genius is taken to be equal to philistinism. This is why I oppose equality; it tries and bring everyone down to the same level. No more genius, no more greatness, rather, the ordinary and grotesque take centre stage. There was a reason on why cultures were aristocratic for over 2 millenia; to hold up higher standards of judgment. Art being a classic example here.

The modern enemies of art are the same as the modern enemies of Western civilization: the socialists, anarchists, feminists, and any other anti-authoritarian movement.

Yes, Bolshevik. We should keep beauty for the elite who deserve it and leave the peasants in their stark, brown drudgery.

It's the right thing to do.

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 8:58am:

An interesting documentary. Scruton is one of those rare living philosophers who doesn't go for postmodernist thought. He is quite conservative. His arguments for the reintroduction of the standards of beauty set by Plato and Kant are excellent but, I think, is beyond us now. Art has been deomcratized. It has been taken out of the hands of artists and placed in the hands of anarchists. The main purpose for art now is to shock. This is why we have things today like Pisschrist and no David. This is what happens when you try and level society, genius is taken to be equal to philistinism. This is why I oppose equality; it tries and bring everyone down to the same level. No more genius, no more greatness, rather, the ordinary and grotesque take centre stage. There was a reason on why cultures were aristocratic for over 2 millenia; to hold up higher standards of judgment. Art being a classic example here. The modern enemies of art are the same as the modern enemies of Western civilization: the socialists, anarchists, feminists, and any other anti-authoritarian movement.

Yes fascists are the beautiful people and everybody else should go to the lime pits. In your dreams.  ;D

It was all so pretty back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE-LPpiGLjw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT_1VoIq-r8&feature=related

Grey wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 8:13pm:

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 8:58am: An interesting documentary. Scruton is one of those rare living philosophers who doesn't go for postmodernist thought. He is quite conservative. His arguments for the reintroduction of the standards of beauty set by Plato and Kant are excellent but, I think, is beyond us now. Art has been deomcratized. It has been taken out of the hands of artists and placed in the hands of anarchists. The main purpose for art now is to shock. This is why we have things today like Pisschrist and no David. This is what happens when you try and level society, genius is taken to be equal to philistinism. This is why I oppose equality; it tries and bring everyone down to the same level. No more genius, no more greatness, rather, the ordinary and grotesque take centre stage. There was a reason on why cultures were aristocratic for over 2 millenia; to hold up higher standards of judgment. Art being a classic example here. The modern enemies of art are the same as the modern enemies of Western civilization: the socialists, anarchists, feminists, and any other anti-authoritarian movement. Yes fascists are the beautiful people and everybody else should go to the lime pits. In your dreams.  ;D

Or Scotland.

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 8:58am:

The modern enemies of art are the same as the modern enemies of Western civilization: the socialists, anarchists, feminists, and any other anti-authoritarian movement.

Don't forget the other totalitarians... And those driven by artless ego...

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 9:18pm:

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 8:58am: The modern enemies of art are the same as the modern enemies of Western civilization: the socialists, anarchists, feminists, and any other anti-authoritarian movement. Don't forget the other totalitarians... And those driven by artless ego...

Urr what do you mean 'the other totalitarians'? Bolshie likes totalitarians as long as they're RW. Anarchists are anti-totalitarian.

Grey wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 9:38pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 9:18pm: Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 8:58am: The modern enemies of art are the same as the modern enemies of Western civilization: the socialists, anarchists, feminists, and any other anti-authoritarian movement. Don't forget the other totalitarians... And those driven by artless ego... Urr what do you mean 'the other totalitarians'? Bolshie likes totalitarians as long as they're RW. Anarchists are anti-totalitarian.

Like the extreme points of an arc... Opposites are (almost) infinitely proximate.

Maybe my detractors would like to answer this: What is more beautiful and why, Pisschrist or David?

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 9:44pm:

Grey wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 9:38pm: NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 9:18pm: Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 8:58am: The modern enemies of art are the same as the modern enemies of Western civilization: the socialists, anarchists, feminists, and any other anti-authoritarian movement. Don't forget the other totalitarians... And those driven by artless ego... Urr what do you mean 'the other totalitarians'? Bolshie likes totalitarians as long as they're RW. Anarchists are anti-totalitarian. Like the extreme points of an arc... Opposites are (almost) infinitely proximate.

Not on an arc no. East and west collide, Bolshevism/Fascism yes. But not authoritarian and Libertarian that's a North - South divide.  :P

Grey wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 10:02pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 9:44pm: Grey wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 9:38pm: NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 9:18pm: Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 8:58am: The modern enemies of art are the same as the modern enemies of Western civilization: the socialists, anarchists, feminists, and any other anti-authoritarian movement. Don't forget the other totalitarians... And those driven by artless ego... Urr what do you mean 'the other totalitarians'? Bolshie likes totalitarians as long as they're RW. Anarchists are anti-totalitarian. Like the extreme points of an arc... Opposites are (almost) infinitely proximate. Not on an arc no. East and west collide, Bolshevism/Fascism yes. But not authoritarian and Libertarian that's a North - South divide.  :P

The cosmos is curved... East meets west, north meets south ;)

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 10:00pm:

Maybe my detractors would like to answer this: What is more beautiful and why, Pisschrist or David?

It comes down to individual appreciation. I personally don't think either are beautiful, but I much prefer David as a piece of art. Serrano intended to shock and insult, which he accomplished. I don't respect his creativity and when I look at the photograph, I feel a mild revulsion.


My favourite piece of art is by Spitzweg, but I don't find it beautiful. It's exciting.

Is artistic creativity necessarily about beauty?

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 10:00pm:

Maybe my detractors would like to answer this: What is more beautiful and why, Pisschrist or David?

For a start you haven't made the jump from commentator to subject, anywhere outside of your own ego. David is sublime, Michelangelo is perhaps the most accomplished producer of beautiful art ever. You're not going to get much argument on that score.

So is that it? Art died with Michelangelo? Of course not. Art is a viewpoint and there are as many views as people, rage, pity, feminism, masculinism, poverty, wealth etc have as much right to be represented in art as beauty. We like the art that resonates with us. I have a particular fondness for art that contains contrasts and multiple ideas. Art that is merely beautiful has no place in this age. It is unsophisticated, puerile, and yes, Michelangelo transcends that obstacle and is timeless. But comparing David with the art that resonates least with you and pompously declaring 'see'; that's idiotic.

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 10:00pm:

Maybe my detractors would like to answer this: What is more beautiful and why, Pisschrist or David?

Good luck with that one... Though Robert Pirsig at one time made himself a household name taking it on... Maybe he didn't (or did) get it right, but he sure was read...

It's all about.... Quality... (apparently).

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 10:23pm:

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 10:00pm: Maybe my detractors would like to answer this: What is more beautiful and why, Pisschrist or David? It comes down to individual appreciation. I personally don't think either are beautiful, but I much prefer David as a piece of art. Serrano intended to shock and insult, which he accomplished. I don't respect his creativity and when I look at the photograph, I feel a mild revulsion. My favourite piece of art is by Spitzweg, but I don't find it beautiful. It's exciting. Is artistic creativity necessarily about beauty?

You'll have to expand on what you mean by "exciting". How does it differ from the parameters of "shock value" and "beauty"?

Grey wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 11:39pm:

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 10:00pm: Maybe my detractors would like to answer this: What is more beautiful and why, Pisschrist or David? For a start you haven't made the jump from commentator to subject, anywhere outside of your own ego. David is sublime, Michelangelo is perhaps the most accomplished producer of beautiful art ever. You're not going to get much argument on that score. So is that it? Art died with Michelangelo? Of course not. Art is a viewpoint and there are as many views as people, rage, pity, feminism, masculinism, poverty, wealth etc have as much right to be represented in art as beauty. We like the art that resonates with us. I have a particular fondness for art that contains contrasts and multiple ideas. Art that is merely beautiful has no place in this age. It is unsophisticated, puerile, and yes, Michelangelo transcends that obstacle and is timeless. But comparing David with the art that resonates least with you and pompously declaring 'see'; that's idiotic.

Art in the pre-modern era can't be understood without the feeling or intuition of transcendence. Yes, Michelangelo was trying to create something timeless, eternal, some archetypal piece that transcends the mundane, but how this becomes, in your words, "unsophisticated" and "peurile," today actually explains better the disposition of the modern artist and not the pre-modern art itself. Modern art cannot be understood without the rise of the lower classes. Art was always in the hands of aristocrats, yet, when the lower classes started to assert their taste upon things, well, the end result is when something like Pisschrist is taken seriously. Modern art is ugly because modern artists are ugly. The point of departure for most modern art is primarily to shock or rebel, this reflects perfectly the soul of the artist. His soul has no taste for higher things, doesn't want to present anything eternal, substantial, or even arouse contemplation; its purpose is to rage against authority. Not because it's noble or because he has something profound to say, but because he's an ugly man with an ugly soul who just wants to see the world burn.
See, I know every nook and cranny of the modern anarchist, the modern socialist rebel; at bottom these people are fundamentally disgruntled, fundamentally disappointed. The primary instinct to compensate for this self-pity, this self-hate, is to rebel against the world. What better place for artists to externalize their ugly soul by creating ugly art. Yet they claim their art and their soul isn't ugly, they think their art is virtuous and noble, and that their Pisschrists represent something profound.
Modern day man knows little of the noble feeling of reverence the aristocrats of yesteryear felt toward themselves and the world. Anarchists and socialists have done so much in trying to eradicate this feeling; no man should be proud they say, no man should feel good about himself and the world. The anarchist and socialist say to themselves , "if I am canaille, so should everyone else."

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 15^th, 2011 at 9:56am:

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 10:23pm: Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14th, 2011 at 10:00pm: Maybe my detractors would like to answer this: What is more beautiful and why, Pisschrist or David? It comes down to individual appreciation. I personally don't think either are beautiful, but I much prefer David as a piece of art. Serrano intended to shock and insult, which he accomplished. I don't respect his creativity and when I look at the photograph, I feel a mild revulsion. My favourite piece of art is by Spitzweg, but I don't find it beautiful. It's exciting. Is artistic creativity necessarily about beauty? You'll have to expand on what you mean by "exciting". How does it differ from the parameters of "shock value" and "beauty"?

Captivating. Not easily dismissed.



Quote:

no man should be proud they say, no man should feel good about himself and the world.

That's just it. Everyone should have the opportunity to feel good about themselves and the world - not just 'aristocrats' who do so by standing upon the necks of the masses.

I see beauty in a lot of modern art - it's just different. It's possible to enjoy both. If Blake and Sidney leave you breathless, it doesn't mean Bukowski is a talentless hack because of his raw modernity.  

Quote:

Annie anthrax wrote Captivating. Not easily dismissed

How is this different from beauty?


Quote:

annie anthrax wrote That's just it. Everyone should have the opportunity to feel good about themselves and the world - not just 'aristocrats' who do so by standing upon the necks of the masses.

That is a fundamentally modern plebeian reinterpretation of the past.
The idea of emancipation is only relatively new, something arisen only about 150 odd years ago. It carries with it a fundamental error in that it reinterprets all the past as oppressive; that everyone since the beginning of time ought to have been free of masters. As I stated before, modern man does not understand the feeling of reverence that past people had for their leaders/kings/queens. This is why I will not sit around and tolerate anarchists, socialists, and feminists who reinterpret the past as something purely evil and oppressive.

Quote:

This is why I will not sit around and tolerate anarchists, socialists, and feminists who reinterpret the past as something purely evil and oppressive.

You won't tolerate them? What will you do?



Quote:

How is this different from beauty?

Ugly can be exciting and hard to dismiss.

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 15^th, 2011 at 4:59pm:

Quote: Annie anthrax wrote Captivating. Not easily dismissed How is this different from beauty? [quote]annie anthrax wrote That's just it. Everyone should have the opportunity to feel good about themselves and the world - not just 'aristocrats' who do so by standing upon the necks of the masses.

That is a fundamentally modern plebeian reinterpretation of the past.
The idea of emancipation is only relatively new, something arisen only about 150 odd years ago. It carries with it a fundamental error in that it reinterprets all the past as oppressive; that everyone since the beginning of time ought to have been free of masters. As I stated before, modern man does not understand the feeling of reverence that past people had for their leaders/kings/queens. This is why I will not sit around and tolerate anarchists, socialists, and feminists who reinterpret the past as something purely evil and oppressive. [/quote]

You see Annie, in Bolshies peculiar brand of temporal moral relativism, a past redolent with the hypocrisy and brutality of the aristo-classes is not only exempt from criticism, but indeed is worthy of revisiting. Our Lord Ugg would no doubt like to woo you with his cudgel before twining your tresses around his fingers and dragging you off to the back of his cave.  

http://www.historyofwomen.org/timeline.html

I wonder if he's the incumbent Earl Elgin, chief of the clan Bruce. they have a fondness for marble, looting and the divine right of aristos. The 7th Earl Elgin reknowned for his looting of Greek marble on his way home from India was succeeded by the overseer of the opium war against China, culminating in the sacking of the summer palace. Not very bright the Elgins. The biggest treaure in the summer palace was overlooked, being hidden in full view. The two enormous brass lions guarding the entrance being not brass at all :-)

The high cost of 'authority' may well be borne by the future. The opium wars of no more than 160 years ago resulted in the slaughter of 40-50 million Chinese and the addiction of most of those left. Only the totalitarian communists managed to cure that ill by their own draconian methods. The Chinese have long memories.

Of course the languid contemplation of 'beauty' by the aristos had to be paid for somehow.

Speaking of Clan Bruce, a couple of centuries before the Looter Bruce, poor Mary Bruce was placed in a cage which hung from the side of Roxburgh Castle. She stayed there exposed to the elements for four years just cos she was Robert's sister. I'm pretty sure she was betrayed by a 'noble' member of the aristocracy and caged by order of the English king. Her friend Isobel MacDuff suffered the same fate.


A return to the days when the aristocracy held all the power? Yes please!

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 15^th, 2011 at 6:36pm:

Speaking of Clan Bruce, a couple of centuries before the Looter Bruce, poor Mary Bruce was placed in a cage which hung from the side of Roxburgh Castle. She stayed there exposed to the elements for four years just cos she was Robert's sister. I'm pretty sure she was betrayed by a 'noble' member of the aristocracy and caged by order of the English king. Her friend Isobel MacDuff suffered the same fate. A return to the days when the aristocracy held all the power? Yes please!

Yes, it took a while for the Scots to civilise the English. They  vastly improved their literacy with the Elementary Education Act in 1870, and quickly reached parity with the high literacy rates in Scotland and Wales that had been prevalent for the previous 300 years.

Grey wrote on Nov 15^th, 2011 at 6:18pm:

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 15th, 2011 at 4:59pm: Quote: Annie anthrax wrote Captivating. Not easily dismissed How is this different from beauty? [quote]annie anthrax wrote That's just it. Everyone should have the opportunity to feel good about themselves and the world - not just 'aristocrats' who do so by standing upon the necks of the masses. That is a fundamentally modern plebeian reinterpretation of the past. The idea of emancipation is only relatively new, something arisen only about 150 odd years ago. It carries with it a fundamental error in that it reinterprets all the past as oppressive; that everyone since the beginning of time ought to have been free of masters. As I stated before, modern man does not understand the feeling of reverence that past people had for their leaders/kings/queens. This is why I will not sit around and tolerate anarchists, socialists, and feminists who reinterpret the past as something purely evil and oppressive.

You see Annie, in Bolshies peculiar brand of temporal moral relativism, a past redolent with the hypocrisy and brutality of the aristo-classes is not only exempt from criticism, but indeed is worthy of revisiting. Our Lord Ugg would no doubt like to woo you with his cudgel before twining your tresses around his fingers and dragging you off to the back of his cave.  

http://www.historyofwomen.org/timeline.html

I wonder if he's the incumbent Earl Elgin, chief of the clan Bruce. they have a fondness for marble, looting and the divine right of aristos. The 7th Earl Elgin reknowned for his looting of Greek marble on his way home from India was succeeded by the overseer of the opium war against China, culminating in the sacking of the summer palace. Not very bright the Elgins. The biggest treaure in the summer palace was overlooked, being hidden in full view. The two enormous brass lions guarding the entrance being not brass at all :-)

The high cost of 'authority' may well be borne by the future. The opium wars of no more than 160 years ago resulted in the slaughter of 40-50 million Chinese and the addiction of most of those left. Only the totalitarian communists managed to cure that ill by their own draconian methods. The Chinese have long memories.

Of course the languid contemplation of 'beauty' by the aristos had to be paid for somehow. [/quote]


Those people were killed for political reasons, not for beauty. Anyway, your timeline of crimes committed against women would be ten times that size if one was done on males. Nevertheless, laws of all kinds have always existed. Transgress them at you own peril. I s'pose everyone should become an anarchist as a solution? Impossible. Any extricating from one set of rules only places you in the context of another set of rules. Escaping authority is an illusion. Only those who refuse to examine epistemology honestly fall for it.

Quote:

annie anthrax wrote You won't tolerate them? What will you do?

Continue exposing the untenability of their positions.


Quote:

annie anthrax wrote Ugly can be exciting and hard to dismiss.

You're being vague. I would speculate this is because you truly don't know the differences between beauty, exciting, and ugly.

Quote:

You're being vague. I would speculate this is because you truly don't know the differences between beauty, exciting, and ugly

I'm one of the peasantry. What did you expect?

The idea of elite in the context of art is no longer about birth, if it ever was. After all, very few of the greatest artists were themselves of high birth.

Elite - or excellence or greatness - in art, literature, music means the dedication and effort that has been put into learning how to make it but also the dedication and effort and schooling and cultivation that is required for 'accessing' it, understanding it. The sun shines on us all equally, the night sky is equally starry for all of us,  yet only very few can claim to be astronomers.

Uncultured, uncultivated, unschooled humanity will carry one only so far in the comprehension of art, music and literature, even if one is by nature sensitive.

Popular art, music, literature are called popular precisely because they are accessible without any effort, by anyone. It is for people who self-select not to put in the effort and the self-cultivation because they most probably do not see the point of it. Only a few - the elite - do and they are the ones who keep high, elite culture going. It has always been so. But birth has nothing to do with it, not even social class.

Soren wrote on Nov 16^th, 2011 at 1:25pm:

The idea of elite in the context of art is no longer about birth, if it ever was. After all, very few of the greatest artists were themselves of high birth. Elite - or excellence or greatness - in art, literature, music means the dedication and effort that has been put into learning how to make it but also the dedication and effort and schooling and cultivation that is required for 'accessing' it, understanding it. The sun shines on us all equally, the night sky is equally starry for all of us,  yet only very few can claim to be astronomers. Uncultured, uncultivated, unschooled humanity will carry one only so far in the comprehension of art, music and literature, even if one is by nature sensitive. Popular art, music, literature are called popular precisely because they are accessible without any effort, by anyone. It is for people who self-select not to put in the effort and the self-cultivation because they most probably do not see the point of it. Only a few - the elite - do and they are the ones who keep high, elite culture going. It has always been so. But birth has nothing to do with it, not even social class.

This is not the way Scrotum sees it. He and his ilk care nothing for the artist except by way of reference. I'm sure those that commissioned Michelangelo doubted he had the wit to appreciate his own work as much as they did. They have no more regard for the artists than they do for the bodies they walk over to loot or the burglars they pay to knick it.

Beauty is everything. They wish to surround themselves with it to claim the beauty as theirs, bathe in the reflected glory, elevate their status. Artists have always had to prostitute themselves by painting the elite with flattery. Of course they want art that questions, rages, leads the vanguard for change, like they want a hole in the head. Goya painted them for them, but he painted the other for himself.

It is the Pieta not David that brings tears, because the Pieta is more than beauty. I am deeply moved too by Picasso's Guernica and works by Tracy Emin. Are the elites moved by Guernica? They cover it for shame when talking of the necessity for war. But they don't 'get it' if they did they'd call the wars off.

For the Conservative beauty is all. The left get beauty, but they get intellectualsim as well. It is the right whose art bank is lacking. Give me Arundhati Roy over Wordsworth .

Quote:

Those people were killed for political reasons, not for beauty. Anyway, your timeline of crimes committed against women would be ten times that size if one was done on males. Nevertheless, laws of all kinds have always existed. Transgress them at you own peril. I s'pose everyone should become an anarchist as a solution? Impossible. Any extricating from one set of rules only places you in the context of another set of rules. Escaping authority is an illusion. Only those who refuse to examine epistemology honestly fall for it.

The timeline for crimes committed by women against men would be all but nonexistent. That is the fact your denial of feminism rails against.

It is authority that is the illusion. What is 'authority'? It is respect demanded, paid for, and coerced from.  A feeble thing compared to that respect which is freely given to those deserving of it. I know authority. I've lived with it all my life, but what do you know about Anarchism? Nothing! Let me tell you a few things. Anarchism stands against the faux rightness of authority. We do not accept 'good leaders' because there's never been a good leader in all human history. There's been those who've been right sometimes, those who've been lucky most of the time and those who've been unmitigated disasters all of the time. Anarchists accept good ideas and if in our consensus we accept a bad idea because 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' we don't have ownership of it and can change direction instantly.  

The best of human knowledge is structured along anarchic lines. Scientific method is Anarchic method. Nobody used penicillin because Fleming thought it was a good idea and he was the leader. We respect, good dictionaries, No dictionaries have any intrinsic authority to control language, but we are happy to refer and defer to the opinion of work that has by and large been compiled by consensus.

Anarchism is a belief in chaos theory. Leadership is a belief in the foretelling of the eventual patterns of coloured water while you are still pissing in the bowl and pressing flush.

Grey wrote on Nov 16^th, 2011 at 3:17pm:

Soren wrote on Nov 16th, 2011 at 1:25pm: The idea of elite in the context of art is no longer about birth, if it ever was. After all, very few of the greatest artists were themselves of high birth. Elite - or excellence or greatness - in art, literature, music means the dedication and effort that has been put into learning how to make it but also the dedication and effort and schooling and cultivation that is required for 'accessing' it, understanding it. The sun shines on us all equally, the night sky is equally starry for all of us,  yet only very few can claim to be astronomers. Uncultured, uncultivated, unschooled humanity will carry one only so far in the comprehension of art, music and literature, even if one is by nature sensitive. Popular art, music, literature are called popular precisely because they are accessible without any effort, by anyone. It is for people who self-select not to put in the effort and the self-cultivation because they most probably do not see the point of it. Only a few - the elite - do and they are the ones who keep high, elite culture going. It has always been so. But birth has nothing to do with it, not even social class. This is not the way Scrotum sees it. He and his ilk care nothing for the artist except by way of reference. I'm sure those that commissioned Michelangelo doubted he had the wit to appreciate his own work as much as they did. They have no more regard for the artists than they do for the bodies they walk over to loot or the burglars they pay to knick it. Beauty is everything. They wish to surround themselves with it to claim the beauty as theirs, bathe in the reflected glory, elevate their status. Artists have always had to prostitute themselves by painting the elite with flattery. Of course they want art that questions, rages, leads the vanguard for change, like they want a hole in the head. Goya painted them for them, but he painted the other for himself. It is the Pieta not David that brings tears, because the Pieta is more than beauty. I am deeply moved too by Picasso's Guernica and works by Tracy Emin. Are the elites moved by Guernica? They cover it for shame when talking of the necessity for war. But they don't 'get it' if they did they'd call the wars off. For the Conservative beauty is all. The left get beauty, but they get intellectualsim as well. It is the right whose art bank is lacking. Give me Arundhati Roy over Wordsworth .

The usual stridently ignorant, complacent, conceited and smug nonsense I have come to expect from you.

Quote:

The usual stridently ignorant, complecent, smug nonsense I have come to expect from you.

With you as lead detractor Soren, nobody could blame me for complacency. ::)

Grey wrote on Nov 16^th, 2011 at 3:17pm:

Soren wrote on Nov 16th, 2011 at 1:25pm: The idea of elite in the context of art is no longer about birth, if it ever was. After all, very few of the greatest artists were themselves of high birth. Elite - or excellence or greatness - in art, literature, music means the dedication and effort that has been put into learning how to make it but also the dedication and effort and schooling and cultivation that is required for 'accessing' it, understanding it. The sun shines on us all equally, the night sky is equally starry for all of us,  yet only very few can claim to be astronomers. Uncultured, uncultivated, unschooled humanity will carry one only so far in the comprehension of art, music and literature, even if one is by nature sensitive. Popular art, music, literature are called popular precisely because they are accessible without any effort, by anyone. It is for people who self-select not to put in the effort and the self-cultivation because they most probably do not see the point of it. Only a few - the elite - do and they are the ones who keep high, elite culture going. It has always been so. But birth has nothing to do with it, not even social class. This is not the way Scrotum sees it. He and his ilk care nothing for the artist except by way of reference. I'm sure those that commissioned Michelangelo doubted he had the wit to appreciate his own work as much as they did. They have no more regard for the artists than they do for the bodies they walk over to loot or the burglars they pay to knick it. Beauty is everything. They wish to surround themselves with it to claim the beauty as theirs, bathe in the reflected glory, elevate their status. Artists have always had to prostitute themselves by painting the elite with flattery. Of course they want art that questions, rages, leads the vanguard for change, like they want a hole in the head. Goya painted them for them, but he painted the other for himself. It is the Pieta not David that brings tears, because the Pieta is more than beauty. I am deeply moved too by Picasso's Guernica and works by Tracy Emin. Are the elites moved by Guernica? They cover it for shame when talking of the necessity for war. But they don't 'get it' if they did they'd call the wars off. For the Conservative beauty is all. The left get beauty, but they get intellectualsim as well. It is the right whose art bank is lacking. Give me Arundhati Roy over Wordsworth .

The Pieta is beauty. Purity and grace created from something so hard and cold.

What is it you're seeing in Emin? What I've seen of her art is absolutely awful, but I'm interested to see if I'm missing something.

Do you like photography? Colbert's Ashes and Snow holds a real power for me; it's... noble. Magnificent, as well as beautiful.

Roger Scruton
Beauty and Desecration
We must rescue art from the modern intoxication with ugliness.


The West’s great landscape painters, like the eighteenth-century Italian Francesco Guardi, capture the intimations of the eternal in the transient.At any time between 1750 and 1930, if you had asked an educated person to describe the goal of poetry, art, or music, “beauty” would have been the answer. And if you had asked what the point of that was, you would have learned that beauty is a value, as important in its way as truth and goodness, and indeed hardly distinguishable from them. Philosophers of the Enlightenment saw beauty as a way in which lasting moral and spiritual values acquire sensuous form. And no Romantic painter, musician, or writer would have denied that beauty was the final purpose of his art.

At some time during the aftermath of modernism, beauty ceased to receive those tributes. Art increasingly aimed to disturb, subvert, or transgress moral certainties, and it was not beauty but originality—however achieved and at whatever moral cost—that won the prizes. Indeed, there arose a widespread suspicion of beauty as next in line to kitsch—something too sweet and inoffensive for the serious modern artist to pursue. In a seminal essay—“Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” published in Partisan Review in 1939—critic Clement Greenberg starkly contrasted the avant-garde of his day with the figurative painting that competed with it, dismissing the latter (not just Norman Rockwell, but greats like Edward Hopper) as derivative and without lasting significance. The avant-garde, for Greenberg, promoted the disturbing and the provocative over the soothing and the decorative, and that was why we should admire it.

The rest at http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_2_beauty.html

The starting point is that beauty has been and still is a moral as well as an aesthetic and spiritual category. For a far longer time than not, these things went together. Their artrificial, modernist/modernistic, politicised separation (aka Marxist aesthtics and the obcession with an Ur-ideology, in Marx's case, the economy) is a recent invention and not an insight.

Tracey makes me grin. She makes minimalist drawing that say powerful thiings and works like 'Tent', (everyone I ever slept with) that encourage reflection on your own life. Tracey is the artwork and it's a guile free area. I don't think a male could do it. I don't think I'd be accepting of it from a male. She's a kind of post-feminism Marilyn Munroe and I think Norma Jean was a brilliant artist. She turned herself into a parody of mens desires and it sold well; but she never got the respect as an artist that she rightly earned. Norma Jean's art was an increasingly sad spectacle.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/marilyn_monroe.html

Tracey has done the opposite, she's exposed the real. She's turned the hopeless and vulnerable into the secure and confident. She's an icon of empowerment. But make no mistake, she's worked hard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCGVtRWluAk

Grey wrote on Nov 16^th, 2011 at 10:32pm:

Tracey makes me grin. She makes minimalist drawing that say powerful thiings and works like 'Tent', (everyone I ever slept with) that encourage reflection on your own life. Tracey is the artwork and it's a guile free area. I don't think a male could do it. I don't think I'd be accepting of it from a male. She's a kind of post-feminism Marilyn Munroe and I think Norma Jean was a brilliant artist. She turned herself into a parody of mens desires and it sold well; but she never got the respect as an artist that she rightly earned. Norma Jean's art was an increasingly sad spectacle. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/marilyn_monroe.html Tracey has done the opposite, she's exposed the real. She's turned the hopeless and vulnerable into the secure and confident. She's an icon of empowerment. But make no mistake, she's worked hard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCGVtRWluAk

You are trying to imitate what you believe to be 'intelletualising' but you have neither the intellect nor the learning, nor the natural disposition or even the common sense to pull it off. You are 'intellectualising' banal and ostentatious pseudo-transgression, borne of sentimentality and displayed in cheaply bought cliches.

You are the self-parody of the man who needs a 'Tent' helpfully subtitled 'everyone I slept with' for you to be "encouraged to reflect on your life" (a massive kitchy cliche there but of course you think in cliches and, like all who do so, you are completely oblivious to it).

What else do you know?

Quote:

Grey wrote The timeline for crimes committed by women against men would be all but nonexistent. That is the fact your denial of feminism rails against.

At no time would it have been legal to kill women for no reason. They, along with many more men, would have been executed or punished because they transgressed a law of some description.
Supply me with evidence that women as a specie were hunted and killed for just being a women and not transgressing a law.


Quote:

Grey wrote It is authority that is the illusion. What is 'authority'? It is respect demanded, paid for, and coerced from.  A feeble thing compared to that respect which is freely given to those deserving of it. I know authority. I've lived with it all my life, but what do you know about Anarchism? Nothing! Let me tell you a few things. Anarchism stands against the faux rightness of authority. We do not accept 'good leaders' because there's never been a good leader in all human history. There's been those who've been right sometimes, those who've been lucky most of the time and those who've been unmitigated disasters all of the time. Anarchists accept good ideas and if in our consensus we accept a bad idea because 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' we don't have ownership of it and can change direction instantly.

Show me anywhere were one can live free of coercion, whether that coercion be violent or subtle.
What of babies and children? They not know how to make informed decisions. They need parental authority to guide them.
And what is a "good idea"? You're purposely vague I bet because you don't really know. It sounds nice, but it has no substance.
Even if this so-called free society of so-called free individuals were to come about, its numbers would be tiny and I bet it could only sustain itself for a period of a few months. Hell, even many families can't agree on how to run a family, numbering 4 or maybe 5 people, how on earth would you get millions to operate under "good ideas" free of coercion? After a few months man's so-called cooperative nature would cease. Lying beneath the surface of man's consciousness are multiple aggressive instincts, you may try and keep these at bay with "good ideas," but the ID cannot be contained for long. Eventually its demands rise to the surface and then man can only then be contained through coercion. Here, again, the anarchist fantasy gets exposed for what it is, a fantasy, an illusion.
And what of all the goods and services you use that have been produced under "authority"? The fridge, freezer, sewage system, transport, computer, bed, roads, healthcare, food, housing, clothing etc. etc. etc. You hate authority but will use the objects that have been produced under its direction. If you were an honest anarchist (supposing that is even possible) you would live in the bush away from all the benefits produced by civilization. But you don't.

Yet all this really is a side issue to the main point: The anarchists soul is an ugly one. His hate for authority of all descriptions says more about his own irrationality than it does any authority. He carries this distrust, suspicion and anger toward authority, toward life, wherever he goes, it is no wonder his art is ugly. Ugly thoughts will produce ugly art. Beautiful thoughts will produce beautiful art.




Quote:

Grey wrote Scientific method is Anarchic method. Nobody used penicillin because Fleming thought it was a good idea and he was the leader. We respect, good dictionaries, No dictionaries have any intrinsic authority to control language, but we are happy to refer and defer to the opinion of work that has by and large been compiled by consensus.

Rubbish. Scientific method genealogically comes from natural philosophy, which in turn came comes theology.
There's nothing anarchic about it. Scientific method occurs in an extremely controlled environment. Observation, data collection, experiment, conclusion, which is then peer reviewed. Sounds like a lot of authority going on there.


Quote:

Grey wrote Anarchism is a belief in chaos theory. Leadership is a belief in the foretelling of the eventual patterns of coloured water while you are still pissing in the bowl and pressing flush The best of human knowledge is structured along anarchic lines.

Nice warm words, but they have no substance.


All this brings me to the point of: What purpose does the anarchist serve in the ongoing advent of culture and civilization?
It contributes nothing positive to culture, in fact, it hates culture. It is actually a parasite on culture. Parasites have always been considered the lowest specie; living off the host, sucking the life out of the host, while killing the host in the process. Why should those who believe in an ongoing advent of culture and civilization tolerate those who are trying to destroy it?

Thanks Bolshie I enjoyed that immensley. I'll answer it later, I've a lot to get done today.  ;D :P

Well only knowing Scruton through the prism of the show Soren posted, he won that argument for me.
Funnily enough it was the sculptor he interviewed towards the end that sealed my agreement.
If you saw the unmade bed in or next to a dumpster you think it belongs & take no notice whereas if a classical piece of art was in one you would at least give it a 2nd look if not rescue it.

As a side note, the used condom in Tracy's piece????? how drunk would you have to be?

Quote:

At no time would it have been legal to kill women for no reason. They, along with many more men, would have been executed or punished because they transgressed a law of some description. Supply me with evidence that women as a specie were hunted and killed for just being a women and not transgressing a law.

Even an authoritarian conservative should be able to see that the fact the law was made only by men, and was selective and
oppressive of women, is of some relevance.


Quote:

Show me anywhere were one can live free of coercion, whether that coercion be violent or subtle.

Quaker communities perhaps?



Quote:

What of babies and children? They not know how to make informed decisions. They need parental authority to guide them. And what is a "good idea"? You're purposely vague I bet because you don't really know. It sounds nice, but it has no substance. Even if this so-called free society of so-called free individuals were to come about, its numbers would be tiny and I bet it could only sustain itself for a period of a few months. Hell, even many families can't agree on how to run a family, numbering 4 or maybe 5 people, how on earth would you get millions to operate under "good ideas" free of coercion? After a few months man's so-called cooperative nature would cease. Lying beneath the surface of man's consciousness are multiple aggressive instincts, you may try and keep these at bay with "good ideas," but the ID cannot be contained for long. Eventually its demands rise to the surface and then man can only then be contained through coercion. Here, again, the anarchist fantasy gets exposed for what it is, a fantasy, an illusion. And what of all the goods and services you use that have been produced under "authority"? The fridge, freezer, sewage system, transport, computer, bed, roads, healthcare, food, housing, clothing etc. etc. etc. You hate authority but will use the objects that have been produced under its direction. If you were an honest anarchist (supposing that is even possible) you would live in the bush away from all the benefits produced by civilization. But you don't.

You're right I cannot conceive a situation absolutely free of coercion anymore than you can conceive being happy under
absolute authority, (you can't can you?).

There's nothing vague about the phrase 'A good idea'. You're just ranting. A 'good idea' is one that works, this is obvious.Anarchism has worked many times until stopped by violent means from outside.
Only once has a democratically elected government been denied the means to defend itself, Anarchist Spain. The structure of
Swiss society is (ironically enough) built largely along Anarchist lines. The Cuban emigres in Florida were originally Anarchists purged by the Bolshevik regime of Castro. José Figueres Ferrer of Costa Rica, one of the most enlightened politicians to ever grace a stage, was not an Anarchist. But it is no coincidence that his Catalan parents were. You
would do well to study the heroic defence of the Ukraine by the Black Army against Bolshevism.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makhnovism

Anarchism can work. Maybe not the way you understand it to be. Maybe not the way it has been tried in the past. Anarchism is
the individual over the totatalitarian. There is no fundamental difference between the 'right wing anarchism' of free
market libertarians in America and the left wing Anarchism of Europe. Anarchism is the organising of individuals to collaborate for the
common good. Both left and right get to sit at the table in true Anarchism.The political evolution of Hu's is the history
of the devolution of power, Anarchism is merely the next overdue step. The organic computer we call brain has one thing in
common with its mechanical counterpart, rubbish in, rubbish out. Better programming changes everything.


Quote:

Yet all this really is a side issue to the main point: The anarchists soul is an ugly one. His hate for authority of all descriptions says more about his own irrationality than it does any authority. He carries this distrust, suspicion and anger toward authority, toward life, wherever he goes, it is no wonder his art is ugly. Ugly thoughts will produce ugly art. Beautiful thoughts will produce beautiful art.

No the opposite is true. The Anarchist's is a joyful energy. You can see the anger in your writing, not in mine. What do
you know of LIFE? The control and domination of all things is what drives the Bolshevist and the Fascist and like frustrated children when things don't turn out the way you expect you get angry. Our art isn't angry, it's fun. We like to shake you up a bit and hope that something will shock you enough to make you actually think for yourself.

Tracey Emin puts a 'used condom'by her bed, but there's no cum in it, that would dry out, so she squirts in some silicon. You poor
regimented souls, you're so predictable. It IS funny, but also sad. Snap out of it, THINK, is this really how you want to live your life? Playing MONOPOLYtm? Looking at repro reality and saying 'isn't it beautiful'? Well really, whoodda thunk? Take a walk in the park at midnight, Tear up some red tap... Look, You've inspired me :-) I have to go be creative.

One last thing. Scientific method is all about observation. It's more about meditation than control. It doesn't matter how things turn out, you learn anyway.

Grey wrote on Nov 18^th, 2011 at 2:33pm:

Tracey Emin puts a 'used condom'by her bed, but there's no cum in it, that would dry out, so she squirts in some silicon. You poor regimented souls, you're so predictable. It IS funny, but also sad. Snap out of it, THINK, is this really how you want to live your life? Playing MONOPOLYtm? Looking at repro reality and saying 'isn't it beautiful'? Well really, whoodda thunk? Take a walk in the park at midnight, Tear up some red tap... Look, You've inspired me :-) I have to go be creative.

But to people like you, this nevertheless is something "that encourage reflection on your own life" as you put it in an earlier post, in your customary cliched, kitchy way of thinking.

Emin's unmade bed is just an unmade bed in an art gallery, just as the pissoire signed by Duchamp in a gallery is nothing but a pissoire  signed by Duchamp in a gallery. No amount of verbal wanking - the meaning of the bed and the pissoire are exhausted by the verbal wank of words expnded on them - will give them any further meaning worth looking for, let alone expecting to be a trigger for "reflection on your own life".
Unless of course the meaning of your life is encomapessed by pissoires and unmade beds with fake semen - a life where even the semen is fake. In other words, even your wanking is fake.

Grey, I've read a bit more about Emin and her work still evokes the same feeling as Serrano's.


On the one hand, Scruton's words resonated with me. I had difficulty with his references to Wilde in bith the video and the book 'Beauty' (which I'm stll reading) - going by De Profundis, Wilde seemed to regret his dedication to the pursuit of beauty as superficial and destructive.


I just deleted a whole paragraph which tells me I need to sleep. I'll come back and finish this post tomorrow.

Why must Art strive in beauty only? Cannot the ugly also inspire as worthy of pursuit. Bosch very rarely strove in the pursuit of beauty... yet he is no less an artist because of it.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 18^th, 2011 at 11:52pm:

Grey, I've read a bit more about Emin and her work still evokes the same feeling as Serrano's. On the one hand, Scruton's words resonated with me. I had difficulty with his references to Wilde in bith the video and the book 'Beauty' (which I'm stll reading) - going by De Profundis, Wilde seemed to regret his dedication to the pursuit of beauty as superficial and destructive. I just deleted a whole paragraph which tells me I need to sleep. I'll come back and finish this post tomorrow.

Y'know you have to throw a dog a bone now and then to keep them interested. Tracy is here because she's a challenge to defend. Yet still too much challenge for the right to tackle head on before you and Smithy weighed in. You'd better not mention Goya because Soren and Bolshie will Bolt from that challenge.

'Everyone I ever slept with' her first large work and the one that launched her career took her six months of sewing to create. Frankly I prefer her simple pencil drawings and neon signs. I"m not big on geometry in art. But for me the artist is the work. She's Amy Winehouse run backwards. That's an enormously difficult and original piece to construct. For me 'I'm drunk and out of here'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKNr2LOkXYE

is as valid a piece as 'bed' or anything else. Tracy is part of my cultural milieu; a very joyful part. I'n very glad she's out of the gutter she started off in and voting Conservative. With luck she'll get a peerage one day and take a seat in the lords as the Duchess of Margate  ;D

Grey wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 9:00am:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKNr2LOkXYE

Reminded me of Charles Bukowski's performance on the French TV programme. 'Apostrophes'...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSrUpEp68KI

After it aired in France, the French fell in love with him ;D

When he walked into a restaurant during his visit to France after the show, the restaurant staff bowed to him ;D

Now there's a poet. The line in my signature is from a Bukowski poem called "to the whore who took my poems."

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 11:49am:

Now there's a poet. The line in my signature is from a Bukowski poem called "to the whore who took my poems."

Yeah, his poetry sure had jagged edges!

The Tragedy of the Leaves

I awakened to dryness and the ferns were dead,
the potted plants yellow as corn;
my woman was gone
and the empty bottles like bled corpses
surrounded me with their uselessness;
the sun was still good, though,
and my landlady's note cracked in fine and
undemanding yellowness; what was needed now
was a good comedian, ancient style, a jester
with jokes upon absurd pain; pain is absurd
because it exists, nothing more;
I shaved carefully with an old razor
the man who had once been young and
said to have genius; but
that's the tragedy of the leaves,
the dead ferns, the dead plants;
and I walked into a dark hall
where the landlady stood
execrating and final,
sending me to hell,
waving her fat, sweaty arms
and screaming
screaming for rent
because the world had failed us
both.

He has a hangover but not the rent for his room in a doss house. He writes about it and all the middle class kids clap.

As always, this sort of thing is a tragedy the first time (Baudelaire) but afterwards it's a sordid farce (Bukowski).


Quote:

Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981) Storie di ordinaria follia (original title) 101 min  -  Drama   -  11 September 1981 (Italy) Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity.

Fabbo. Come on kids, learn how to live.

http://www.difflist.com.au/care.jpg

It's not the subject matter, Soren, but the way he delivers his words. It's not all wonderful, but when he gets it right it's very powerful. Word art is different than the art in the Scruton documentary.

Soren wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 2:54pm:

He has a hangover but not the rent for his room in a doss house. He writes about it and all the middle class kids clap. As always, this sort of thing is a tragedy the first time (Baudelaire) but afterwards it's a sordid farce (Bukowski). Quote: Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981) Storie di ordinaria follia (original title) 101 min  -  Drama   -  11 September 1981 (Italy) Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity. Fabbo. Come on kids, learn how to live.

Ah Soren...

You're as punctual and predictable as a puritanical preacher ;D

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 3:19pm:

It's not the subject matter, Soren, but the way he delivers his words. It's not all wonderful, but when he gets it right it's very powerful. Word art is different than the art in the Scruton documentary.

Italo Calvino recited Dante to himself while in Auswitz and later said that Dante and poetry generally helped him get through that hell. Nobody wil ever recite Bukowski to himself as a way of fortifying his spirit. Bukowski is for the middle class kids who want to take the occasional vicarious holiday in what they imagine to be other people's mysery. Bukowski is poetic equivalent of the Starbucks surcharge for fairtrade coffee. Have a cuppa and gissa 10 cents to salve your guilt over world povery. Ten cents/Bukowski will buy you a sense of 'I'v done my bit". Cheap, either way.

How much Bukowski have you read? He has an undeniable skill with words. If he can make the 'middle class kids' relate to life as an alcoholic hovering on the edge of homelessness, is that not gifted?

Calvino's stories are beautiful, no doubt. I haven't read him in a long while, but the woman on the train with the young soldier stands out in my memory. Dante is incomparable.

Bukowski occupies his own space and he does it very well.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 3:21pm:

Soren wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 2:54pm: He has a hangover but not the rent for his room in a doss house. He writes about it and all the middle class kids clap. As always, this sort of thing is a tragedy the first time (Baudelaire) but afterwards it's a sordid farce (Bukowski). Quote: Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981) Storie di ordinaria follia (original title) 101 min  -  Drama   -  11 September 1981 (Italy) Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity. Fabbo. Come on kids, learn how to live. Ah Soren... You're as punctual and predictable as a puritanical preacher ;D

You've nailed it, helian. You cheer Bukowski on because on a good day he gets up people's noses. That's it.
That's all there is to him. Bourgeois-bating, the most bourgeois thing of all.  Thin gruel to get excited about but the bland middle class kids have to get their kicks where-ever they can find them. To them, CB is cheaply bought fabbo and cheer-worthiness.

Soren wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 3:48pm:

You've nailed it, helian. You cheer Bukowski on because on a good day he gets up people's noses. That's it. That's all there is to him. Bourgeois-bating, the most bourgeois thing of all.  Thin gruel to get excited about but the bland middle class kids have to get their kicks where-ever they can find them. To them, CB is cheaply bought fabbo and cheer-worthiness.

This one might resonate in a brimstone sermon, Pastor...

OH, YES
 
there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late.

On Going Back To The Street After Viewing An Art Show  

       
they talk down through
the centuries to us,
and this we need more and more,
the statues and paintings
in midnight age
as we go along
holding dead hands.

and we would say
rather than delude the knowing:
a damn good show,
but hardly enough for a horse to eat,
and out on the sunshine street where
eyes are dabbled in metazoan faces
i decide again
that in theses centuries
they have done very well
considering the nature of their
brothers:
it's more than good
that some of them,
(closer really to the field-mouse than
falcon)
have been bold enough to try.

So Dante for the written, Michelangelo for visual and who for music Soren? Is it to be Bach or Mozart? Does the term 'cultural desert' ever come to mind?

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 3:57pm:

it's too late and there's nothing worse than too late.

It is always as in the last moment before the departure of an emigrant-ship; people have more than ever to say to one another, the hour presses, the ocean with its lonely silence waits impatiently behind all the noise -- so greedy, so certain of its prey! And all, all, suppose that the past has been nothing, or a small matter, that the near future is everything: hence this haste, this crying, this self-deafening and self-overreaching!

I liked D. H. Lawrence
he could get so indignant
he snapped and he ripped
with wonderfully energetic sentences
he could lay the word down
bright and writhing
there was the stink of blood and murder
and sacrifice about him
the only tenderness he allowed
was when he bedded down his large German
wife.
I liked D. H. Lawrence--
he could talk about Christ
like he was the man next door
and he could describe Australian taxi drivers
so well you hated them
I liked D. H. Lawrence
but I'm glad I never met him
in some bistro
him lifting his tiny hot cup of
tea
and looking at me
with his worm-hole eyes.

Soren wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 4:14pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 3:57pm: it's too late and there's nothing worse than too late. It is always as in the last moment before the departure of an emigrant-ship; people have more than ever to say to one another, the hour presses, the ocean with its lonely silence waits impatiently behind all the noise -- so greedy, so certain of its prey! And all, all, suppose that the past has been nothing, or a small matter, that the near future is everything: hence this haste, this crying, this self-deafening and self-overreaching!

Well, they were both krauts... They had that in common ;D

Grey wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 4:06pm:

So Dante for the written, Michelangelo for visual and who for music Soren? Is it to be Bach or Mozart? Does the term 'cultural desert' ever come to mind?

I think you examplify very well just the kind of peole who discard Dante, Michelangelo, Bach (to you each is just a roadsign in your theory of resentment) because you  do not understand them. You have never had the ability or interest or personal qualities to apply yourself sufficiently to anything that requires effort. You resent high art because it is not available to the lazy and inattentive.

To you only the junk food of the mind is demotic enough because only that requirs no effort on your part whatsoever and you can grasp it just as it hits you between the eyes with its stupendous banality. Pop culture is for the lazy and the stupid. It's for you.

All you can do with Dante and Bach is grimace at them because to you they are otherwise unttainable. They call you to give up lazyness and stupidity, but you'd rather give up Dante and Bach and side with the wanky artificial semen in a condom around Emin's unmade bed which is fake art for fake people.  

Soren wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 4:28pm:

Grey wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 4:06pm: So Dante for the written, Michelangelo for visual and who for music Soren? Is it to be Bach or Mozart? Does the term 'cultural desert' ever come to mind? I think you examplify very well just the kind of peole who discard Dante, Michelangelo, Bach (to you each is just a roadsign in your theory of resentment) because you  do not understand them. You have never had the ability or interest or personal qualities to apply yourself sufficiently to anything that requires effort. You resent high art because it is not available to the lazy and inattentive. To you only the junk food of the mind is demotic enough because only that requirs no effort on your part whatsoever and you can grasp it just as it hits you between the eyes with its stupendous banality. Pop culture is for the lazy and the stupid. It's for you. All you can do with Dante and Bach is grimace at them because to you they are otherwise unttainable. They call you to give up lazyness and stupidity, but you'd rather give up Dante and Bach and side with the wanky artificial semen in a condom around Emin's unmade bed which is fake art for fake people.

How's that for a bit of Welsh Chapel ! ;D

Soren, you are missing out on a lot.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 4:47pm:

Soren, you are missing out on a lot.

No time for shite if you live only once.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 4:32pm:

Soren wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 4:28pm: Grey wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 4:06pm: So Dante for the written, Michelangelo for visual and who for music Soren? Is it to be Bach or Mozart? Does the term 'cultural desert' ever come to mind? I think you examplify very well just the kind of peole who discard Dante, Michelangelo, Bach (to you each is just a roadsign in your theory of resentment) because you  do not understand them. You have never had the ability or interest or personal qualities to apply yourself sufficiently to anything that requires effort. You resent high art because it is not available to the lazy and inattentive. To you only the junk food of the mind is demotic enough because only that requirs no effort on your part whatsoever and you can grasp it just as it hits you between the eyes with its stupendous banality. Pop culture is for the lazy and the stupid. It's for you. All you can do with Dante and Bach is grimace at them because to you they are otherwise unttainable. They call you to give up lazyness and stupidity, but you'd rather give up Dante and Bach and side with the wanky artificial semen in a condom around Emin's unmade bed which is fake art for fake people.   How's that for a bit of Welsh Chapel ! ;D

You are Irish. You are not in a position to crack this kind of lame-o joke.

Soren wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 4:28pm:

Grey wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 4:06pm: So Dante for the written, Michelangelo for visual and who for music Soren? Is it to be Bach or Mozart? Does the term 'cultural desert' ever come to mind? I think you examplify very well just the kind of peole who discard Dante, Michelangelo, Bach (to you each is just a roadsign in your theory of resentment) because you  do not understand them. You have never had the ability or interest or personal qualities to apply yourself sufficiently to anything that requires effort. You resent high art because it is not available to the lazy and inattentive. To you only the junk food of the mind is demotic enough because only that requirs no effort on your part whatsoever and you can grasp it just as it hits you between the eyes with its stupendous banality. Pop culture is for the lazy and the stupid. It's for you. All you can do with Dante and Bach is grimace at them because to you they are otherwise unttainable. They call you to give up lazyness and stupidity, but you'd rather give up Dante and Bach and side with the wanky artificial semen in a condom around Emin's unmade bed which is fake art for fake people.

Except that I do not discard them. They are the begining, well..not really, perhaps the apogee of classical art. But what is to understand? They are all skilled craftsmen who had patience, dedication and feeling for their material and subject. Beautiful, beautiful, very very, beautiful. Taxing? Not Really.

You keep saying the same things Soren. With no regard for what others have said. Just more turgid prose feebly trying to bolster your lack bank. It is you that discards, anything, (and apparently everything) that falls outside your own limited view.

Dante, Michelangelo, Bach call me to appreciate art, to engage with it, to open my eyes to the beauty of this jewel Earth. And along the way to lament, to be angry, to defy the dominant paradigm that destroys beauty at wholesale prices. The most beautiful irises are not monet's or Van Goph's they are the originals I have in my pond.

Art must be relevant to the times. The pastoral optimism of the enlightenment had to give way to the questioning rising panic of modernity. it was inevitable and artists wouldn't matter if they didn't take the vanguard position in the questioning of the prime subject, us.

And it is absolutely right that the 'how do we control this new power?' of modernity, became the 'we cannot, we must try anything and accept what works' of post-modernity.

And of course a lot of junk gets produced. It was ever thus. We must discern, and hope it's the cream that rises to the top of the milk and not the scum that rise to the top of the stew, as it is in the commercial world.

Grey wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 6:51pm:

Art must be relevant to the times.

Right there is the massive fallacy and the root of our (yours, helian's annie's vs me) differences. To be merely up to date and relevant is what Chesterton characterised as keeping up with fashion (running after one's hat). The precise point of art, literature, philosophy and theology is NOT to be a slave to the (fashionable) thought and reflexes of the times.

You are a very stubborn man. I can't recall you ever backing down on anything - even when you're clearly wrong. It's fascinating.

You're like another species.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 7:20pm:

You are a very stubborn man. I can't recall you ever backing down on anything - even when you're clearly wrong. It's fascinating. You're like another species.

When/how/where/why was I wrong in this discussion?
Is there a common ground from which you can assert that I am wrong?

Or are you just blowing bubbles? Again.

Soren wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 7:08pm:

Grey wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 6:51pm: Art must be relevant to the times. Right there is the massive fallacy and the root of our (yours, helian's annie's vs me) differences. To be merely up to date and relevant is what Chesterton characterised as keeping up with fashion (running after one's hat). The precise point of art, literature, philosophy and theology is NOT to be a slave to the (fashionable) thought and reflexes of the times.

Art ought to question the dominant thoughts, but it ought to also be relevant to it. Are you SURE you want to say that, 'art should not only be confined to producing beauty, but must also be irelevant' ?

Soren wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 8:11pm:

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 7:20pm: You are a very stubborn man. I can't recall you ever backing down on anything - even when you're clearly wrong. It's fascinating. You're like another species. When/how/where/why was I wrong in this discussion? Is there a common ground from which you can assert that I am wrong? Or are you just blowing bubbles? Again.

I did not say you were wrong in this particular discussion. In fact, I think you got it very right a few pages back when you were talking about the artistic elite.

You are stubborn because you are unwilling to have an open mind. You are certain that Grey and Helian and I have inferior taste because we appreciate different kinds of art. You seem to think an appreciation of Bukowski equates to an inability to understand the genius of Dante. Or that a love of rock is incompatible with a love of Gorecki.

A narrower view doesn't mean finer taste.

Are you creative yourself?

Grey wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 8:20pm:

Soren wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 7:08pm: Grey wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 6:51pm: Art must be relevant to the times. Right there is the massive fallacy and the root of our (yours, helian's annie's vs me) differences. To be merely up to date and relevant is what Chesterton characterised as keeping up with fashion (running after one's hat). The precise point of art, literature, philosophy and theology is NOT to be a slave to the (fashionable) thought and reflexes of the times. Art ought to question the dominant thoughts, but it ought to also be relevant to it. Are you SURE you want to say that, 'art should not only be confined to producing beauty, but must also be irelevant' ?

It is most narrow minded to see everything politically - "dominant thought'.

It is a monomania.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 8:35pm:

Soren wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 8:11pm: Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 7:20pm: You are a very stubborn man. I can't recall you ever backing down on anything - even when you're clearly wrong. It's fascinating. You're like another species. When/how/where/why was I wrong in this discussion? Is there a common ground from which you can assert that I am wrong? Or are you just blowing bubbles? Again. I did not say you were wrong in this particular discussion. In fact, I think you got it very right a few pages back when you were talking about the artistic elite. You are stubborn because you are unwilling to have an open mind. You are certain that Grey and Helian and I have inferior taste because we appreciate different kinds of art. You seem to think an appreciation of Bukowski equates to an inability to understand the genius of Dante. Or that a love of rock is incompatible with a love of Gorecki. A narrower view doesn't mean finer taste. Are you creative yourself?

This is not what I think. You are speaking with the assumption of equivalence - you can appreciate Dante and Bukowski equally.
Not so.
In my view there is a hierarchy of values and tastes, art, expression and perception and so on. You can appreciate Bukowski as long as you realise that Dante is better than Bukowski. The moment you say that Dante, Bach, Goethe, Beethoven, Rembrand is no better than Bukowski, Emin, Eminem, pop music and all that junk-for-your-mind crap, you are talking, well, crap.

To tell the difference is to perceive a hierarchy. To see that one thing is better than another is to rank in order of value. Choosing the best is elitism. Embrace it. We all live it anyway, why repudiate it?

Quote:

In my view there is a hierarchy of values and tastes, art, expression and perception and so on. You can appreciate Bukowski as long as you realise that Dante is better than Bukowski. The moment you say that Dante, Bach, Goethe, Beethoven, Rembrand is no better than Bukowski, Emin, pop music

Hold on to your hat, Mr Soren. We may be in agreement, on this part at least.

And I think you'll find that Bukowski would have been the first to admit he was no Dante or Blake.

Dante is better than Bukowski? Has anyone actually read Dante?

Postmodern nonsense.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 9:35pm:

Quote: In my view there is a hierarchy of values and tastes, art, expression and perception and so on. You can appreciate Bukowski as long as you realise that Dante is better than Bukowski. The moment you say that Dante, Bach, Goethe, Beethoven, Rembrand is no better than Bukowski, Emin, pop music Hold on to your hat, Mr Soren. We may be in agreement, on this part at least. And I think you'll find that Bukowski would have been the first to admit he was no Dante or Blake.

He was. And as for his taste in music, he would have been entirely in agreement with Soren. He had little time for the music of his generation.

He wrote listening to Mozart, Bach, Beethoven - all the masters... although he was pissed as a fart.


the soldier, his wife and the bum


I was a bum in San Francisco but once managed
to go to a symphony concert along with the well-dressed people
and the music was good but something about the
audience was not
and something about the orchestra
and the conductor was
not,
although the building was fine and the
acoustics perfect
I preferred to listen to the music alone
on my radio
and afterwards I did go back to my room and I
turned on the radio but
then there was a pounding on the wall:
“SHUT THAT GOD-DAMNED THING OFF!”

there was a soldier in the next room
living with his wife
and he would soon be going over there to protect
me from Hitler so
I snapped the radio off and then heard his
wife say, “you shouldn’t have done that.”
and the soldier said, “bugger THAT GUY!”
which I thought was a very nice thing for him
to tell his wife to do.
of course,
she never did.

anyhow, I never went to another live concert
and that night I listened to the radio very
quietly, my ear pressed to the
speaker.

war has its price and peace never lasts and
millions of young men everywhere would die
and as I listened to classical music I heard them making love, desperately and
mournfully, through Shostakovich, Brahms,
Mozart, through crescendo and climax,
and through the shared
wall of our darkness.

A piec ;De of melted cheese is much better than a plate of egg and chips.

Helian, do you think that Bukowski on the same level as Dante?

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 10:43pm:

Helian, do you think that Bukowski on the same level as Dante?

It would depend on what I'd been drinking ;D

Help me, Helian. Have I been corrupted by Scruton?

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 10:56pm:

Help me, Helian. Have I been corrupted by Scruton?

Well I prefer Dali to Rembrandt...

Don't know where the surrealists are placed in the "hierarchy of artistic sublimity" according to the Master Pastor... Not high I'd bet...

Although I am captured by Van Gogh's work... Who, by the way, sold only one painting in his lifetime... So... Go figure.

D H Lawrence was a filthy pornographer too... Until he was respectably long enough dead.

Many people of Mozart's time thought he was crap.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 10:43pm:

Helian, do you think that Bukowski on the same level as Dante?

If you think Dante is on some higher echelon than Bukowski then what IS the point of posting snippets of Bukowski? Is art to be arranged in military formation, some for privates and some for generals? I think not.

Are we to grade Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Roy and Marquez ? By what criteria, who wrote the most words. who invented the most, who used most words of three syllables and longer?

OVER MY DEAD BODY !  ;D

Grey wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 11:05pm:

Are we to grade Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Roy and Marquez ? By what criteria, who wrote the most words. who invented the most, who used most words of three syllables and longer?

By the quality of their artistic sublimity, of course ;)

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 11:07pm:

Grey wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 11:05pm: Are we to grade Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Roy and Marquez ? By what criteria, who wrote the most words. who invented the most, who used most words of three syllables and longer? By the quality of their artistic sublimity, of course ;)

Okay but no writer ever wrote sublimely throughout. Will we judge by the most sublime snippet? And won't we always undervalue the artist of our own time? While we dissect the dissections of dissections of Shakespeare reading ever more into every phrase. I bet Shakespeare had a healthy ego, but would be amazed ar the importance the present places on him and the subtlety of his nuanced meanings.

Quote:

If you think Dante is on some higher echelon than Bukowski then what IS the point of posting snippets of Bukowski?

Cos I like him. He's comfortable and he makes me laugh. I can snuggle into Bukowski. Shakespeare is work for me.

Perhaps my judgment is coloured by the fact that I'm studying literature at the moment. I just did a course on Shakespeare this semester (which I hated, by the way) and he is mentioned in most of my other courses. Bukowski is written off if he's thought of at all, at least in Australian universities..

Modern female poets like Plath are only studied as part of feminist literature courses.

Grey wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 11:15pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 11:07pm: Grey wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 11:05pm: Are we to grade Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Roy and Marquez ? By what criteria, who wrote the most words. who invented the most, who used most words of three syllables and longer? By the quality of their artistic sublimity, of course ;) Okay but no writer ever wrote sublimely throughout. Will we judge by the most sublime snippet? And won't we always undervalue the artist of our own time? While we dissect the dissections of dissections of Shakespeare reading ever more into every phrase. I bet Shakespeare had a healthy ego, but would be amazed ar the importance the present places on him and the subtlety of his nuanced meanings.

Yeah, all that... I was being facetious, but...

How do you measure the "quality of artistic sublimity"  :-?

In the main Soren's 'elite' value art like they value securities. They manipulate market to make money. Michelangelo is priceless because there is sod all of it. It serves as a constant an anchor. Giving meaning to the meaningless, the monetary value of art.  

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 11:16pm:

Quote: If you think Dante is on some higher echelon than Bukowski then what IS the point of posting snippets of Bukowski? Cos I like him. He's comfortable and he makes me laugh. I can snuggle into Bukowski.

And, I'd bet, he's saying something to you in his own unique way, that doesn't require you to stop and think... "art".... Because, if you did, would it be the same?

The Genius Of The Crowd

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach love do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

Having read Robert Pirsig's books when I was young and then reading, through the years, of his lifelong struggle with his defining of 'quality' (his 'Metaphysics of Quality'), has made me wary of quantifying art.

I saw your reference to Pirsig in another post yesterday. I haven't read him, but I will.


I'm really struggling with this. Perhaps Imy brain is not suited for even amateur philosophy. Or science. Or maths  ;D

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 20^th, 2011 at 7:46am:

I saw your reference to Pirsig in another post yesterday. I haven't read him, but I will. I'm really struggling with this. Perhaps Imy brain is not suited for even amateur philosophy. Or science. Or maths  ;D

Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" was a great read (although sometimes dense... (give his chapter on 'gumption' a miss!!) ), and, at the age I read it, life changing.

No need to struggle...  As Pirsig said of 'quality' (which applies equally to art), you'll know it when you perceive it.

After all, can anyone really talk you out of admiring beauty (when you perceive it) by reason?

Quote:

No need to struggle...  As Pirsig said of 'quality' (which applies equally to art), you'll know it when you perceive it. After all, can anyone really talk you out of admiring beauty (when you perceive it) by reason?

No. I will definitely grab the book when I'm at the library next.

I went to bed last night feeling guilty that I had somehow betrayed Bukowski/myself. One Bukowski line kept popping up in my head in accusation:

"even if I were a comfortable, domesticated sophisticate I could never drink the blood of the masses and call it wine"

NorthOfNorth wrote on Nov 20^th, 2011 at 7:51am:

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 20th, 2011 at 7:46am: I saw your reference to Pirsig in another post yesterday. I haven't read him, but I will. I'm really struggling with this. Perhaps Imy brain is not suited for even amateur philosophy. Or science. Or maths  ;D Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" was a great read (although sometimes dense... (give his chapter on 'gumption' a miss!!) ), and, at the age I read it, life changing. No need to struggle...  As Pirsig said of 'quality' (which applies equally to art), you'll know it when you perceive it. After all, can anyone really talk you out of admiring beauty (when you perceive it) by reason?

Better Stop dreaming of the quiet life cos it's the one we'll never know
And quit running for that runaway bus cos those rosey days are few
And stop apologising for the things you never done
‘Cos time is short and life is cruel
but it's up to us to change this town called malice.

Rows and rows of disused milkfloats stand dying in the dairy yard
And a hundred lonely housewives clutch empty milk bottles to their hearts
Hanging out their old love letters on the line to dry
It's enough to make you stop believing when tears come fast and furious
In a town called malice - Yeah-ea-eah!

Ba-Ba, Ba-Ba, Ba-da-Ba, Ba-Ba, Ba-Da--Ba! Whoah!
Ba-Ba, Ba-Ba, Ba-da-Ba, Ba-Ba, Ba-Da--Ba!

Struggle after struggle, year after year
The atmosphere's a fine blend of ice
I'm almost stone cold dead in a town called malice
Oo-ooh! Yeah!

A whole street’s belief in Sunday's roast beef
Gets dashed against the Co-Op
To either cut down on beer or the kids new gear
It's a big decision in a town called malice
Oo-ooh! Yeah!

The ghost of a steam train echoes down my track
It’s at the moment bound for nowhere just going round and round,Ohh
Playground kids and creaking swings, lost laughter in the breeze
I could go on for hours and I probably will but,
I'd sooner put some joy back into this town called malice.
Yeah-ea-eah!

It’s a Town called malice - Yeah-ea-eah!

A Town Called Malice (1982) Weller P.

Deconstruction. - Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, by 1982 the bite is in. I want to write a song that fights back against this malignant conservatism. What do I call it? 'A town called Alice' comes to mind, (one of the most catchy titles ever). 'A town called Margaret' ? Nah! too obvious and it doesn't have the same... but wait, if I put the M before Alice, Perfect.

I count this one of the finest pieces of songwriting ever. I delight in its intelligence. The signs it conjures up of the previous period, the post war accord juxtaposed with the ravages of Thatcher. Maybe you need to be English to absolutly 'get it', but, trust me, this is fine craftsmenship. Its emotional, speaks as strongly as any work by Dante, to ME, and that's all that matters.

or how's this for poetry, from The Clash

If you can play on the fiddle
How's about a British jig and reel?
Speaking King's English in quotation
As railhead towns feel the steel mills rust water froze
In the generation
Clear as winter ice
This is your paradise

There ain't no need for ya
Go straight to hell boys

Y'wanna join in a chorus
Of the Amerasian blues?
When it's Christmas out in Ho Chi Minh City
Kiddie say papa papa papa papa-san take me home
See me got photo photo
Photograph of you
Mamma Mamma Mamma-san
Of you and Mamma Mamma Mamma-san
Lemme tell ya 'bout your blood bamboo kid.
It ain't Coca-Cola it's rice.

Straight to hell
Oh Papa-san
Please take me home
Oh Papa-san
Everybody they wanna go home
So Mamma-san says

You wanna play mind-crazed banjo
On the druggy-drag ragtime U.S.A.?
In Parkland International
Hah! Junkiedom U.S.A.
Where procaine proves the purest rock man groove
and rat poison
The volatile Molatov says-

PSSST...
HEY CHICO WE GOT A MESSAGE FOR YA...
VAMOS VAMOS MUCHACHO
FROM ALPHABET CITY ALL THE WAY A TO Z, DEAD, HEAD

Go straight to hell

Can you really cough it up loud and strong
The immigrants
They wanna sing all night long
It could be anywhere
Most likely could be any frontier
Any hemisphere
No man's land and there ain't no asylum here
King Solomon he never lived round here

Go straight to hell boys

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 20^th, 2011 at 8:35am:

I went to bed last night feeling guilty that I had somehow betrayed Bukowski/myself. One Bukowski line kept popping up in my head in accusation: "even if I were a comfortable, domesticated sophisticate I could never drink the blood of the masses and call it wine"

And in his later years he did become comfortable and domesticated... Though not sophisticated nor a sellout.

He also maintained (or further developed) a great sense of humour....


the secret of my endurance

I still get letters in the mail, mostly from cracked-up
men in tiny rooms with factory jobs or no jobs who are
living with whores or no woman at all, no hope, just
booze and madness.
Most of their letters are on lined paper
written with an unsharpened pencil
or in ink
in tiny handwriting that slants to the
left

and the paper is often torn
usually halfway up the middle
and they say they like my stuff,
I’ve written from where it’s at, and
they recognize that. truly, I’ve given them a second
chance, some recognition of where they’re at.

it’s true, I was there, worse off than most
of them.
but I wonder if they realize where their letters
arrive?
well, they are dropped into a box
behind a six-foot hedge with a long driveway leading
to a two car garage, rose garden, fruit trees,
animals, a beautiful woman, mortgage about half
paid after a year, a new car,
fireplace and a green rug two-inches thick
with a young boy to write my stuff now,
I keep him in a ten-foot cage with a
typewriter, feed him whiskey and raw whores,
belt him pretty good three or four times
a week.
I’m 59 years old now and the critics say
my stuff is getting better than ever. ;D

I remember reading a story told by friends who helped Bukowski publish his first book of poems...

They all pooled together to pay for it themselves.

Bukowski sobbed with gratitude... Not that he would have liked to admit it... He saw himself as a tough guy.

His grave site epitaph...

http://s3.amazonaws.com/findagrave/photos/2001/222/bukowskicharles.jpg

There's another poem from around the same time that speaks about his wife and how much he loved her. He finally found that 'good' woman he wanted for so long.

And one about the mother of his child.

It seems he made his peace with it all.

Have you read Post Office?

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 20^th, 2011 at 8:55am:

Have you read Post Office?

Over the years I've read

Novels

Post Office
Ham on Rye
Factotum

Short Stories

South of No North
Tales of Ordinary Madness

Poetry

The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills
You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
The Pleasures of the Damned

Recordings

Charles Bukowski Reads his Poetry
Neither bought for gold, nor to the devil sold
Solid Citizen
Uncensored from Run With the Hunted
70 Minutes in Hell
Hostage

Films

Born Into This
Barfly
Factotum

Biography

Locked in the arms of a crazy life

I have read:

Post Office
Love is a Dog From Hell
Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame
You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense


And various snippets on the internet.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 20^th, 2011 at 8:54am:

There's another poem from around the same time that speaks about his wife and how much he loved her. He finally found that 'good' woman he wanted for so long. And one about the mother of his child. It seems he made his peace with it all.

Yes. The poetry of his final years are devoid of street depravity and reveal the poet as at peace with himself and the world...

His final year of decline before death took him by surprise and (of course) bored him... He thought he'd live till 80 and die in his sleep...

dying should come easy:
like a freight train you
don't hear when
your back is
turned.

Did he stop drinking so heavily, do you know?

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 20^th, 2011 at 9:39am:

Did he stop drinking so heavily, do you know?

His wife, Linda, got him off hard liquor, but he continued to drink wine and beer to the end...

His fans credit Linda's intervention with extending his life by 10 years.

Good for him (and Linda).

Bukowski is one of the best writers of the 20the century. One of the great modern writers. Why would anyone compare him to Dante, a modernist writer of his own time, who was the first sholarly writer to use the language of Italian?

This aesthetic abstraction called beauty is a crock. There is no hierarchy of values that transcend history - or ideology. There is, I think, a hierarchy to be found within genres and text types. After all, Bukowski is one of the best modernists. But a text can only be held up to its own ambitions.

I understand where Scruton is coming from, but his theory only works in opposition to the aesthetics of shock value. In itself, beauty is an abstraction, and like all abstractions, ideological.

Ideology, like beauty, is cunning. It always seems perfectly natural. This is why modern art refused to hide its artifice. I would question whether something can't be beautiful and show that it's completely fake at the same time.

Yes, my friends, we Pakis call this divine. Gud, after all, always reveals His hand.

Karnal wrote on Nov 21^st, 2011 at 12:14pm:

Bukowski is one of the best writers of the 20the century. One of the great modern writers. Why would anyone compare him to Dante, a modernist writer of his own time, who was the first sholarly writer to use the language of Italian? This aesthetic abstraction called beauty is a crock. There is no hierarchy of values that transcend history - or ideology. There is, I think, a hierarchy to be found within genres and text types. After all, Bukowski is one of the best modernists. But a text can only be held up to its own ambitions. I understand where Scruton is coming from, but his theory only works in opposition to the aesthetics of shock value. In itself, beauty is an abstraction, and like all abstractions, ideological. Ideology, like beauty, is cunning. It always seems perfectly natural. This is why modern art refused to hide its artifice. I would question whether something can't be beautiful and show that it's completely fake at the same time. Yes, my friends, we Pakis call this divine. Gud, after all, always reveals His hand.

:-) I was shocked Karnal, at you being straight up, but couldnh't resist the last line could you. Very well put by the way. Shock alone is crud I agree. But coupled with intellectual intent shock has a place in art.  

Karnal wrote on Nov 21^st, 2011 at 12:14pm:

Bukowski is one of the best writers of the 20the century. One of the great modern writers. Why would anyone compare him to Dante, a modernist writer of his own time, who was the first sholarly writer to use the language of Italian? This aesthetic abstraction called beauty is a crock. There is no hierarchy of values that transcend history - or ideology. There is, I think, a hierarchy to be found within genres and text types. After all, Bukowski is one of the best modernists. But a text can only be held up to its own ambitions. I understand where Scruton is coming from, but his theory only works in opposition to the aesthetics of shock value. In itself, beauty is an abstraction, and like all abstractions, ideological. Ideology, like beauty, is cunning. It always seems perfectly natural. This is why modern art refused to hide its artifice. I would question whether something can't be beautiful and show that it's completely fake at the same time. Yes, my friends, we Pakis call this divine. Gud, after all, always reveals His hand.

You like sh!t on the streets, so I am not surprised by this nonsense.

All you need to know about Bukowski is summed up here:

Bukowski fancied himself a poet, among other things, but he rarely spared his poems the attention he gave to fiction. Poetry became a scrap heap where lack of inspiration was no impediment. The poems often read like the diary of someone who once read Lunch Poems on a lunch break.


it has been a satisfactory night: I viewed an
excellent boxing match
earlier

powdered the cat for fleas


answered two letters
wrote four poems.


some nights I write ten poems
answer six letters.

Trivia can be its own reward, but after a little of this you want to drink a bottle of Draøno (if you want a lot of this, there are now five thousand pages to choose from). As a poet, Bukowski had the virtues of his prose, only less frequently:


“do you like me?” she asked.
“I wish,” I told her, “you wouldn’t wear all
that mascara, it makes you look like a god-
damned whore.”
“don’t you like whores?” she asked.
http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/From--ldquo-stinko-rdquo--to-Devo-4347

Have another swig of the Draino.

Quote:

grey wrote Even an authoritarian conservative should be able to see that the fact the law was made only by men, and was selective and oppressive of women, is of some relevance.

Laws were/are made to benefit, rather than oppress. But if we play the oppressive card, then given that it was only the few who ruled, then many men would have been oppressed as well.
Yet, I don’t go in for this reinterpretation of all history as oppressive. As I said before, that is a slavish reinterpretation of the past predicated on the illusion everyone ought to be free, and that this freedom is even possible. The problem is, with freedom comes responsibility. That’s a point all postmodernists, anarchists, feminists, and socialists like to ignore. Their view of freedom is purely negative and not positive. Negative freedom is a do what thou wilt freedom, but with positive freedom there comes responsibility. The responsibility to command oneself, to discipline oneself; only the few can do it and that’s why only the few ought to rule. The vast majority cannot command themselves and therefore need a higher authority to keep the order. The undisciplined need to be kept in line for the benefit of the community.



Quote:

grey wrote Quaker communities perhaps?

I am sure they still had theological doctrine of some description despite their rejection of ritual.
Still, I find your lack of evidence to produce a society run free of any coercion telling.


Quote:

grey wrote You're right I cannot conceive a situation absolutely free of coercion anymore than you can conceive being happy under absolute authority, (you can't can you?).

The first part of your sentence is correct, you can’t conceive of a society free of coercion because it’s based on an illusion. But what is this “I can’t conceive of being happy under authority”?! Of course I can. Authority is necessary to maintain order. Without authority there is chaos, not even anarchy, simply chaos. Why hate what is necessary?  The Stoics had this one wrapped up millennias ago; what is necessary is not worth worrying about.
Not only that, without authority we have no culture, no technology, no aspirations. Authority mainatins a neccesary order so productive things can happen.


Quote:

grey wrote No the opposite is true. The Anarchist's is a joyful energy. You can see the anger in your writing, not in mine. What do you know of LIFE? The control and domination of all things is what drives the Bolshevist and the Fascist and like frustrated children when things don't turn out the way you expect you get angry. Our art isn't angry, it's fun. We like to shake you up a bit and hope that something will shock you enough to make you actually think for yourself.

Thanks for the laugh. Authority and power always exist. There is never a vacuum. Even Foucault, the postmodern hyper-liberalist, knew we were slaves to history and there’s no escaping it. Rage all you like, authority will always exist regardless.  The will to power, man’s drive to stamp his impression on the world, is man’s being. Even you anarchists are driven by the instinct to stamp your view on the world.  But you basically have a hissy fit when someone else’s worldview overrides your own.

Even your hatred of Scruton’s conception of beauty and love of Emin’s art is a will to power over others. But you’re not honest enough to admit that.

Quote:

grey wrote Tracey Emin puts a 'used condom'by her bed, but there's no cum in it, that would dry out, so she squirts in some silicon. You poor regimented souls, you're so predictable. It IS funny, but also sad. Snap out of it, THINK, is this really how you want to live your life? Playing MONOPOLYtm? Looking at repro reality and saying 'isn't it beautiful'? Well really, whoodda thunk? Take a walk in the park at midnight, Tear up some red tap... Look, You've inspired me  I have to go be creative.

Putting silicon in a franger is art? Any fool can do that. Just like that idiot who defecated in a tin and presented it as art. Your art is ugly.


Quote:

grey wrote One last thing. Scientific method is all about observation. It's more about meditation than control. It doesn't matter how things turn out, you learn anyway.

I see you know little about scientific method. What’s this “it doesn’t matter how things turn out”? What’s the point of engaging in it in the first place then? It matters a great deal on “how things turn out,” in fact, this is the last, and most important, step in the scientific methodology. Acquiring results that are repeatable on a universal scale is the scientist’s dream, it is here that they have stamped a universal maxim on the world and then can be ascribed to that maxim. (Sounds a bit fascist, doesn’t it?) Ironically, this places scientists at complete odds with anarchists.

On another relevant point: Why didn’t you respond to my queries on why you take advantage of all the goods and services created under authority while hating that authority? You know, like transport, medicine, food, clothing, shelter, sewage works, computers etc. etc. etc. If you were honest you would discard all your comforts because they were created under authoritarian structures.

This is why I see anarchists as a bit of a joke. It’s kind of like an adolescent rage completely deviod of rationality.

I am off overseas for 3 weeks so I am not sure when I can respond.

Grey wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 6:51pm:

Art must be relevant to the times. The pastoral optimism of the enlightenment had to give way to the questioning rising panic of modernity. it was inevitable and artists wouldn't matter if they didn't take the vanguard position in the questioning of the prime subject, us. And it is absolutely right that the 'how do we control this new power?' of modernity, became the 'we cannot, we must try anything and accept what works' of post-modernity. And of course a lot of junk gets produced. It was ever thus. We must discern, and hope it's the cream that rises to the top of the milk and not the scum that rise to the top of the stew, as it is in the commercial world.

An awful lot of imperatives there from a supposed anarchist.

Soren wrote on Nov 21^st, 2011 at 1:38pm:

Karnal wrote on Nov 21st, 2011 at 12:14pm: Bukowski is one of the best writers of the 20the century. One of the great modern writers. Why would anyone compare him to Dante, a modernist writer of his own time, who was the first sholarly writer to use the language of Italian? This aesthetic abstraction called beauty is a crock. There is no hierarchy of values that transcend history - or ideology. There is, I think, a hierarchy to be found within genres and text types. After all, Bukowski is one of the best modernists. But a text can only be held up to its own ambitions. I understand where Scruton is coming from, but his theory only works in opposition to the aesthetics of shock value. In itself, beauty is an abstraction, and like all abstractions, ideological. Ideology, like beauty, is cunning. It always seems perfectly natural. This is why modern art refused to hide its artifice. I would question whether something can't be beautiful and show that it's completely fake at the same time. Yes, my friends, we Pakis call this divine. Gud, after all, always reveals His hand. You like sh!t on the streets, so I am not surprised by this nonsense. All you need to know about Bukowski is summed up here: Bukowski fancied himself a poet, among other things, but he rarely spared his poems the attention he gave to fiction. Poetry became a scrap heap where lack of inspiration was no impediment. The poems often read like the diary of someone who once read Lunch Poems on a lunch break. it has been a satisfactory night: I viewed an excellent boxing match earlier powdered the cat for fleas answered two letters wrote four poems. some nights I write ten poems answer six letters. Trivia can be its own reward, but after a little of this you want to drink a bottle of Draøno (if you want a lot of this, there are now five thousand pages to choose from). As a poet, Bukowski had the virtues of his prose, only less frequently: “do you like me?” she asked. “I wish,” I told her, “you wouldn’t wear all that mascara, it makes you look like a god- damned whore.” “don’t you like whores?” she asked. http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/From--ldquo-stinko-rdquo--to-Devo-4347 Have another swig of the Draino.

Ah, my dear, like our frien Yadda, you prefer Googling to reading.

Everybody knows you don't read Bukowski for the poetry.

Try Tales of Ordinary Madness and enjoy the faecal tropes. You'll love it!

When you can pry yourself away from Paradise Lost, of course. In the original.

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 21^st, 2011 at 2:23pm:

Laws were/are made to benefit, rather than oppress. But if we play the oppressive card, then given that it was only the few who ruled, then many men would have been oppressed as well.

you with the Taliban?


Quote:

Yet, I don’t go in for this reinterpretation of all history as oppressive. As I said before, that is a slavish reinterpretation of the past predicated on the illusion everyone ought to be free, and that this freedom is even possible. The problem is, with freedom comes responsibility. That’s a point all postmodernists, anarchists, feminists, and socialists like to ignore. Their view of freedom is purely negative and not positive. Negative freedom is a do what thou wilt freedom, but with positive freedom there comes responsibility. The responsibility to command oneself, to discipline oneself; only the few can do it and that’s why only the few ought to rule. The vast majority cannot command themselves and therefore need a higher authority to keep the order. The undisciplined need to be kept in line for the benefit of the community.

And with control comes irresponsibility





Quote:

grey wrote You're right I cannot conceive a situation absolutely free of coercion anymore than you can conceive being happy under absolute authority, (you can't can you?).

Quote:

The first part of your sentence is correct, you can’t conceive of a society free of coercion because it’s based on an illusion. But what is this “I can’t conceive of being happy under authority”?! Of course I can. Authority is necessary to maintain order. Without authority there is chaos, not even anarchy, simply chaos. Why hate what is necessary?  The Stoics had this one wrapped up millennias ago; what is necessary is not worth worrying about. Not only that, without authority we have no culture, no technology, no aspirations. Authority mainatins a neccesary order so productive things can happen.

The operative word was absolute slither. It's not 'codes of conduct' I have a problem with but the absolutism of totallitarian extremists.


Quote:

grey wrote No the opposite is true. The Anarchist's is a joyful energy. You can see the anger in your writing, not in mine. What do you know of LIFE? The control and domination of all things is what drives the Bolshevist and the Fascist and like frustrated children when things don't turn out the way you expect you get angry. Our art isn't angry, it's fun. We like to shake you up a bit and hope that something will shock you enough to make you actually think for yourself.

Quote:

Thanks for the laugh. Authority and power always exist. There is never a vacuum. Even Foucault, the postmodern hyper-liberalist, knew we were slaves to history and there’s no escaping it. Rage all you like, authority will always exist regardless.  The will to power, man’s drive to stamp his impression on the world, is man’s being. Even you anarchists are driven by the instinct to stamp your view on the world.  But you basically have a hissy fit when someone else’s worldview overrides your own.

I recognise your right to an opinion. I also recognise my right to an opinion. Your view may dominate the totalitarian present, but change is the only constant.




Quote:

Even your hatred of Scruton’s conception of beauty and love of Emin’s art is a will to power over others. But you’re not honest enough to admit that.

Quote:

grey wrote Tracey Emin puts a 'used condom'by her bed, but there's no cum in it, that would dry out, so she squirts in some silicon. You poor regimented souls, you're so predictable. It IS funny, but also sad. Snap out of it, THINK, is this really how you want to live your life? Playing MONOPOLYtm? Looking at repro reality and saying 'isn't it beautiful'? Well really, whoodda thunk? Take a walk in the park at midnight, Tear up some red tap... Look, You've inspired me  I have to go be creative.

Quote:

Putting silicon in a franger is art? Any fool can do that. Just like that idiot who defecated in a tin and presented it as art. Your art is ugly.

I reject poo in a tin as art, especially my art. I also reject the notion that I would like to remove beauty from art. I would simply not reject everything else.

Quote:

grey wrote One last thing. Scientific method is all about observation. It's more about meditation than control. It doesn't matter how things turn out, you learn anyway.

Quote:

Bolshie Destroyer-I see you know little about scientific method. What’s this “it doesn’t matter how things turn out”? What’s the point of engaging in it in the first place then? It matters a great deal on “how things turn out,” in fact, this is the last, and most important, step in the scientific methodology. Acquiring results that are repeatable on a universal scale is the scientist’s dream, it is here that they have stamped a universal maxim on the world and then can be ascribed to that maxim. (Sounds a bit fascist, doesn’t it?) Ironically, this places scientists at complete odds with anarchists.

No it doesn't sound like fascism. Fascists would not accept the results if they did not conform to their previous opinion. Fascists would hide burn and lie rather than admit a truth at odds wih their suppositions.

With Anarchists and scientists only the truth revealed matters. Only hierarchies are tied to their guess work.


Quote:

On another relevant point: Why didn’t you respond to my queries on why you take advantage of all the goods and services created under authority while hating that authority? You know, like transport, medicine, food, clothing, shelter, sewage works, computers etc. etc. etc. If you were honest you would discard all your comforts because they were created under authoritarian structures.

It was such a ludicrous thing to say I hought I'd save you embarressment. The advancement of human society is the result of the work of those who question. The stamping feet of authoritarians has ever been the bane of knowledge and enquiry.


Quote:

BD - This is why I see anarchists as a bit of a joke. It’s kind of like an adolescent rage completely deviod of rationality.

The joke is on you.  ;D

Soren wrote on Nov 21^st, 2011 at 3:02pm:

Grey wrote on Nov 19th, 2011 at 6:51pm: Art must be relevant to the times. The pastoral optimism of the enlightenment had to give way to the questioning rising panic of modernity. it was inevitable and artists wouldn't matter if they didn't take the vanguard position in the questioning of the prime subject, us. And it is absolutely right that the 'how do we control this new power?' of modernity, became the 'we cannot, we must try anything and accept what works' of post-modernity. And of course a lot of junk gets produced. It was ever thus. We must discern, and hope it's the cream that rises to the top of the milk and not the scum that rise to the top of the stew, as it is in the commercial world. An awful lot of imperatives there from a supposed anarchist.

Water WILL find its own level and artists WILL work with materials they know, in the context of the societies they know. These are not my commands Soren, it's just the way things are. Optimism WILL give rise to romantic art and Fascism WILL produce despair.

Grey wrote on Nov 21^st, 2011 at 4:52pm:

It's not 'codes of conduct' I have a problem with but the absolutism of totallitarian extremists.

Like all pseuds, you hold these views fearlessly as long as you are living in a liberal democracy - I'm sorry, a western hegemonic fascist oppressive hell hole.

If you lived in North Korea or Syria or Iran - real hell holes - you would be sh!tting your pseudo-convictions into a can (unsigned, of course) and burying them in the dark of the night.


You are over 30 and an anarchist in AUstralia in 2011?? I say you are a sclerotic fantasist in grip of a nostalgia for your grandfather's dreams.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 19^th, 2011 at 7:20pm:

You are a very stubborn man. I can't recall you ever backing down on anything - even when you're clearly wrong. It's fascinating. You're like another species.

---

Have Frederik and Mary left then?

Better hope your ftayer are up to scratch, Grey.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6sYA7Iz1xgw/SV3mCOlLeGI/AAAAAAAAHl8/F429xfA9jgE/s400/Peacock+2.1.09+display+face+on+-+full+view+-+eml.jpg

A hen with borrowed feathers...
http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/milowinter/58.htm

http://www.wizardrecipes.com/upload/Roast%20Turkey.jpg

the mockingbird had been following the cat
all summer
mocking mocking mocking
teasing and cocksure;
the cat crawled under rockers on porches
tail flashing
and said something angry to the mockingbird
which I didn’t understand.

yesterday the cat walked calmly up the driveway
with the mockingbird alive in its mouth,
wings fanned, beautiful wings fanned and flopping,
feathers parted like a woman’s legs,
and the bird was no longer mocking,
it was asking, it was praying
but the cat
striding down through centuries
would not listen.

I saw it crawl under a yellow car
with the bird
to bargain it to another place.

summer was over.

Karnal wrote on Nov 21^st, 2011 at 4:07pm:

When you can pry yourself away from Paradise Lost, of course. In the original.

Funny you should say that. I actually do recommend the Blackstone Audio version of Paradise Lost, read by Ralph Cosham. As every schoolboy knows, CS Lewis wrote a great introduction to Paradise Lost. Start there, PB, and then listen to the book. Being a poem, it's always best to listen first, and read later as a way of recollection.
You may assimilate yet.

Soren wrote on Nov 21^st, 2011 at 6:22pm:

Grey wrote on Nov 21st, 2011 at 4:52pm: It's not 'codes of conduct' I have a problem with but the absolutism of totallitarian extremists. Like all pseuds, you hold these views fearlessly as long as you are living in a liberal democracy - I'm sorry, a western hegemonic fascist oppressive hell hole. If you lived in North Korea or Syria or Iran - real hell holes - you would be sh!tting your pseudo-convictions into a can (unsigned, of course) and burying them in the dark of the night. You are over 30 and an anarchist in AUstralia in 2011?? I say you are a sclerotic fantasist in grip of a nostalgia for your grandfather's dreams.

"I'm sorry, a western hegemonic fascist oppressive hell hole." The apology ought properly to be for putting words in my mouth; but if you didn't i'm sure you'd never have a thing to say Soren.
'A western hegemony' is fast becoming a Nth, W, E. &Sth hegemony isn't it? It's a process known as 'globalisation'. Fascist and oppressive, well it's not, but it certainly shows signs of heading that way; but there's no way I'd own living my life in a hell hole.

Totallitarian is the word I use and I'm happy to give concrete examples if you need them.  

Soren wrote on Nov 21^st, 2011 at 8:49pm:

Karnal wrote on Nov 21st, 2011 at 4:07pm: When you can pry yourself away from Paradise Lost, of course. In the original. Funny you should say that. I actually do recommend the Blackstone Audio version of Paradise Lost, read by Ralph Cosham. As every schoolboy knows, CS Lewis wrote a great introduction to Paradise Lost. Start there, PB, and then listen to the book. Being a poem, it's always best to listen first, and read later as a way of recollection. You may assimilate yet.

Assimilate into the Sacro Romano Impero?

Alas, dear boy, it has been usurped by the EU.

And they still won't let Turkey in.

Karnal wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2011 at 10:29am:

Soren wrote on Nov 21st, 2011 at 8:49pm: Karnal wrote on Nov 21st, 2011 at 4:07pm: When you can pry yourself away from Paradise Lost, of course. In the original. Funny you should say that. I actually do recommend the Blackstone Audio version of Paradise Lost, read by Ralph Cosham. As every schoolboy knows, CS Lewis wrote a great introduction to Paradise Lost. Start there, PB, and then listen to the book. Being a poem, it's always best to listen first, and read later as a way of recollection. You may assimilate yet. Assimilate into the Sacro Romano Impero? Alas, dear boy, it has been usurped by the EU. And they still won't let Turkey in.

;D Nice Karnal ;D

We really should preserve the old boy. Not only does he think every schoolboy has read the preface to Paradise Lost, but he thinks they know who CS Lewis is.

Now, some of us know CS Lewis for creating fantasy worlds behind wardrobes. The old boy, however, reads him for the essays: utterly dull works like Mere Christianity, which single handedly bleed the life from anything Jesus left on this earth, drop by drop.

Not that I've read the preface to Paradise Lost, of course. Still, I'm sure schoolboys everywhere are marvelling at it over games of conkers, beatings from their boazers, and the odd bit of dormitory sodomy.

Ah, such fond memories.

take it from me karnal it's all the kids are doing these days.

Sodomy? Good heavens. I must tell Matty to stay away from them.

From 'why beauty matters' to the sordid is a few routine, rehearsed-to-death steps.

Soren wrote on Nov 24^th, 2011 at 9:55am:

From 'why beauty matters' to the sordid is a few routine, rehearsed-to-death steps.

http://www.thegrowspot.com/plant-pictures/flowers/bleeding-hearts.jpg

Pacific Bleeding Heart (Dicentra Formosa)

http://www.nzplantpics.com/pics_grasses/dierama_pulcherrimum_small_04.jpg

Dierama pulcherium (angels fishing rods)

You see, my friends? Gud makes the best arts, isn't it?

Pretty flower, lovey birdsong, all the spheres in heavens and hells. There are many rooms in my fathers house.

Gud is good, friends, you must agree.

Guess what, I am back.



Quote:

Grey wrote With Anarchists and scientists only the truth revealed matters. Only hierarchies are tied to their guess work.

Anarchists aren't interested in 'truth' the way science is. Anarchism is a resentment against authority and has nothing to do with curing cancer or physics.



Quote:

Bolshevik Destroyer wrote On another relevant point: Why didn’t you respond to my queries on why you take advantage of all the goods and services created under authority while hating that authority? You know, like transport, medicine, food, clothing, shelter, sewage works, computers etc. etc. etc. If you were honest you would discard all your comforts because they were created under authoritarian structures.

Quote:

Grey wrote It was such a ludicrous thing to say I hought I'd save you embarressment. The advancement of human society is the result of the work of those who question. The stamping feet of authoritarians has ever been the bane of knowledge and enquiry.

This still doesn't answer the question. Why do you, and other anarchists, take full advantage of the comforts that have been manufactured by non-anarchist means?

Another anarchist bites the dust.