The Great Below and Eternal Return

Artist Bill Viola was born in 1951 and he grew up in New York.  When he was younger, the artist alleged that he almost drowned while vacationing with family, and he described the incident as a glimpse into “the most beautiful world I’ve ever seen in my life.”  His later work as a video artist would revisit the theme of water again and again.  Viola received his first video camera in 1970, when he was nineteen and a freshman at Syracuse University, and from early on the exciting new medium of video art captivated him.  Despite it at first seeming awkward and overly mechanical, the new technology excited him, and he knew relatively quickly that he had found his calling.

“It was black and white and there was really little more to it than a red button that you pressed to record.  But when I did press it, and I saw this blue glow on the screen before the actual image came up, something in my brain said I’d be doing this all my life.  Of course, back then that was not a very realistic or practical idea.  Video art was not a career option at the time.  There was no job doing this.  But it felt amazing to be in the forefront of this new thing that didn’t have any rules and involved technological advance that hasn’t stopped even today.” – Bill Viola on his first video camera

“Music has always been an important part of Viola’s life and work.  From 1973-1980 he performed with avant-garde composer David Tudor as a member of his Rainforest ensemble, later called Composers Inside Electronics.  Viola has also created videos to accompany music compositions including 20th century composer Edgard Varèse’s Déserts in 1994 with the Ensemble Modern, and, in 2000, a three-song video suite for the rock group Nine Inch Nails’ world tour.” – taken from the artist’s biography on Bill Viola‘s official website

“As I descend from grace,
In arms of undertow,
I will take my place…
In the great below!”

“I don’t want to do the standard ‘rock band in a hockey arena’ show.  I want to up the par a little bit.  I think our stage show has had a lot of thought put into it.  It’s not like a KoЯn or Rob Zombie show where they just go into the prop cupboard and pull out as much shit as they can.  I hope, when people see our shows, they go, ‘Fuck, that was smarter than that KoЯn tour I saw, but not in a pretentious way – it kicked ass.’  On our previous tour the audience was our enemy but, this time around, we’re best friends with the audience at the end of shows.  Everyone’s connected.” – Trent Reznor in a Kerrang! interview, dated July 1, 2000

While touring in promotion of the 1999 double LP album, The Fragile, Nine Inch Nails utilized Bill Viola‘s video artworks extensively.  The triptych imagery that Viola created for Fragility 2.0, as the tour was officially dubbed for its second half in North America, focused on nature, particularly dramatic instances involving water;  an ongoing lyrical motif on the album.  With a strong emphasis on crashing waves, tides ebbing and flowing, and stunning slow-motion splashes of water, the visuals created a haunting metaphor.  They express Reznor’s emotional state, as he rages with anger, sinks into a deep depression, and then resurfaces again.  Most notably, Viola’s Eternal Return, which was commissioned for the dramatic crescendo in The Great Below, brought Reznor’s poetic lyrics to life in a literal and dynamic way.  As the man in the video falls into the water, sending a heavy spray of water out through the side screens, Reznor’s voice rings out, “And as I descend from grace/In arms of undertow/I will take my place/In the great below!”  It’s a truly iconic, synchronous marriage of themes, lyrics, visuals, and intensity.  The moment is beautifully captured in the live concert film And All That Could Have Been released in 2002.

The Great Below, music and lyrics written by Trent Reznor, performed by Nine Inch Nails:

“Staring at the sea
Will she come
Is there hope for me
After all is said and done
Anything at any price
All of this for you
All the spoils of a wasted life
All of this for you

All the world has closed her eyes
Tired faith all worn and thin
For all we could have done
And all that could have been

Ocean pulls me close
And whispers in my ear
The destiny I’ve chose(n)
It’s all becoming clear
The currents have their say
The time is drawing near
It washes me away
It makes me disappear

And as I descend from grace
In arms of undertow
I will take my place
In the great below

I can still feel you
Even so far away
I can still feel you
Even so far away
I can still feel you
Even so far away
I can still feel you
Even so far away
Even so far away
Even so far away
Away
Even so far away
Even so far away
Even so far away“

Viola explains the whole process of creating three different video sequences for three songs in an audio commentary on the DVD presentation of the concert footage.  He states:  “When Trent first contacted me about creating a video sequence for his new concert tour, he talked about the idea that there needed to be a counterpoint to the high energy intensity of the music and that this was going to occur somewhere in the middle of the concert.  So, I immediately got the image in my mind of a storm, and the fact that you can never really comprehend the power of a storm in nature until you’ve experienced the calmness of the day after.  And the contrast of that lets you know what the nature of this energy force is.  So, the idea of the eye of the storm, the calm center of the storm, never really left me through the whole project.“

He continues:  “The key image in the video for The Great Below is this shot of a man who’s literally floating in the air, in some kind of void, and you don’t really know quite what’s going on.  At this point in the song, the music is peaking, and Trent is singing about giving himself to the sea, about descending from grace in arms of undertow.  At that moment, the guy hits the water, hits the surface that you never even knew was there, and there’s this tremendous explosion;  a visual explosion.  Again, it’s all seen upside-down, because what we’re really talking about here, what I was connecting with very strongly, is in fact that this is an ascension.  It’s an image of ascension, of transformation, into another world, into another state, and so the world as we know it is turned upside-down.  And the way out is not down;  the way out is up.  What you’re actually looking at is an image of a guy who has just stepped off a high-diving platform and is falling about thirty feet, and in mid-air, until he hits the water.  We had to drape the entire background with a huge black cloth to absorb the light to make him appear like he was floating on black.  The cameraman had to time the camera move down.  The human body falls 33 and ⅓ feet per second, which is about the height of that diving platform, so that whole event that you see really takes place in a second, or actually slightly less than a second.  That was a very fast camera move.  It had to stop right when he hit the water so that the water would remain at the edge of the frame in that moment.“

“Eternal Return” by Bill Viola (2000).
Multi-channel video installation.
Collection of the Denver Art Museum, gift of Polly and Mark Addison in honour of Dianne Perry Vanderlip, 2006.69A-J

The version of Eternal Return seen on display in the Denver Art Museum‘s permanent collection of video art is slightly different than the one that was displayed on the concert tour.  To begin with, it is divided horizontally so that the image is split between two vertical screens set one on top of the other, whereas the original projected version was a vertically-oriented triptych.  This smaller version also omits the image of the impact wave on the two sides.  It should also be noted that the projected version is trimmed to last only the length of a few lines of lyrics, whereas our version is slowed down considerably more, lasting over six minutes to play out in its entirety, and in the absence of the song, it retains the eerie sound of the air being disturbed by the man falling before climaxing in the deafening roar of his body submerging into the water.  Though it is divorced from its musical half, the presentation remains just as sonic as it is visual, and perhaps this makes it more affecting on its own merits.

Eternal Return is currently on view at the Denver Art Museum as part of the The Light Show exhibition which will be on display through November 29, 2020.

The Denver Diaries: June 1 and 2, 2014 – Back on the Streets and Lost Girls

Finding myself back on the streets, I devoted my time to getting lost in books, focusing all my energy on escaping into the power of the written word and the rendered image.  Part of the value of escapism is that one often encounters unexpected moments of revelation and catharsis.  I don’t believe that there are many people who would turn to a comic book for guidance on how to deal with trauma or repressed emotions.  Yet, unlike so many comic book writers, Alan Moore always succeeds in doing the unexpected…  even when adhering to his own formula.

Alan Moore‘s works had touched upon sexuality long before Lost Girls.  One of the more common criticisms against Moore’s writing is the abundant occurrence of sexual violence.  In Saga of the Swamp Thing, Moore shows the villainous Anton Arcane, having possessed his niece’s fiancé’s body, engaging in a form of incestuous rape with his niece, Abigail Arcane.  While done for shock value, at least predominantly, this melodramatic revelation felt very real and an appropriate amount of time is given to showing the psychological effects of this supernatural and sexual trauma.  In his deconstruction of superhero tropes, Watchmen, Moore depicts an attempted rape by a violent sociopath called the Comedian, after which his intended victim still remains infatuated with him and begins a short-lived relationship with him.  This was a powerful and truthful episode in a comic book series that sought to address uncomfortable realities while specifically acknowledging that toxic relationships and emotional dependency are real things.  In V for Vendetta, Moore shows a young woman about to be assaulted by government agents, but they are stopped by the titular character V, a masked vigilante and terrorist.  This is a rather poignant and realistic episode that aims its sights on corruption of authority and abuse of power and how they are often embodied in attacks on young women.  Then there is Moore’s epic erotic saga, Lost Girls, which really should have been more controversial, but wasn’t, much to Moore’s dismay.

The premise of the graphic novel Lost Girls may at first sound exploitative and kitschy, and to a degree it is, but there are some dark, powerful, and thoughtful depths to this work of graphic literature that set it apart from other works by Moore and the vast majority of comic books.  Lost Girls is an erotic graphic novel, a pornographic fantasy with literary roots, focusing on the sexual adventures and misadventures of Alice from Lewis Carroll‘s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Wendy from J.M. Barrie‘s Peter Pan, and Dorothy from L. Frank Baum‘s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  On the surface, these three characters seem to only share the basic tropes and traits of the young prepubescent woman who goes on a fantastical adventure of learning in a magical other land, then returning to her own world with some newly acquired wisdom.  In this sense, one can see clearly parallels with other coming-of-age stories, but the hallucinogenic quality of their adventures hints at more profound psychological symbolism, and Moore utilizes this to explore the realm of sexuality.  Within the pages of Lost Girls, Moore and artist Melinda Gebbie detail a series of cheeky, lurid, shocking, provocative, and surprisingly impactful sexual encounters with these three women.  Their stories range from early masturbatory practices to incestuous abuse, from orgiastic goings-on at private schools to group sex with neighbours, and all of this is set against the backdrop of Europe and America in the years leading up to WWI.

The brilliantly provocative, shamelessly erotic, and startlingly emotional graphic novel, “Lost Girls”, by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie.

Lost Girls is unabashedly sexual, hyper-sexual even, and therein lies the greatest difficulty in explaining it in a way that doesn’t simplify its graphic content or its lofty cerebral aspirations.  The story, and therefore also the images, feature fictional children and adults engaging in behaviours that most real-world adults would blush at, and it acknowledges that sexual desires, fantasies, and activities are an essential part of the human animal’s development.  Where it wades into murky waters is in its exploration of the difference between fantasy and reality, fiction and fact, desire and action.  On the one hand, the narrative acknowledges that we all have thoughts and desires and fantasies that we cannot act upon, because it would be wrong to do so and harmful to others.  The story also acknowledges the effects of trauma and how they can create either healthy or self-destructive behavioural habits.  On the other hand, the narrative goes so far in elaborating upon these thoughts, indulging these desires, and envisioning these fantasies that it does feel almost as though it is an endorsement to act.  At the very same time, a correlation is made between nationalism and violence and sexual repression, and these two disparate ideas together feel at odds with one another.

Where Lost Girls excels is in addressing the effects of childhood fantasies, imagination, trauma, memories, and how our collective experiences shape our later preoccupations in adulthood.  This is true whether one is looking at sexuality or not.  For people who experienced a great deal of childhood trauma, the way that the past is viewed tends to be dualistic, and nostalgia is perhaps less sweet and more bitter;  the delineation between reward and punishment less obviously defined, the juxtaposition of pleasure and pain, pride and humiliation, comfort and unease all the more alluring and confusing.  The characters here know that they are characters.  They know that they are shaped by their experience and that their experiences are fictional, which means they can react to them in ways that realistically would not be appropriate or healthy, and yet exploring their desires to react to their experiences is very healthy.  As a reader we’re reminded that we are also just like characters in books, but unlike them, we can decide how we will respond to the circumstances beyond our control.  We are reminded that we have the ability to change our stories by changing what we do and who we are as people.  Moore and Gebbie understand this and tread this thematic line like tightrope walkers.  They understand that they are telling a potentially dangerous story, and they remind the reader of this, that it’s all make-believe, and that you can put the book down at any time that you feel challenged or discomforted.  This is something that isn’t present in most pornography or in most fiction.  The safe word is built in to the medium, which means that between the covers there is as much safety to explore as there is risk of arousal and the need to sate such arousal, and that makes the graphic novel unique.

The following is a journal entry I wrote in the moments before falling asleep in the back of a parking lot.  As such, it’s a bit dreamy and meandering, but I think that I expressed a certain vulnerability and hope that was quite special.  Whatever words or images had lifted me out of my emotional slump managed to get me through the day.

“There are rare, precious moments in life when you find yourself unexpectedly and deeply moved by a work of art, by a piece of music, by the flickering images on a screen, or by the simple eloquence of words on paper.  Sometimes these moments are forever ingrained in our memory.  Other times they are fleeting, gone before we can reach out and grasp their weight and significance.  They are like perfect storms of internal thoughts and emotions and external stimuli;  two forces coming together in rapturous conflict, and for a moment, leaving us in a delicately blissful or agonized state of total cognizance.  They are moments of clarity.  I could not, if I tried, recall each of these instances.  They are waspish, flighty, like tendrils of mist that wrap themselves around you and then depart, and all without warning.  Others still are less than subtle and descend upon us like thunder;  leaving us shaken and branded by the experience.  In writing this I find myself somewhere between these two sets of responses and I cannot be sure to which side my pendulum shall find itself after the final swing.  What I know is that in this moment, I feel, though all-too-briefly, that I am a whole human being, tiny and perhaps insignificant on a cosmic level, but not inconsequential in the material and ethereal immediacy of now.  And that is of tremendous comfort as I go to sleep in this park, concealed beneath the shadows of a large elm tree, homeless and yet not broken;  a survivor.  Thank you, Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie.“

I endured.  I survived.  I came out the other side of it.  My circumstances did not and do not define who I am.  Ultimately this realization that what happens to us need not become who we are is the lasting message of Lost Girls.  So, maybe none of us are lost, but instead we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be in that moment of our personal evolution.

The Hidden Film Gem of the Denver Art Museum’s Monet: The Truth of Nature Exhibition

For visitors to the Denver Art Museum‘s exhibition Monet:  The Truth of Nature, it would be understandable to find oneself so caught up in the extraordinary display of 120 paintings by the undisputed godfather of Impressionism, Claude Monet, that one overlooks a short 51 second video being projected in the third gallery of the exhibition.  This projection may be somewhat easy to pass by without being aware of its historical significance as an early film experiment by prominent filmmakers the Lumière Brothers.  The placard information in this section of the exhibition tells visitors very little about the film, but I thought that it would both entertaining and informative to share with them more about the film’s history, its importance, and the context of its inclusion in the exhibition.

L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat (English translation:  The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station) was filmed and directed by Louis Lumière, and produced by Auguste Lumière, collectively known as the Lumière Brothers.  Shot in 1895, L’arrivée d’un train, as it is commonly referred, is one of the more famous short films of the early silent film era.  It is frequently shown to film students, alongside other classics such as the 1902 Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) by Georges Méliès, and the 1903 film The Great Train Robbery by Edwin S. Porter.  Trains in particular became synonymous with progress, action, and fast movement.  Audiences flocked to films that featured trains because they took full advantage of the cinematic medium and its power to deliver scenes that felt real and exciting.

The Lumière Brothers were among the first filmmakers to truly appreciate the power, not only of the moving image, but of perspective in conjunction with motion.  Many early films rely on imagery adopted from the visual arts prior to photographic experimentation.  As such, they do not take advantage of perspective or depth, instead relying on two-dimensional representations of space.  They appear like moving sketches or moving paintings.  The Lumière Brothers wanted to change that, and they did change that, with their introduction of what we call Dutch Angles. By positioning their camera at an angle so that the movement doesn’t occur along vertical and horizontal trajectories, but at diagonal ones, they simultaneously utilized the full frame of the image while enabling a moving object to appear to grow larger as it became closer to the camera.  The resultant effect cannot be captured in a drawing, painting, or photograph, even through the use of foreshortening.  We see the train as its cars trail off into the distance, but more importantly, we see the engine pull those cars ever closer toward the camera until it passes the camera, coming right “through the screen“.

A film cel from “L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat” (1895).

This in turn meant that the moving image of the train appears to move closer to the audience, which according to popular cinematic legend, caused an uproar during its first theatrical exhibition as audiences fled to the rear right side of the theatre for fear that the train would collide into the front of the auditorium seating.  This urban legend, as it has been called by some, is still a hotly debated subject with some film historians insisting that it never occurred, while others say that it did occur, but also that it was the source of inspiration for later films which utilized similar techniques.  More on the film’s impact later.  The film appears tame and even commonplace today, as modern audiences aren’t often accustomed to a stationary camera and continuous cuts, but upon its original 1896 exhibition it was revolutionary and dynamic.  This illustrates just how much cinema has evolved in a relatively short period of time.

La Ciotat Station was near the Lumière Brothers‘ Summer home in a bucolic part of southern France.  Some of the women members of their family, wearing fanciful French country dresses, can be seen on the platform watching as the train approaches.  The Parc du Mugel in La Ciotat is a botanical garden founded over two centuries ago.  It features a lush tropical garden near its outlying beach replete with palm trees.  La Ciotat was just one of many towns that saw a boom in day tourism with the advent and popularization of the train holiday.  Middle class and upper class citizens of France began taking day trips to the countryside and to the coast to get away from the city.  This newfound interest in the pastoral can be seen as a reaction to urbanization and industrialism, but also as a reflection of the burgeoning middle class in France, both of which would become a common theme in the arts of the mid 19th Century to the early 20th Century.

L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat premiered on January 25, 1896 and was so successful in European theatres that it would be shown in the United States beginning in March of 1896.  There the film tapped into America’s national obsession with locomotives, which had become a symbol of the Industrial Era and of Westward Expansion, and it would go on to inspire many filmmakers working on the then emerging genre of the Western.  In the aforementioned The Great Train Robbery, we see not only a train coming directly at the camera, but also at the film’s climax a bandit (portrayed by Justus D. Barnes) shooting his pistol point blank into the camera, and thus the audience.  These two images owe themselves to the camerawork and cinematic language that the Lumières helped to create for early audiences and filmmakers.

Now, as to that urban legend, the film debuted in 1896, and according to stories passed down generation to generation, it caused a panic among its audience who feared that the train would crash through the screen and into the theatre’s auditorium.  Film scholars and historians such as Hellmuth Karasek have perpetuated this story, writing that the film “had a particularly lasting impact;  yes, it caused fear, terror, even panic.”  Others, such as Martin Loiperdinger, dismiss this alleged incident as an urban legend, perhaps born of hyperbolic appraisal by contemporary critics or perhaps even as a retroactive mythologization of a real occurrence exaggerated to convey how audience expectations and appetites for spectacle have evolved.  L’arrivée d’un train would eventually be re-shot by Louis Lumière in 1934, using stereoscopic film equipment in an early experiment to create a 3D film, and it may in fact have been audiences reacting to this version that caused the birth of the urban legend.  Regardless of whether the incident did or didn’t occur, or when it did, there can be no mistaking that L’arrivée d’un train helped to establish a number of cinematic techniques that riveted audiences and have become integral to longstanding filmmaking traditions.

The version of the film seen in this gallery is the original shot in 1895 and exhibited in 1896.  It has been meticulously restored by the Institut Lumière for the best video presentation possible.  An earlier restoration, in which you can see more grain, the focus appears softer, and there are various artefacts (dirt and debris) present on the film can be viewed on Vimeo, courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which has a copy of the film in their collection.  The restored version can be seen below…

Monet:  The Truth of Nature will be on view at the Denver Art Museum, its sole US location, from October 21, 2019 through February 2, 2020.  After that it will be headed to the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany.

Bibliography:
Lokomotive der Gefühle – (English trans: Train of Emotions) by Hellmuth Karasek (from an article in the German magazine Der Spiegel, 1994)
The Lumière Brothers and Cinema by Steve Parker (1995)
Notes on The Lumières’  L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat by Charles Musser (from a larger essay for The Movies Begin, 2002)
Lumiere’s Arrival of the Train: Cinema’s Founding Myth by Martin Loiperdinger (essay in The Moving Image, volume 4, issue #1, 2004)

America, We Need to Talk… About Donald Glover’s “This Is America”

Music + Visuals = Potency
At this point, one would be hard-pressed to find a person who hasn’t ever seen a music video or a portion of one during the course of their lives.  Almost without exception we have all seen music videos, at some time or another, whether on MTV, VH1, BET, or YouTube.  They have become not only an accepted part of the music industry but an almost mandatory staple of it.  If you want to succeed commercially in music today, you have to adapt to this, and in 1981 with the launch of MTV, the music industry was introduced to one of its greatest assets as well as one of its greatest liabilities.

If one goes all the way back to Walt Disney‘s 1940 film, Fantasia, or even further back to the Silly Symphony cartoon series which began in 1929, it becomes immediately apparent that the marriage of visual imagery with music has proven to be a most formidable combination.  Music can either be enhanced or diminished by an accompanying visual presentation.  Some songs and some visuals mesh so spectacularly that one can barely hear the song without imagining its video counterpart.  Take Star Wars for example, it’s almost impossible not to see the scrolling titles and prologue for the films in your mind’s eye whenever you hear John Williams‘ legendary theme, or to see an iconic character like Darth Vader without imagining the ominous theme of the Imperial March.  Go on, give it a try.  That’s just one obvious way that musical language and visual language can complement each other and create a link between one medium and another.

Now, take a look at music videos today, and most of them seem to have a singular purpose:  to sell singles and albums.  In this digital age, especially with the dwindling sales of physical music (since we’re on the subject I’ll take vinyl and CD over MP3 files any day), having a popular music video can make or break a career, even to the extent of a terrible song finding widespread fame and commercial success because the music video was so memorable.  There are singers and musicians whose entire careers can be chalked up to the artwork and photographs on their albums or their music videos rather than on the quality of their music.  Having grown up in the late ’80s and ’90s, I’ve seen this happen with bubblegum pop, teenybopper, boyband, and dance pop stars.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not living under the naïve delusion that once there was this grand past of substantive and enriching music videos, because no, there wasn’t.  There are occasionally performers whose music videos elevate the medium from crass commercialism to high entertainment or even true art.  Michael Jackson‘s Thriller, Kate Bush‘s Running Up That Hill, Peter Gabriel‘s Sledgehammer, Madonna‘s Like a Prayer, Nirvana‘s Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nine Inch Nails‘ Closer, TLC‘s Waterfalls, and The White Stripes‘ Fell in Love with a Girl are all examples of music videos whose visual aesthetics and narratives are more than just sales gimmickry.  These are videos that attain artistry and relevance.  They obtain renown, acclaim, and even controversy.  They achieve immortality through the purity of their innovation.

Nine months ago, actor and musician Donald Glover, under his performing name of Childish Gambino, released a video for his latest single This Is America.  The video immediately earned the same level of distinction as those aforementioned videos, because it is a singularly unique vision, as well as being a provocative, controversial, and riveting experience.  Opening on an image of a black guitarist performing in a warehouse, the appearance of Glover dancing, and the shooting of the guitarist, whose face is now covered in a bag, in the head at point blank range, the video is openly confrontational in its effort to address racial violence.  It continues and shows an all-black church chorus, singing and dancing in joyous and faithful celebration, before being gunned down, again by Glover, and then having their bodies unceremoniously dragged away and discarded.  Forcing viewers to confront the harsh realities faced by black Americans every day and challenging long-held stereotypes, Glover’s song and its video present scenarios and raise questions, but intentionally leave the interpretation and the answers up to bewildered viewers.

Within 24 hours, the video for This Is America had received almost 13 million views, and at the time of writing this, the video has received over 484,500,000 views, with over 7.4 million viewers responding that they liked the video and 564 thousand expressing their dislike of it.  Steeped in symbolism and allusions to current social crises, the video has become a lightning rod for controversy, and a hot topic among critics and commentators, most of whom praised its audacious visuals and metaphors.  That said, the video has also received its share of reservations and critiques, with many of the criticisms focused on the abrupt and disturbing violence.  Some viewers have seen it as a revolutionary statement on race relations and gun violence in the United States while others have accused it of reinforcing negative racial stereotypes.  Some viewers have decried it as a pretentious mess of disjointed lyrical and visual content while others have hailed it as a masterpiece of Trap (a term for a form of hip-hop popular in the South and characterized by electronic beats, a dark or ominous energy, and scathing social commentary).

In terms of visibility, Donald Glover, as an actor, a writer, a producer, and a director, has been rising in prominence for some time now with his roles in 30 Rock, Community, Atlanta, The Martian, Spider-Man:  Homecoming, and Solo:  A Star Wars Story.  Likewise his musical persona as Childish Gambino has risen as well, beginning with the melodic and confident rap of his first album Camp, continuing with his startlingly original follow-up album Because the Internet, and culminating in the brilliantly funky and psychedelic album “Awaken, My Love!”.  And though it is true that singles like Bonfire, Crawl, and the Grammy-winning Redbone certainly stood out from anything else that was coming out of contemporary hip-hop or R&B at the time, the video for This Is America has managed to overshadow most of his other creative output as a hip-hop artist.  Depending on how you look at it, this could be viewed as either a good or a bad thing, but it remains a fact.  Topping the power of a strong single with an unforgettable music video will be a challenge for Gambino, but one that I think he is more than up for, and the result could be equally spectacular.

How John Galliano Channelled Siouxsie Sioux and Gustav Klimt: Punk, Goth, and the Vienna Secession Meet High Fashion

While it’s a topic that I have often overlooked, fashion has been an undeniable stone in the foundation of both high and low culture, serving as a point at which the worlds of commerce, films, music, and art have all intersected.  It has become impossible to explore any of these areas thoroughly without seeing how the world of fashion has overlapped with all of them.  Whether it’s costume design for films and television series, the latest business suits for the bigwigs of industry, the wardrobe supplied for commercial photography and modelling, or the extravagant apparel of celebrities walking the red carpet, fashion is an integral element of the modern cultural zeitgeist.  And in recent memory, but especially in the last two decades, it’s hard to find another fashion designer who has shaken things up as much as John Galliano.

Portrait of John Galliano by Jan Welters (2010).

Controversial designer John Galliano, head of Dior from 1996-2011, has often been referred to as “the rock star of fashion”.  Like a rock star, Galliano’s designs have pushed the boundaries of the fashion world with their combination of his haute couture (high culture) fashion mindset and the more counterculture Goth and Punk do-it-yourself aesthetics.  He has also courted controversy on numerous occasions, both for his designs, and for his outrageous statements.  Galliano has also drawn considerable influence and inspiration from the world of Fine Art.  This becomes particularly apparent in his Ready-to-Wear 1997 Fall line (aptly dubbed the “Siouxsie Sphinx” line), which combined imagery taken from Ancient Egyptian artworks and the styles of the Goth sub-culture that was cultivated by none other than Siouxsie Sioux of the Post-Punk/Goth-Pop band, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and for his Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2008 line, which built upon the themes and aesthetics of the aforementioned line and explored other influences.

Siouxsie Sioux

Galliano drew inspiration from Siouxsie Sioux, whose own fashion aesthetics were a mix of the black leather, metal spikes, dog collars, and tousled hair of Punk, the fishnet stockings and garters of the Cabaret dancer, and the theatricality of Kabuki performance with its luxurious silk robes, pale facial makeup, heavy eyeliner, and dark lipstick.  Another important aspect of Siouxsie’s style was her love of the artworks of the German Expressionists and the artists of the Vienna Secession, most notably Gustav Klimt.  The influence of Klimt’s work is most apparent on Siouxsie and the Banshees’ 1982 album A Kiss in the Dream House, which as an aside is often considered the band’s greatest artistic achievement in their early Post-Punk days, and, along with a trio of albums by pioneering Goth-Pop band The Cure, helped to establish the sound of the Alternative and Goth genres as distinct from the umbrella terms “New Wave” and “Post-Punk”.  Sioux’s style was a combination of Punk, New Romantic, and the emerging Goth, and it would rise in prominence throughout the late ’70s and ’80s, and help give birth to the Goth look of the ’90s adopted by Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, and others.

Siouxsie and the Banshees’ seminal 1982 album, “A Kiss in the Dreamhouse”, is arguably the band’s greatest achievement.

Looking even further into the progression of influence and inspiration, Gustav Klimt was moved to emulate much of what he admired in the artworks of the Ancient Byzantines and Greeks, with their lavish mosaics, recurring geometric patterns (of triangles, squares, and spirals), and bright flourishes of gold leaf.  Klimt’s art, more of which can be seen HERE, was striking in its modern style and yet still incorporated ancient elements, resulting in something that felt both timeless and fresh.  Klimt’s work was considered controversial and subversive when he, along with artists Koloman Moser and Max Kurzweil, and architects Joseph Hoffman and Joseph Maria Olbrich began the movement known as the Vienna Secession.  The group’s motto was “Der Zeit ihre Kunst.  Der Kunst ihre Freiheit.”  (English trans. “To every age its art.  To every art its Freedom.”)

“The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt (1808-1909).

This motto accurately reflects Galliano’s attitude towards fashion as well.  We can best see the effects of these various stylistic progenitors in Galliano’s opulent and elegant dress from the Haute-Couture Spring-Summer line in 2008.  Here one can see echoes of Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees, Gustav Klimt, and classical works of art and design from the Byzantine tradition.  Much like a garment made from different materials, which are cultivated and gathered from different places, then carefully dyed, cut, and sown together following the plans of a designer, these seemingly disparate influences and inspirations all come together via the direction of creative peoples.  Seeing this progression forwards and backwards through time not only hits home just how much art and culture is reverberated throughout the ages, but also how art in one form, the visual arts, can impact art in other forms, music, performance, and fashion.

Galliano’s Look 38 from the Haute Couture Spring-Summer Collection, 2008.

Currently some of Galliano’s most spectacularly flamboyant designs, including the one featured in the photo above, are on view until March 3, 2019 at the Denver Art Museum as part of the special exhibition Dior:  From Paris to the World, of which the Denver Art Museum is the sole location.  If you’re interested in seeing more of Galliano’s Siousxie Sioux and Gustav Klimt-inspired designs for Dior, please follow these links to slideshow of his 1997 Ready-to-Wear Fall line and his 2008 Haute Couture Spring-Summer line on the Vogue website:
John Galliano’s Fall 1997 Ready-to-Wear Line for Dior
John Galliano’s Spring-Summer 2008 Haute Couture Line for Dior

From its opening in 1947 being protested for its extreme opulence during post-WWII austerity measures to its use of cultural misappropriation in the many themes for each fashion line, from the small size of both its dresses and its models to claims of plagiarism, the house of Dior has been no stranger to controversy.  But nothing has been quite so controversial as a series of highly insensitive, violent, and anti-Semitic remarks made by John Galliano, which lead to his subsequent firing as the fashion company’s Creative Director.  Galliano had held the position for almost fifteen years at the time of his termination.  The reason behind it were ultimately two separate incidents when Galliano, who was drunk on both occasions, made some pretty horrific statements to patrons of a cafe in Paris, and then later again in the same cafe where the incident was caught on video and shared online.  In the video, Galliano said, “I love Hitler.  People like you would be dead today, your mothers, your forefathers would be fucked gassed, and fucking dead.”  Galliano’s remarks were made in France, where it is illegal to make racist statements or to promote fascism, and so he was arrested, and his Legion of Honour medal revoked.

 

Ironically, much of the artwork that Galliano took inspiration from, be it the work of Odilon Redon, Edvard Munch, or Gustav Klimt, was part of a trend of radical artistic reinvention in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a trend largely born of Jewish intellectualism, and one that Hitler would denounce as Entartete Kunst:  degenerate art.  Greater irony, still, is that Galliano, a Gibraltar-born citizen of Britain, and a homosexual man, would also have found his own works banned and himself imprisoned by the Nazi regime.

Since his firing, Galliano has had a temporary residency for fashion designer Oscar de la Renta in 2013, and then in 2014 he became the Creative Director for Maison Margiela.

Woman of the Wild, I Hear Thee

It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words.  This may or may not be accurate, in part depending on the picture, but also in part depending on the imagination and sensitivities of the viewer.  Some images dictate to us the thoughts of their creator or evoke a particular emotional response.  Some images tell an entire story or create from within our own psyche a story that we need to tell to ourselves;  a bedtime fairy tale for the conscious as told by the subconscious.  These stories come to us in vague imaginings or vivid dreams, and settle within the foundation of our personalities, shaping our continual personal and societal growth.  Whether it’s the origin of a myth and the archetypes that proliferate throughout numerous countries and cultures or the dreams that we share together of our own fears, fantasies, and aspirations, the image contained within the mind’s eye is perhaps the most powerful and radical in changing us.  It is the internal revelation that precedes the external revolution.

“Melora” by Kahn & Selesnick (2013, inkjet print, edition 5, Denver Art Museum acquisition 2015.309, gift of Jennifer Doran and Jim Robischon of the Robischon Gallery and an anonymous patron). The image, beautiful, evocative, and haunting, is also not without a sense of whimsy. And it tells a tale, but what that tale is seems to depend entirely on the viewer’s own perspective and preconceptions.

Sometimes you can walk past an image and not really see it.  Other times you can walk past an image and see it, but not necessarily see it as it is, or in the case of a work of art, see it as it was intended.  Other times still, you walk up to an image and something uncanny happens as you make a connection, simultaneously seeing and processing the image while getting the sense that the minds behind its creation can see you in return.  This has been the case for me with the work of a number of photographers, but most recently, it’s the work of Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick that has been speaking to me.  And I’ve been listening with eyes wide open.

I work in an art museum, and part of my job is to ensure the safety of the visitors and the art, but there’s more to it than just that, because as one of many individuals who roam the galleries, I play an integral role in introducing works of art to the public and thus helping to contextualize in their minds what art is and what it can convey.  Many times now I’ve been asked what does this painting mean, or what is the purpose of that modern sculpture, or how was this image created.  Occasionally there are clear-cut answers, which usually are the result of having familiarity with an artist’s work or the resources to research the details of their lives, and other times the best I can do is to offer a series of interpretations and let the visitor decide which one resonates with them.  When asked about Kahn & Selesnick’s poetic photograph, Melora, I have to stop and ask myself if I am offering the artists’ perspective or my own, but furthermore, I have to question if there is indeed a difference, because with some works of art there is an invitation to explore and interpret the work only from the vantage point of a spectator.

One visitor at the art museum asked if the photograph was a statement on the environment and our collective need to be closer to nature.  Is Melora returning to the wild to live in symbiosis with the land and animals?  Another asked if there was some mystical meaning and if Melora was a shape-shifter.  Is Melora undergoing some symbolic transformation or even a physical metamorphosis?  One visitor even asked as to the identity of Melora.  Is Melora the deer or the woman?  To this last question, the answer is at least a bit more straightforward, because Melora is the name of the model.  Artist Melora Kuhn, a friend of Kahn & Selesnick, posed for the photograph and lent her name to its title.  The photo was taken on her property.

A detail from Kahn & Selesnick’s “Melora”. Here we can see the details of Melora’s hair and her antlers.

As a feminist and a student of both art history and psychology, I look at Melora and I see an archetype, and I see an exploration of femininity.  I see a woman wearing fashion of the late Victorian Era, an era of both technological progress and gender repression, of reverence for the ideal of feminine beauty and restrictive social roles where a woman’s innate power was suppressed.  The woman moves out of industrialism and into nature, out of the rigid social strata of her time and into a realm of female liberation, and this is most abundantly clear by the antlers on her head.  When visitors initially ask me what the image means, the first thing I suggest they look at is her antlers, because neither female elk or deer typically have antlers.  Yet here is Melora, a seemingly human woman, striding into a field where a stag stands amidst the tall grass, its gaze meeting hers, and Melora’s antlers are equal to, perhaps even rival to, that of the stag.  She appears to me to be a woman who is leaving behind her own world of gender roles and class, where she is seen and treated as a subordinate and objectified, and entering into the world of the wild.  There she can adopt an independence and a strength that civilization would deny women and there she can be an equal to her male counterpart.  She is seeking gender equity by abandoning the world that has attempted to reduce her to domesticity.  This is, of course, just my own interpretation.

A detail from Kahn & Selesnick’s “Melora”. Many viewers at first struggle to find the deer staring back at her.

Interestingly, the reindeer is one of the only species of deer in which the female grows antlers, though not all of them do, because in harsh environments where food sources are scarce, the growing of antlers expends a great deal of energy and nutrients.  While the male reindeer uses its antlers to fight other reindeer for social dominance, the female reindeer uses her antlers to move through heavy snows and to fight for food, and while male reindeer shed their antlers in the late Autumn and grow them back in the Spring, the female reindeer retains her antlers through the Winter and sheds them in Spring.  So, in this sense, male reindeer use their antlers to enforce their superiority over one another, whereas the female reindeer has antlers so that she can adapt to the world around her.  This independence and self-reliance can be viewed from an evolutionary angle, and one could discuss biologically how reindeer differ from other bovids, but from a social perspective, this makes reindeer almost eerily familiar.  There is something there that we can relate to as humans.

At the time when I first saw Kahn & Selesnick’s Melora, I happened to be writing a number of essays on evolving gender roles in society throughout the ages, and during the research phases of these projects, I found myself repeatedly gravitating towards the work of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, a celebrated poet, Jungian psychoanalyst, and trauma recovery specialist.  Her works, particularly Women Who Run with the Wolves:  Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, were instrumental in introducing ideas and concepts that informed how I viewed Melora.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ “Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype” and “Tales from the Brothers Grimm”.

“Yet even in an oppressive culture, in whichever women the Wild Woman still lives and thrives or even glimmers, there will be “key” questions asked, not only the ones we find useful for insight into ourselves but also ones about our culture.  “What stands behind those proscriptions I see in the outer world?  What goodness or usefulness of the individual, of the culture, of the earth, of human nature has been killed, or lies dying here?”  As these issues are examined, the woman is enabled to act according to her own abilities, according to her own talents.  To take the world into one’s arms and to act toward it in a soul-filled and soul-strengthening manner is a powerful act of wildish spirit.
It is for this reason that the wildish nature in women must be preserved—and even, in some instances, guarded with extreme vigilance—so that it is not suddenly abducted and garroted.  It is important to feed this instinctive nature, to shelter it, to give it increase, for even in the most restrictive conditions of culture, family, or psyche, there is far less paralysis in women who have remained connected to the deep and wild instinctual nature.  Though there be injury if a woman is captured and/or tricked into remaining naive and compliant, there is still left adequate energy to overcome the captor, to evade it, to outrun it, and eventually to sunder and render it for their own constructive use.”  –  Clarissa Pinkola Estés

The image of a woman in the wild, outrunning predators, outrunning the unwanted attentions and advances of men only to be tricked, recalls the Greek myth of Atalanta.  In the tale, a beautiful huntress and priestess, Atalanta, takes a vow of celibacy in the name of Artemis, goddess of the hunt, of the moon, and of virginity.  Atalanta was said to have been abandoned by her father, Iasus, left to die on a mountaintop, because her father would accept only a male heir.  Like Artemis, Atalanta has sworn off all relationships with men, and she develops into an untamed beauty, self-possessed, strong, and uncompromising.  Raised in the wilderness, according to some versions of the myth, by female bears, Atalanta developed a fierce wildness and could live off the land independent of so-called civilization.  Other versions of the myth say that she was found by hunters who raised her as they would have raised a boy, teaching her to fend for herself, and to rely on her strength and her mind rather than just her beauty.  She was said to challenge men, including the hero Peleus, to wrestling matches and would easily overpower them.

When two centaurs attempted to rape her, she defended not only her body, but her sacred vow to Artemis, and she slew them.  In doing so, she gained Artemis’ favour, and she would later serve as her proxy in the legendary hunt for the Calydonian Boar.  After King Oeneus forgot to make an offering to Artemis at the time of the harvest sacrifices, Artemis let loose a monstrous boar upon his kingdom, and this boar plagued the local farmers and destroyed the crops.  Many of the bravest of heroes and hunters gathered together, even going so far in their hubris to place bets as to whom would succeed in killing the fearsome boar, but none of the men took Atalanta seriously as a contender.  No, they either dismissed her altogether or they were outright angered by her mere presence intruding upon their fraternal display of ego, and Atalanta was only at last permitted to accompany them when one of the hunters, the hero Meleager, convinced his fellow men to allow her.  He did so only because he lusted after and coveted her.  The fact that he was already married was of no relevance in his decision, and Atalanta’s vow of celibacy, no deterrent to his desires.  He would ensure that she was present when he killed the boar if only to win her affections.  But that was not the way of it, and many of the hunters were brutally killed by the boar, and others fought among themselves and murdered one another, and when few of them remained alive and unscathed, it was not Meleager’s spear that drew the boar’s blood;  it was Atalanta’s well-aimed arrow that brought the boar down.  The boar, however, still lived and was only incapacitated.  Not to be outdone, the conceited Meleager then killed the boar, but instead of giving it as a sacrificial offering to Artemis, as would have been proper, he gifted it to Atalanta instead.  Still she would not be won.

Atalanta’s adventures did not end there.  After achieving fame during the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, Atalanta and her estranged father were reunited, and as women were viewed as the property of either their fathers or their husbands throughout much of the ancient world, Iasus was determined to capitalize on her celebrity and marry her off.  Her intelligence being no less than her physical prowess, Atalanta set forth a challenge that whomsoever could beat her in a race could have her as his wife, knowing all too well that no man could run as fast as she.  However, the goddess of love, Aphrodite, intervened on the behalf of Hippomenes, because Aphrodite felt slighted by Atalanta’s repudiation of love.  She gave Hippomenes three golden apples with which he was to distract Atalanta during the race.  Each time he passed her, knowing full well that he could not maintain her speed, he would drop one of the golden apples.  She managed to surpass him after the first two apples, but when Hippomenes dropped the third and final apple, Atalanta stopped to appraise it and Hippomenes outdistanced her and won the race, becoming her husband.

In viewing Melora, I am also reminded of Frida Kahlo, one of my favourite artists.  Kahlo, who in a 1946 self-portrait, depicted herself as a wounded deer with antlers, lived a rich and complex life, and possessed character as rich and complex as her work.  Kahlo experienced profound pain throughout her life beginning with a trolley accident in which she was impaled by a rail.  Impalement, literally and metaphorically, would become a recurring theme in her work, as would her relationship to nature and animals.  In The Wounded Deer, the two themes are united, as Kahlo, realizes herself with both male and female attributes, which has been theorized as representing her masculine and feminine sides as well as her bisexuality.  While her face remains stoic, almost reminiscent of the Sphinx or the Mona Lisa, her body is pierced with nine arrows, revealing her anguish.

“The Wounded Deer” by Frida Kahlo (1946, collection of Carolyn Farb).

Frida famously began an affair with muralist Diego Rivera, which lead to their eventual marriage in 1929, but the relationship would prove to be as volatile as it was passionate, and he was incapable of remaining faithful to her.  In turn, as a bisexual feminist, defiant, bold, and as desirous as he, she embraced Rivera’s polyamourous lifestyle, taking both men and women as her lovers.  Still, Rivera’s affairs left her deeply hurt at times, and often seething, especially when Rivera slept with her younger sister, Cristina.  This would inspire Kahlo’s 1937 painting, Memory, the Heart, in which Kahlo depicts herself caught between the Earth representing her family and the sea representing the inconstant Rivera and his many infidelities.  Surrounding her, aspects of her personality, including a modern school outfit alluding to her education in European politics and paternal heritage and a traditional dress alluding to her Mexican home and maternal heritage, are strewn about and she is pierced through the chest by an elongated arrow.

“Memory, the Heart” by Frida Kahlo (1937, collection of Michel Petitjean).

Frida Kahlo‘s work is harrowing, sensual, and primal in a way that even if one does not understand the symbols, motifs, and references she utilized, the emotions she was expressing are universal;  they are as clear and vibrant as her palette.  She was rebelling against pretension and propriety as much as she was against capitalism and sexism.  She lived in the moment, in a way counter-intuitively, throwing herself recklessly into her life, allowing herself to be hurt and immersing herself in her pain, channeling that pain back into her work, and then stripping down to her most vulnerable and exquisite self in order to do it all over again.

Which brings me to Amanda Palmer, Amanda fucking Palmer to her fans, who is also a fierce feminist willing to put herself out there again and again, to be hurt, and to lay her life bare for the honesty of her expression.  Amanda’s attitude, her modus operandi, and philosophy can be summed up as “in your face vulnerability”.  She seeks empowerment through connection, through creativity, through nakedness, through wildness, but above all through vulnerability.  She’s the kind of artist who will walk out on stage in the nude, her legs and armpits unshaven, her eyebrows shaved off and then drawn back on, her belly and breasts exposed, and declare to the world, “This is me.”  She’s the kind of woman who breastfeeds in public, and when confronted about will reply, without skipping a beat, “I’m a mother.”  She’s the kind of writer who will show up to a book signing in her pajamas, put together a makeshift blanket fort, and explain it all by simply saying, “I had the worst flight from L.A..“

The image for Amanda Palmer’s single “Machete”. Photograph by Allan Amato, 2016.

That’s Amanda… fucking… Palmer.  When I think of Amanda, I think of the quote below, a quote that embodies a philosophy that I myself have prescribed to for sometime, and which I find all the more refreshing hearing it from someone so undaunted.

“The perception that vulnerability is weakness is the most widely accepted myth about vulnerability and the most dangerous.  When we spend our lives pushing away and protecting ourselves from feeling vulnerable or from being perceived as too emotional, we feel contempt when others are less capable or less willing to mask feelings, suck it up, and soldier on.  We’ve come to the point where, rather than respecting and appreciating the courage and daring behind vulnerability, we let our fear and discomfort become judgement and criticism.”  –  Amanda Palmer

It’s coincidental, funny, and just a bit odd to me that when I look at Kahn & Selesnick’s Melora, the first person that always came to mind was Amanda Palmer, whose creative output I have admired since I first found out about The Dresden Dolls in the first half of 2003.  I look at Melora and what I am reminded of is Amanda’s first solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, and how her unique style left such an impression on me.  Her aesthetic, an alchemical mixture of Victorian Era fashion, Weimar Era cabaret, Punk and Goth helped to define what has been called Dark Cabaret since the early 2000s.

The cover for Amanda Palmer’s solo album debut, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer”. Photograph by Kyle Cassidy, 2008. (Note the period dress and the antler…)

When I see Melora, her dress hiked up, marching out into that field, her auburn hair done up in an elegant, but not meticulous bun, and her antlers protruding from her head, I think of Amanda.  So, it was surprising and synchronous to me when I was scrolling through Instagram and found that Amanda brought in Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick to do promotional photography and the artwork for her next album.  To me, it seems like the perfect fit, bringing Kahn & Selesnick and Amanda together.  She has a history of selecting amazing photographers to work with and this time around will be no exception.

In her post, Amanda said, “This record I am about to make in L.A. is without a doubt the most personally intimate/painful/raw record I’ve ever made…  my patrons who have been following the trail of demos know what I’m talking about:  the songs deal with death, cancer, abortion, miscarriage.  I didn’t want to just get glamour shots.  I wanted to make meaningful images that match the stories and convey the heaviness of the record. This is why I’m so happy that I met Kahn & Selesnick in upstate New York—they totally get it.  I actually started weeping during the shoot a few days ago:  I felt so perfectly peaceful and powerful and understood.“

There’s a trend right now, a glorious trend that I wish more people were aware of, of feminist music, raw, intelligent, poetic, danceable, brilliant music by women singers and songwriters (Annie Lennox, Austra, Bat for Lashes, Cyndi Lauper, Florence + the Machine just to name the first that come to mind and the most widely known).  I’m glad to see Amanda right there in the midst of it, singing about a woman’s right to choose and her experience having abortions and miscarriages, singing about Harvey Weinstein and sexual harassment and assault, singing about Judy Blume and the influence she had on her as a teen and an adult, singing about the loss of her best friend who died of cancer, singing about the challenges and joys of motherhood, and singing about life as we all experience it and can relate to it.  This is what the world needs right now to understand itself and to heal.  Sometimes you have to go to the wilderness to heal.  Sometimes you have to heal to embrace your own wildness.  Sometimes you have to enter the wild in order to strip yourself down to its bare, essential, creative self.  Sometimes it is only in the wild that you can be free to cry, to laugh, and to sing.  And woman of the wild, I hear thee…

Artists’ and Authors’ Website Links:
Kahn & Selesnick’s website (https://kahnselesnick.biz/)
Melora Kuhn’s website (https://melorakuhn.net/)
Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ website (https://www.clarissapinkolaestes.com/)
The Dresden Dolls’ website (https://dresdendolls.com/)
Amanda Palmer’s website (https://amandapalmer.net/)

Recommended Reading List (includes audio books):
Mythology:  Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes/ by Edith Hamilton
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings/ by Maya Angelou
Le Féminisme ou la Mort/ by Françoise d’Eaubonne
The Word for the World Is Forest/ by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Creative Fire/ by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Women Who Run with the Wolves:  Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype/ by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Theatre of the Imagination/ by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Tales of the Brothers Grimm/ edited, selected, and introduced by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
The Resurgence of the Real:  Body, Nature and Place in a Hypermodern World/ by Charlene Spretnak
The Art of Asking:  or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help/ by Amanda Palmer
Braving the Wilderness:  The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone/ by Brené Brown

America, We Need to Talk… About Police Violence Towards Young Black Men

In the late 1960s, when legally purchased weapons were in the hands of the Black Panthers, who were present during many police arrests in order to prevent police brutality, Republican attitudes towards gun control can be summed up with these words:
“No one wants to touch the legitimate hunter, but we’ve got to protect society from nuts with guns.  Something must be done.“ 

In the first two decades of the 2000s, when we have reached an epidemic of gun violence where there is almost one mass shooting in America every other week and police shootings of unarmed black men occur more and more frequently, Republican attitudes towards gun control can be summed up with these words:
“I think that mental health is your problem here.  But this isn’t a gun situation here.”  –  Donald Trump

Consider the numbers alone.  We are barely more than halfway through the year 2018 and over 500 people have been shot and killed by police.  92 of those were black.  While only 13% of America’s population is black, 31% of people shot and killed by the police are black, 39% of those shot and killed when not attacking are black, and 62% of those shot and killed by police when unarmed are black.  Why the discrepancy in fatal shootings?  The answer isn’t simple and a multitude of factors must be considered:  a history of police brutality, racism and racial profiling, economic conditions, lack of educational and employment opportunities in inner cities, mass incarceration, the militarization of the police, and an over reliance upon firearms as the first defense.

These are but a few of the instances in recent years when black men were killed by the police…

On January 1, 2009, a twenty-two year old man, Oscar Grant, was shot in the back while being restrained by police at Fruitvale Station in Oakland, California.

On July 17, 2014, forty-three year old Eric Garner was choked to death by a plainclothes police officer after selling loose cigarettes in Staten Island, New York.  Garner was placed in an illegal stranglehold after he asked the officer to not touch him.

On August 9, 2014, eighteen year old Michael Brown was shot six times in Ferguson, Missouri after an altercation with a police officer.

On November 23, 2014, twelve year old Tamir Rice was shot by police in Cleveland, Ohio while he was pretending to draw and fire a toy gun.

On December 2, 2014, thirty-four year old Rumain Brisbon was shot twice in the chest by a police officer in Phoenix, Arizona who claimed the pill bottle Brisbon was holding was a weapon.

On March 6, 2015, nineteen year old Tony Robinson was shot by a police officer in Madison, Wisconsin after reports were made that he was yelling, behaving erratically, and jumping in front of traffic.  The police had been called to help the troubled young man who was later found to have been using multiple drugs.

On April 2, 2015, forty-four year old Eric Harris was shot to death during a sting operation in Tulsa, Oklahoma when an undercover police officer mistook his gun for his taser.

On April 4, 2015, fifty year old Walter Scott was shot in North Charleston, South Carolina during a traffic stop for a broken brake light.

On July 5, 2016, thirty-seven year old Alton Sterling was shot three times in Baton Rouge, Louisiana by police officers who claimed he was reaching for his gun while he was being restrained.

On July 6, 2016, thirty-two year old Philando Castile was shot seven times by police in Falcon Heights, Minnesota after a traffic stop.  He let the officer know he had a gun and was then shot as he reached for his driver’s license.

On September 16, 2016, forty year old Terence Crutcher was tasered and then shot to death in Tulsa, Oklahoma by police officers, who referred to him as a “big bad dude”, after leaving his vehicle in the middle of the road and behaving erratically.

We’ve seen the headlines in the newspapers, the video reports on the news channels, the blog articles, the protests and rallies, and yet this epidemic of police violence against black men continues.

This is why Living Colour felt it necessary to cover Notorious B.I.G.‘s classic hip-hop track Who Shot Ya? in 2016 with a video documenting gun violence.

In the early hours of the morning on December 4, 1969, Chicago Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were gunned down by police during a raid.  The previous night, Hampton had taught a course at a local church on political education and activism, and then with eight other Panthers met at an apartment gathering place for dinner, where his drink had been drugged by an undercover FBI agent in preparation for the police raid.  Clark was found on security in the front room at a table where he sat in a chair with a shotgun resting across his lap.  He was shot in the chest.  In the bedroom, Hampton, heavily unconscious under the effects of the barbiturates slipped in his drink late the night before, did not wake in the midst of the gunfire.  Hampton’s nine-month pregnant fiancée, Deborah Johnson, was dragged from the room and Hampton was shot to death while sleeping in his bed.  Witnesses in the apartment reported overhearing the involved police officers having an exchange of words in which the following was said:
“That’s Fred Hampton.“
“Is he dead?  Bring him out.“
“He’s barely alive.“
“He’ll make it.“
This was followed by another two shots fired at point blank range into Hampton’s head.
“He’s good and dead now.“
Three other Panthers (Blair Anderson, Verlina Brewer, and Brenda Harris) were also shot at by the police, brutally beaten, and then falsely accused of aggravated assault.  The fourteen police officers involved in the raid fired somewhere between 80 and 100 shots.  During the raid, only one shot was ever fired by a Panther, and that one shot was caused by Mark Clark reflexively squeezing the trigger of his shotgun as he himself was shot in the chest.

This is why I wear a Black Panther Party patch despite be raised in a small, rural, mostly conservative New England town with a population that was 96% white and being white myself.  And this is why I write this post.

My Black Panther Party patch worn to express my support for the original goals of Bobby Seales, Huey Newton, and Fred Hampton.

 

“We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  –  Thomas Jefferson, American founding father and slave owner, in The Declaration of Independence

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  –  Amendment II to the United States ConstitutionThe equality of all man wasn’t acknowledged by Jefferson when it came to his his slaves, and there is no doubt that among black slaves, the predominant labour force in North America from 1619 to 1865, that there was no life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness.  Independence was a myth.  The reality was racial dependence.  When viewed in context with the actual history, the words of Jefferson feel hollow, and his words and actions are further proof that the opportunities and freedoms guaranteed by The Declaration of Independence and by the Amendments to the Constitution of the United States did not apply to black people and were never intended to.  The laws of the land protected the white man’s freedom, the white man’s land, and the white man’s property.  These laws were not extended to people of colour of African, Native, Hispanic, or Asian descent.

 

On March 3, 1991, after a night of drinking and watching basketball, three friends, Rodney King, Freddie Helms, and Bryant Allen, decided to go driving around midnight in Los Angeles.  King was the driver.  At 12:30 am, husband and wife officers of the California Highway Patrol, Tim Singer and Melinda Singer, saw the speeding vehicle and followed in pursuit.  This became a high-speed pursuit as King attempted to evade the police knowing that a DUI would violate his parole.  The pursuit escalated, leaving the freeway for residential areas, and additional LAPD police vehicles joined in, including a helicopter.  After being cornered, King was forced to stop his car at Foothill Boulevard and Osborne Street, where he and his two passengers were ordered to exit the vehicle with their hands on their head and lie face down on the road.  Allen and Helms complied with this order and were subjected to rough physical handling, claiming that they had been kicked, stomped, and beaten.  Helms received a head injury from a nightstick strike while he was lying on the ground.  King refused to leave his vehicle at first, but when he did step out, he allegedly patted his buttocks, which was mistakenly perceived as him reaching for a weapon.  Singer raised her weapon in preparation for an arrest.  However, the Singers were informed that the LAPD would be taking over from this point onward, and all officers were commanded by ranking officer Stacey Koons to holster their guns.  Officers Theodore Briseno, Laurence Powell, and Timothy Wind then proceeded to surround King and subdue him.  Three of the four LAPD officers together then beat King with their nightsticks, and kicking and punching him over 50 times, as well as tasering him twice.  Despite much of the brutal incident being caught on video by local witness, George Holliday, who then sold the footage to a local channel, the three officers, Briseno, Powell, and Wind, were acquitted of use of excessive force by a majority white jury.  A federal trial later found officers Koons and Powell guilty of violating King’s civil rights.  This famously resulted in riots throughout LA.

This is why Rage Against the Machine wrote Killing in the Name to address the long history of racial violence perpetuated by the police and by white Americans upon black Americans.

At 9:26 pm on March 18, 2018, a twenty-two year old black man, Stephon Clark, was shot while in the back yard of his grandmother’s house, where he had been living.  Police had been looking for a suspect involved in a series of car break-ins where the windows of the cars had been smashed with a tool bar.  Clark, who had previously had a stint in jail, was unarmed when he was shot.  The only possession found on his body was a cellular phone which, according to the the two police officers on the scene, he had been holding out in front of him.  Claiming that the white phone was being held out in an aggressive manner, and that they mistook it for a gun, and fearing for their safety, the two officers opened fire on Clark, firing twenty rounds.  Eight shots hit Clark, six of which entered his body through his back, and the coroner’s report indicated that one bullet entered his body after he had already collapsed to the ground.  It was three minutes before an officer attempted to speak with him and five minutes before anyone approached Clark who lay dying on his grandmother’s lawn.  After the arrival of other police officers, and realizing all too late that Clark was unarmed, the two officers muted their body-camera microphones to avoid self-incrimination.

This is why Colin Kaepernick and fellow NFL players kneel during the playing of the National Anthem despite facing criticism from social conservatives who turn the discussion to disrespecting the flag and veterans.

Eric Reid and Colin Kaepernick kneel during the National Anthem.

This is why we all must stand together and advocate for stricter gun laws, legal policy and procedure reform, and an open, national dialogue about racially motivated violence and racial profiling in law enforcement.  We are all in this together and until all people are treated fairly and equally by law enforcement this kind of unnecessary and deeply contentious violence will proliferate.  Regardless of your gender or race, as a human being, your fellow human beings are being killed, and it is your civic duty to recognize and address this injustice.

The Denver Diaries: Chapter 6

The Denver Diaries: Chapter 6 – January 2014 through June 2014

Snowfall on Oneida Street. Photo taken on January 1, 2014.

My time on Oneida Street came to an end early in 2014.  The Winter season had well begun and I was going to need to find a new place to live.  Fortunately, someone at the church where I had been volunteering suggested me as a potential roommate and caregiver for one of the congregation members who had terminal cancer.  He was an ex-con who had turned his life around and had been a volunteer at the church himself for years.  After miraculously recovering from stomach and throat cancer, he had been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, and between the excruciating pain that he experienced on a daily basis and the effects of all the medications he was on, he needed someone to help him do shopping, accompany him to medical appointments (including frequent ER visits), and keep his apartment clean.  He had turned to art in the last year or two of his life and this provided him not only with a means to pass the time, but also a sense of accomplishment and a way of expressing himself outwardly when he was effectively bed-ridden and unable to socialize.  I did my best to provide him with good company and would regularly walk from the apartment to the library to pick up DVDs for him to watch.  Sometimes we would watch them together.  I introduced him to Game of Thrones, which he became addicted to watching, and we sat through the first three seasons together.  We also made a trip out to the Denver Art Museum.

A self-portrait after an impulsive haircut that left me looking like the Irish bastard offspring of Louise Brooks and John Lennon (had such an anachronistic union occurred). Photo taken January 26, 2014.

 

Rainbow clouds during a sunset. Photo taken January 2, 2014.

Meanwhile, I continued to look for work and volunteered at the church, but I remained depressed and felt defeated by the lack of response to the now 80 plus applications I had filled out.  Adding to this despondency was that my new roommate smoked medical marijuana multiple times on a daily basis.  Unknown to me at the time was the fact that I am quite allergic to marijuana smoke, which causes me to become very dehydrated, depressed and lethargic, feverish, and increases my appetite as well as causing me severe headaches and dizziness.  Though the first month or two with the roommate went relatively well, things began to fall apart as my health worsened, as his health worsened, and other factors introduced themselves.  He had a couple of friends who would come to him and borrow his money or would illegally buy his pain medications to get high.  I wasn’t entirely certain how to handle the situation and my one attempt to address this ended rather badly with his friend accusing me of being a freeloader living off of a dying man, which was as far as I could tell hit much closer to the mark of what she was doing.  He eventually became more withdrawn and reluctant to go out to the church or on social outings, and then as the chemotherapy decreased his energy and caused him to vomit regularly, made it so that he rarely left his room at all.  We stopped watching films and television series together around this time.  Then to make matters worse, when we finally did decide to watch Aliens, as I inserted the disc into the DVD player, his flat screen TV, which was balanced on a shoe box and the DVD player, fell on my head shattering the screen and leaving me with a concussion.  Fortunately, we were able to get a replacement TV and I offered him my Blu-ray player that I had shipped out from Maine as consolation.

Holiday decorations and festive lighting on 16th Street Mall. Photo taken on January 2, 2014.

Due to my allergies and general sense of ennui at the small shared apartment, I began to go on frequent long walks, anywhere from four to twelve miles.  I would walk from the apartment on Colorado Boulevard down to the Denver Public Library on Broadway or go for walks along the various creeks and bike paths.  I took long strolls down 16th Street Mall where I took photos of the holiday decorations, the celebratory flashing lights, and all of the families and happy couples gallivanting through the city.  It was bittersweet.  On one hand, I felt good being out of the apartment, away from the sickness and despair, but on the other hand, I continued to long for a greater purpose and real connection to someone who might enrich my life.  The smiling faces I would see on my walks would only remind me of my own isolation.  The other faces I saw were the sunken, pale faces of the homeless, whose ranks I had been a part of and whom I would again be joining before too long.  So, it seemed to me at the time, that I saw the future that was denied to me and the future that was inevitable, and those walks ceased to be the respite I needed.

Sunset on Oneida Street. Photo taken on January 3, 2014.

I watched the seasons slowly change outside of the apartment’s ground-level basement window and I watched as my roommate become more and more sick and more and more withdrawn.  I felt empathy for him, profoundly so, but I also felt frustration.  I watched him consume junk food, smoke marijuana constantly, and then refuse to have visitors or go out all the while complaining of being trapped in his apartment and lonely.  My efforts to lift his spirits or to engage him were met with increasing resistance and then finally with indifference altogether.  I spent many days just reading, listening to music, sleeping in late, and filling out job applications without hopes or expectations of hearing anything back.

A small group of ducks down by the creek. Photo taken on January 9, 2014.

I would stay on Colorado Boulevard for five months before moving on to the next phase of my journey, which took me to yet another precarious living situation with a far more detrimental effect on my emotional health, and then from there I wound up on the streets.

To be continued…

Temple of Art: Artist Spotlight – Satine Phoenix

This is part of the ongoing series of articles about the Temple of Art exhibition and documentary.  Directed by photographer Allan Amato, executive produced by Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, and Jon Schnepp, Temple of Art:  The Documentary chronicles the lives of artists and asks them why they create their art.

…Temple of Art…

There are many facets to Satine Phoenix.  Her exuberance, like her creativity, cannot be easily confined.  Satine’s work is very much the product of her imagination and her passions, which run the gamut from the sensuous to the fantastical.  As one of the artists contributing to the Temple of Art project, I interviewed Satine about her work and her involvement with ToA.  Here’s the interview.

Satine Phoenix as seen by the lens of Allan Amato’s camera.

Sean:
Have you always been interested in art and creative expression?

Satine:
This question is funny to me because the answer is more than yes.  When you live and breathe a certain way you don’t realize that people don’t live the way you do or interact with the world the way you do.  I just am, and my “am” is a creative “am”.  Though my illustrations started when I was a kid and didn’t know how to be honest with my feelings and thoughts.  I would say one thing and draw how I really felt.  That’s why there’s so much emotion in my drawings… because they are my actual emotions.

Sean:
Unlike many artists that I’ve known who are introverts, you’re more of an extrovert.  With the artists who are more quiet or reserved, they tend to be very expressive in their artwork.  You, however, are very expressive in both your interactions with people and in your art.  How do you maintain that level of enthusiasm and energy in both your personal life and in your art?

Satine:
I have a lot of energy.  I’ve always been social and love to feed off of other people’s energy, especially creatively.  So, I’m actually an optimistic introvert who is amazed by things like a six-year old… or I guess I’m both (an introvert and an extrovert as I live in both extremes).  And that makes sense.  I’m a Gemini.  Laugh about those astrological signs all you want, but the duality of the monkey in me is a real thing.  I love going out and having fun and learning and feeling and then I get overwhelmed and have to run inside and recharge for weeks at a time.  I can’t even talk on the phone without being warned ahead of time.  The photos you see of me online are when I leave my house for an hour to visit friends.  I take a ton of photos and play then go home… and I’m enthusiastic.  It’s just in my nature.

“Fan art – Le Blanc from ‘League of Legends'” (2013) shows the strong influences of comic books, manga, and fantasy art on Satine.

Sean:
As someone who has her hands in so many areas of the entertainment industry, from acting to modeling, from illustration to storytelling, how do you balance your passions and still have time for all the great projects that you do like Temple of Art or your graphic novel, New Praetorians?

Satine:
Balance?  As I said, I have a lot of energy.  Many years as a hustler has whet my palate with hunger for many different projects.  Now I’m an artist who has a day job (doing New Praetorians).  Sure, I could just sit back and work on this one gig for the next ten years (because that’s how long it will take me to do all 27 issues and extras we have planned), but that would drive me nuts, so it’s not really choosing to balance lots of projects.  I need lots of projects or I get bored.  Lots of all different kinds to satisfy all the different facets of me.  Moment to moment I figure out how to fit everything in.  Sometimes I’m successful at it.  Other times I let projects build up and stress myself out and get overwhelmed.  Luckily New Praetorians is my constant project, so it is my center, and for people like me it’s good to have a constant.  My artistic endeavors won’t end with comics either.  I’ve got a children’s book I have on the list, an animation and an autobiography, documentary, and short film I’ll be working on as well.  Outside of work, I want to learn a language, get better at tango, am a fitness nerd/gym fox, want to learn the violin, get better at archery, do more marathons, climb more mountains, etc….  Never live with the regret of not doing what you dream.  Maybe that’s how I balance, I know I’m working through my dream lists and sometimes they overlap.  But the stress is worth it.  100%.

Sean:
How did you become involved with Temple of Art?

Satine:
Well, Allan is one of my best friends and I wanted to support Temple of Art and then when it started to become real he asked me to participate!  That was really kind of him to believe in me enough to ask as I’m not a seasoned artist like the rest of the TOA clan.  (I did go the Academy of Art for 5 years… that counts ya?)

Sean:
Can you describe the process of having Allan Amato photograph you and then reinterpreting that photo with your own unique artistic touch?

Satine:
Artists hang out differently than other people.  When I hang out with many of my photographer friends, we usually just do photo shoots (aka: hanging out) and then go to lunch.  Who knows what will come of the photos!  It’s not like I sell them or anything.  But that’s how we hang out;  we create art.  Allan and I have shot a few times together and I love being engulfed in his art.  I’m hyper-observant and enjoy watching him in his element.  So, being photographed by Allan was just another day of playing with my friend.  The hard part was coming up with an idea that wouldn’t cover up his art.  I didn’t want to cover it…  but I also couldn’t paint on a drawing of myself looking at me, so I got rid of the eyes.  (laughter)  It’s a very vulnerable feeling.  If I were to draw what I want all of the time, I’d draw girls wrapped up in girls in a sea of girls.  That makes me happy for some reason.  Not in a sexual way, but a sensual way.  So, I drew girls all wrapped around the photo he took.  I prefer black and white but added some color.  This style is a bit cartoony, but so am I.  And I wanted it to represent me specifically.

Allan Amato’s portrait of Satine, which Satine has personalized and enhanced with her own imagery. To see the final version of the portrait, buy the “Temple of Art” book!

Sean:
With Temple of Art: The Documentary, you are part of an amazing collective of creative talents, both in front of the camera and behind it. What has it been like associating with all of these diverse people who are being brought together by their need to create art?

Satine:
This collection of artists is mind blowing.  I admire all of them and have learned so much by chatting and getting to know everyone I’ve met so far.  It’s one of the biggest learning experiences and growth experiences I’ve had.  Finding out about other artist’s processes and lifestyles makes me realize how I relate and how it’s okay to embrace one’s weirdness and how it’s healthy for an artist to follow their specific intuitions.

Sean:
Have you found the Temple of Art experience to be inspiring or challenging?

Satine:
Yes, so deliciously inspiring.  An inspiration injection right into my eye holes!

“John Hurt as the War Doctor” (2014) is a great example of Satine’s intense and evocative line work, as well as being ample evidence of her Whovian status.

Sean:
In your opinion, what is the most special thing about Temple of Art?

Satine:
The most special thing about Temple of Art is that so many people out there really do appreciate the artists that create their favorite images.  They are interested in the lives and processes.  In this bizarre decade of throwaway everything, it’s hard to know if anyone is really paying attention, if anyone cares.  Sure we make art because our souls can’t help it, but for me…  it’s a way to connect with the outside world and to find out the outside does care…  well, that’s tops!

Sean:
What other projects are you currently working on?

Satine:
My main big art baby is my 27-issue graphic novel, New Praetorians, which will be out Spring/Summer 2015.  I’m finishing chapter three right now.  There’s always the celebrity charity Dungeons & Dragons game I throw at Meltdown Comics.  Celebritycharitydnd.com will launch a week from now once we have the charity (RORLosAngeles.org) donation center live.  The big game day is November 2nd, but you’ll be able to donate before then as well.  I’m excited to see the book Mistress Absolute is publishing.  I drew about ten plus images for it.  I don’t know what else I’m allowed to say about it right now.  Pretty much just follow me on Facebook as I’m doing something bizarre and new every week from covers to RPGs to coasters for the La Luz De Jesus Annual Coaster Show.

Sean:
Just for fun… what was it like being there with Allan Amato (ToA direct0r) and Stephanie Inagaki (ToA artist) when Neil Gaiman (ToA producer) took the ALS ice bucket challenge?

Satine:
Allan, Stephanie, and I are all best friends, so they got to see the ecstatic giddy-kat Satine about this dreamy moment.  I do believe Stephanie and I frolicked quite a bit about it.

Satine also took the ALS ice bucket challenge solo with a unique twist…

“His and Hers Dragons” (2013) is a beautiful diptych that pays homage to Satine’s love of all things fantasy.

Satine Phoenix is an artist and illustrator, an avid Dungeons & Dragons player, a former adult entertainer, a model, an actress, a storyteller, a gym fox and fitness nerd.  Her work can be found on her website, her Instagram page, her Facebook page, her Burning Quill online art portfolio, and ordered on Big Cartel,  HERE.  She is also available for commissions.

Temple of Art: Artist Spotlight – J.A.W. Cooper

This is part of the ongoing series of articles about the Temple of Art exhibition and documentary.  Directed by photographer Allan Amato, executive produced by Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, and Jon Schnepp, Temple of Art:  The Documentary chronicles the lives of artists and asks them why they create their art.

…Temple of Art…

J.A.W. Cooper takes her inspiration from environmental and natural themes, from animals, and from the animalistic side of people.  Her artwork explores the delicate and often complicated relationship between humanity and nature and it contemplates the fate of the outsider and the misunderstood, celebrating them even in their flawed state.  As a part of the ambitiously epic and deeply personal Temple of Art project, Cooper, as she prefers to be called, was one of the artists I wanted to interview early on.  I wanted to find out who the personality behind the imagery is and fortunately she agreed to do the following interview.

Allan Amato’s portrait of artist J.A.W. Cooper.

Sean:
One aspect of your life which is fascinating is that growing up you spent so much time traveling, in America, in Europe, and in Africa.  You’ve mentioned that greatly helped to inform you creatively. How did the places you’ve lived inspire your artwork or shape your perspectives on art?

Cooper:
Growing up somewhat nomadically to ecologist parents gave me an insatiable curiosity toward the natural world, but also a fascination for how incredibly different the realities that we live in are, not only culturally but even person-to-person.  Perceptions of reality and a fascination toward nature remain the strongest driving forces in my work!

“Petrified” (2012) depicts the destruction of the environment and ecosystems by both natural and anthropogenic causes.

Sean:
Our relationship with nature, with animals, and with the environment plays an important role in the images you create.  Is there a specific issue that you try to address or a specific message you want to convey in your work?

Cooper:
I am very interested in human’s connection to nature as animals and I tend to fixate on the more undomesticated and feral aspects of being human.  The nature symbols and animals in my work are almost always intended as metaphors for the wildness inside us.  I will occasionally get flack for depicting violence toward animals or dead animals in my work which confuses me as the animals represent aspects of the human condition and the violence is not intended to be taken literally.

Sean:
Something I noticed with your illustrations is that there’s a great deal of expressive emphasis on the eyes of your characters.  Do you express your own emotions in your art, or do you try to evoke emotions in viewers, or both?

Cooper:
Each of my pieces have both a very personal significance and a broader concept, so my own experiences and perspective on reality certainly drive a good deal of the content and concept.  The eyes are important to me and I try to capture them in a moment of transparency, without self-awareness, like an animal, unabashed.

“Nomad” (2013) is a great example of Cooper’s emphasis on expressive eyes and clean line work. The woman in the sketch has an air of mystery to her.

Sean:
What artists, in any media, have inspired you or consciously influenced your work?

Cooper:
Hokusai, Hiroshige, Sargent, Leyendecker, Haeckel, Audubon, Mucha, Toulouse-Lautrec, Steinlen and Chéret, just to name a few.  I am of course drawn to artwork with a strong connection to nature and science, or with a stylization of reality that I can relate to.

Sean:
How did you become involved in Temple of Art?

Cooper:
I was introduced to Allan Amato through Matt Kennedy who is the gallery director of La Luz de Jesus Gallery.  I came on to the project toward the end so I had the benefit of seeing some of the other finished pieces, but the challenge of working very quickly to get my pieces done by the due date.

Sean:
The project is unique for a number of reasons.  One of those is that it brings together so many diverse artists all working in different styles and even different mediums in a cooperative and celebratory environment.  Another is that it each artist is given an opportunity to express his or herself in collaborative way with Allan and with each other.  What has the experience been like for you working with your peers?

Cooper:
Working with Allan Amato was incredibly easy – he really has a gift for taking portraits with almost an elevated sense of reality – and the product is an image which is somehow more “you” than “you,” or perhaps “you” at your absolute best.  I am pretty camera shy, but I love the portraits that he took of me, and it was very easy to incorporate them into a painting.

Sean:
The portraits that Allan took of you are really remarkable.  There’s a rather charming one of you smiling at the camera.  There’s also another, which you are using as the basis for your piece in the project, in which Allan caught you in a truly memorable pose that is difficult to describe.  Were you posing with a specific composition in mind or was that spontaneous?

Cooper:
Allan is just a wizard!  That “creeper” pose came from my off-handed comment to Allan that I would like to look like a feral girl, and Allan slowly directed me into that pose very naturally.  For one shot he told me to stick my neck out as far as I possible could, like a turtle.  And voilà!

The portrait of artist J.A.W. Cooper by Allan Amato. Cooper has then reinterpreted the photograph by adding her own personal touches to it in paint, turning an objective image into a subjective one.

Sean:
If there is one thing that you would like for non-artists to understand about your creative process, what would it be?

Cooper:
My work can be twisted and dark, but it is not because I think life is ugly;  more that I think twisted and dark is beautiful.

Sean:
I think that the Temple of Art documentary has the potential to be not only immensely enlightening about the creative process, but also very entertaining as well.  What do you hope people take away from it?

Cooper:
As a person fascinated by different perspectives on reality, it is so captivating to see other creatives talk about their processes, motivations, fears, etc.. I think artists and non-artists alike will be excited to get a glimpse into the inner workings of their favorite working artists, and it provides a deeper understanding and perspective on the art that they love.  On a broader scale it opens up a dialogue about how we all experience life and how those perspectives impact us and our connection to others.

Sean:
Just for fun… your work features many different animals from nature, as well as imagined creatures.  Do you have one animal that you identify with?

Cooper:
I… oh man, yes… my spirit animal is an Ermine (short tailed weasel.)  So goofy to have a “spirit animal”, perhaps it is less embarrassing to say that it is an animal that I identify with and that I have chosen to have special significance in my work.

“Rise” (2013) is a fascinating piece with its themes of nature, subtle eroticism, and even perhaps a sense of spirituality.

J.A.W. Cooper was born in England, but she grew up in Africa, Sweden, Ireland, and California. She is a freelance illustrator, sketch artist, and conceptual artist.  Cooper’s work can be found on her Instagram page, her website, and her blog.

Temple of Art: Artist Spotlight – Gail Potocki

This is part of the ongoing series of articles about the Temple of Art exhibition and documentary.  Directed by photographer Allan Amato, executive produced by Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, and Jon Schnepp, Temple of Art:  The Documentary chronicles the lives of artists and asks them why they create their art.

…Temple of Art…

I was very excited to find out that my friend, contemporary symbolist painter Gail Potocki, would be contributing a piece to the Temple of Art project, which I was already very excited about.  I’ve been an admirer of Gail’s work since I first came across it about five years ago.  Being intrigued with the project, as well as very curious how she became involved, and what the experience was like for her, I asked her if she would be willing to agree to an interview.  Thankfully, she agreed as she generously tends to do, and it was a real pleasure having the opportunity to speak with her about the process.

“Thaw” by Gail Potocki (2008). In this wonderful painting, which recalls the 19th Century Romantic and Pre-Raphaelite tradition in its execution, Gail explores the human effect upon the environment, most notably anthropogenic climate change and the detrimental impact on the ecosystem.

Sean:
Could you describe some of the themes and subjects that you are attracted to and that inform your work?

Gail:
I tend toward themes that resonate with me either in a specifically personal way or with my world view.  Much of my work, up to this point, has incorporated ideas about humans’ effect on nature and the environment and I try to bring these issues into the viewers’ consciousness without being heavy-handed.  I like to paint people, particularly ‘extraordinary’ people, so I’ve created works based on circus sideshow performers/freaks from history.  I’ve strayed in a variety of directions over the years, but always seem to come back to the environmental works because I think these issues are the most critical ones facing us today.

“The Raft of the Medusa” by Gail Potocki (2012). In the painting, the opulently-dressed woman discards a half-eaten apple into the ocean, which has been devastated by oil. On the woman’s collar is a group of rats who cling to her like a human raft, and among the rats is the experimented upon Vacanti mouse.

In the above painting, The Raft of the Medusa, the title of which is an allusion to Théodore Géricault’s painting of the same name depicting a human disaster that takes a toll on human lives, Gail shows the toll of man-made disasters, such as the Exxon Valdez and BP oil spills, as well as Fukushima, and how these events are so catastrophic to animal life and to the environment.

Gail became involved with Temple of Art at the invitation of the project’s creator, photographer Allan Amato, who took her photo and then gave it back to her to paint on in order to shine a light on the process of creating artists and to look into the creative impulse.  While Gail has utilized multi-media elements in her work, particularly in the ornate custom-made frames that she utilizes as an elegant extension of her paintings, she had never worked with photographs in this way before.  I asked her about the process and what kind of challenges it presented.

Sean:
Your artwork has always functioned on multiple levels at once, both in terms of your symbolic subject matter and your use of materials (such as incorporating the frame into the overall painting or utilizing different materials).  This is the first time that photography has been an element of your work, right?  What was that like for you?

Gail:
I was a bit intimidated by the project because I wanted to use the materials that I typically use and was not sure how to work with oil paints on the photo surface.  Also, there was no room for mistakes!  If I obliterated the photo in any way that was not intentional, there was no going back.

 

“Following the Straight Line of a Circle” by Gail Potocki (2013). In this piece, Gail looks at the relationship between humankind and animals, and how our collective actions can trigger extinctions. The extinct Tasmanian Tiger, as it is often called, the thylacine is shown here being domesticated by a beautiful woman. However, the human attempt to control nature results in annihilation, represented by the albino thylacine forming a canine ouroboros, a symbol of self-destruction as well as rebirth.

Sean:
You’ve done so many gorgeous portraits over the years.  While some of these portraits have been of your close friends and colleagues, others have been of people from the past, long-dead silent film actors or sideshow freaks.  One thing that you have rarely done is self-portraits.  Has this presented a challenge for you or was it strange at all to kind of turn around and to be your own subject?

Gail:
I have a difficult time looking at my own image and don’t like to look in the mirror often either (I don’t think I cast a shadow anyway).  I am way too critical of myself to look as closely as I need to in order to do a self image.

 

The portrait Allan took of Gail, which Gail will collaboratively alter and modify to create a uniquely individualistic image representative of her style.

Sean:
Throughout your career, your paintings have been part of numerous exhibitions,conventions, and featured in publications, where your work was shown alongside the works of other artists.  With Temple of Art, you’re in very diverse and talented company.  Have you had the opportunity to meet many of the other artists involved?

Gail:
I have met a few of them over the years, primarily while in L.A. or at San Diego Comic-Con.  I think I am a bit of an outsider to the group and that the rest of the artists involved in the project are better acquainted.

Sean:
One of the unique things about both the Temple of Art documentary and the exhibition is that it has the ability to change people’s perspectives about the lives of artists.  But, perhaps even more so, there is also a great opportunity for insight and reflection for the artists themselves.  Have you learned anything about yourself or your peers during this project?

Gail:
It was interesting seeing how the other artists see themselves as well as how Allan sees them.  I also found the correlation between the artists’ physical personality and their art to be interesting and often thought provoking.

Sean:
In the modern era of television and the internet, people have become accustomed to “getting their art for free”, and while this has its positive aspects, like having more exposure and educating people about different artists and movements, it can also make it difficult for contemporary artists to make a living doing what they love.  Where do you think the balance is for artists who want to gain exposure, but also want to make a living, all the while remaining true to their creative impulses?

Gail:
Sometimes you have to do some things that are more commercial to pay the bills, then you go back to doing what you’re passionate about.  It’s a give and take, and to avoid either aspect is irresponsible, albeit in different ways.

Sean:
For any creative people out there who are struggling to venture out and explore their potential, or who are struggling to maintain motivation, what advice or encouragement would you like to give them?

Gail:
How about “life is short, dammit!!!”  I started out as an artist late in life so I always feel like my time is ticking away.  That monkey-on-my-back makes me a bit anxious, but at the same time, I do seem to get things accomplished.  Maybe a similar little dose of neurosis would help them!

Sean:
This isn’t the first Kickstarter project that you’ve been a part of.  What has your experience been with crowd-sourcing and how do you feel that it can help to transform the way that creative people and their fans interact, exchange ideas, and support one another?

Gail:
Kickstarter and other similar programs are great for creative people to see their projects materialize, as well as for backers to feel like they are part of the process.  So far, so good!

Sean:
What would you like to see people take away from seeing Temple of Art?

Gail:
They will get to see what a talented and flattering photographer Allan is and get a dose of a wide range of artistic styles.  Everyone involved in this project is a top-notch artist and each has a unique style and vision.

Allan Amato’s portrait of artist Gail Potocki.

For those unfamiliar with Gail Potocki and her painting, here’s a little bit about her.  Gail grew up in Detroit, Michigan and didn’t begin her professional art career until she was almost forty.  Her artwork is done in the symbolist style and her techniques are those of, 17th 18th, and 19th Century master artists, though her subject matter is relevant in the most potent and immediate sense.  The paintings and drawings she produces recall the styles and movements of the past, but the subject matter is modern and resonant for our times.

To see Gail’s finished collaborative portrait, please, support the Temple of Art Kickstarter.

Gail Potocki is exclusively represented by Century Guild.

Temple of Art: An Introduction to an Extraordinary Project

What is art to you?  Have you ever given that much thought?  Everyone has a different take, has their own perspective on what constitutes art and what art’s function is within society, and the diversity, and yes, even divisiveness, to the answers you would receive from people all over this planet would be as complex, varying, and individualized as each form of art.  If you were to ask me, I would say that art is an expansive form of expression, which spans multiple mediums and pervades all cultures, whether you are trying to convey a story, evoke emotions, provoke thought, reflect reality, or project your perception of reality.  Art is one of the oldest means we humans have of communicating.  Unlike the spoken and written word, however, art can transcend language barriers.  Two people from cultures that have had no interaction can look at a painting, a photograph, a sculpture, or a performance, and the emotions they experience may be nearly identical.  Conversely, two people from the same culture, the same country, the same small town even, who have similar interests and perspectives, may look at the same work of art and see in it two completely different things.  Art can be aesthetic, it can be utilitarian, it can be a tool, and it can even be a weapon.  Above all, art plays a part in the formation of cultures; reminding us how cultures were born, showing us how they mature and evolve, warning us how they may sink into decline, and encouraging us as to how they might be salvaged.  Art is like a magical machine, partly logical scientific and partly intuitive and mystical, that generates empathy.  That empathy enables disparate perspectives to come together in harmony and to open new doors into realms of new potential.  Therefore, if art has such intellectually and emotionally nourishing potential to offer society as spectators, what is the impact of art on the artists themselves?  Are they exorcised of personal demons, enraptured in ecstatic expressions of pleasure, trapped within an experience that they cannot articulate to others, lost in a blissfully surreal dream oblivious to the real world?  Well, it seems unfair for someone who is himself not an artist to dictate what art is to others, so the best way to find out what goes on in the minds of artists and what art is to them, is to do exactly what artists do in their own pursuits:  communicate.

Why do you make art?

The visual medium is unique in that it possesses the ability to immediately engage the viewer on a deep and personal level.  This is true of paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, collage, and motion pictures.  The moving image, especially when combined with sound, retains all the power of the spoken word, of music, and of visual arts within a singular medium.  It may be the best modern method of expressing ourselves to the fullest degree.  If that is true, as I believe it to be, then the upcoming film, Temple of Art:  The Documentary, provides viewers of all kinds with a unique opportunity to peer into the minds and psyches of some of today’s most talented and remarkable artists.  Perhaps more fascinating than knowing what constitutes a work of art is understanding why artists are compelled to make art.  And that is exactly what Temple of Art endeavors to find out; where does that impulse come from for each artist.

Here is the film trailer for the documentary…

With over fifty artists participating in the project, Temple of Art is unprecedented in its scale as a collaborative effort, and its goal, to find out why artists create artwork, is an elusive one.  But that isn’t stopping photographer, and now documentarian, Allan Amato from asking the hard questions during candid and insightful interviews with the artists, including Jason Shawn Alexander, Shaun Berke, Matthew Bone, Jon Burgerman, You Jung Byun, Rovina Cai, Vincent Castiglia, Coop, J.A.W. Cooper, Zelda Devon, Roman Dirge, Jensine Eckwell, Scott Fischer, Teresa Fischer, Ken Garduno, Jenna Gibson, Rebecca Guay, Karen Hsiao, Hueman, Kurt Huggins, Stephanie Inagaki, Dorian Iten, Kozyndan, Dongyun Lee, Matthew Levin, David Mack, Jim Mahfood, John Malloy, Nicole Maloof, Dave McKean, Soey Milk, Junko Mizuno, Grant Morrison, Satine Phoenix, Gail Potocki, Dan Quintana, Greg Ruth, Marc Scheff, Christiane Shillito, Danni Shinya, Bill Sienkiewicz, Zak Sabbath Smith, Kyle Stecker, Barron Storey, Dave Stoupakis, Brian Thies, Justin Volz, Kellisimone Waits, Kent Williams, Jasmine Worth, Christine Wu, and Ping Zhu.  With a brilliantly eclectic and diverse roster of artists such as this, Amato will venture into the minds of the artists, revealing the stories and the motivations behind their work.

And here is a portion of the San Diego Comic-Con panel featuring some of the artists and people involved in the film…

This is truly an epic undertaking and one which I hope art enthusiasts the world over will appreciate and benefit from.  There are only four more days to make sure that this incredibly unique project is fully funded and realized.  To support the Kickstarter project, CLICK HERE.

More on Temple of Art , including interviews with the artists and filmmaker, coming soon…

Apple of Desire: Fruit, Flesh, and Female Pleasure

Women and apples.  The two of have been inexplicably linked in mythology and art for centuries.  But why?  Is there a genuine link between women and apples, and if so, what is the foundation for it, and how did we come to discover it?  A recent study suggests that the consumption of apples may increase a woman’s sexual pleasure.  Is there any validity to such a claim and is there any historical evidence to back it up?  Let’s ponder these things…

Throughout the religions of the world, mythological figures and goddesses have often been associated with apples and thus apples have become a symbol of femininity.

In Greek myth, the Garden of the Hesperides was a sacred place, where the Hesperides, the nymph daughters of Hesperus, dwelt.  They tended to the garden as was their sacred duty.  As often as is the case, especially in Greek mythology where triads of females are prolific (the Fates, the Graces, the Moirai), the Hesperides  are usually depicted as being three nymphs, beautiful and yet unattainable.  Some variations on the myth depict four or seven Hesperides.  The Garden of the Hesperides was an orchard belonging to the goddess Hera.  There in the garden was a tree, which grew from the branches that Gaia, the Earth, gave to Hera as a wedding gift.  That tree bore magical golden apples.

“The Judgement of Paris” by Anselm Feuerbach (circa 1869-1870).

There are numerous legends and myths in which the golden apples play a part, but most notably, they are seen as the cause for the Trojan War.  Eris, the goddess of chaos and discord, once wandered into the garden and took a single golden apple from its branch, inscribing on it that it was intended “for the most beautiful”.  She then rolled this apple into a wedding ceremony, a wedding to which she had not been invited, where it was found and three vain goddesses claimed that the apple was intended for them.  Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite squabbled over who was more beautiful and therefore most deserving of the golden apple.  The three goddesses sought the wisdom of Zeus, king of the gods, but he was reluctant to judge which of them was the most beautiful.  And who could blame him?  Hera was his sister and wife, Athena his daughter and goddess of wisdom, and Aphrodite the goddess of love herself.  So, he left the unfortunate task to the mortal Prince Paris of Troy, whom had been deemed a fair judge by the gods after conceding that when Ares, god of war, took the form of a bull that he was far more glorious as a bull than any bulls that Paris had in his possession.  After bathing and beautifying themselves, the three goddesses presented themselves to Paris, and each attempted to bribe him with their powers.  Hera offered to make him a mighty king over Europe and Asia.  Athena offered to make him wise beyond measure and courage in battle.  Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful of mortal brides.  Consequentially, Paris awarded the golden apple to Aphrodite, and so Paris bestowed the apple to Helen, the most beautiful of mortal women, but she was already married to the Greek warrior-king Menelaus.  Paris and Helen return to Troy and are married and Menelaus besieges Troy for the next ten years.

Hercules (also spelled Herakles), who was son of Zeus and a legendary hero, had to perform Twelve Labors of atonement and one labor was to pick the golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides.  In another myth, Atalanta, a beautiful and fiercely independent huntress and athlete, sought to outrace her unwanted suitors, offering her hand in marriage to whomever could outrun her.  She was outsmarted by Hippomenes who threw three golden apples, a gift from Aphrodite, into Atalanta’s path which she stopped to admire.

In Norse mythology, the gods themselves were not immortal inherently, but rather they were given their powers of immortality by eating magical golden apples.  These apples were guarded over by Idunn, the goddess of eternal youth, who was on one account lured out of the gods’ home of Asgard by Loki, the trickster god of mischief.  Also, another goddess, Freyja, the goddess of fertility, sexuality, gold, beauty, life, and death.  In Sweden, at Christmastime, Freyja was believed to shake the apples from the trees, which would bring in a good harvest the following year.  Because of this, and because of certain similarities between Freyja and Idunn, Richard Wagner combined the two goddesses in his epic opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen, creating the amalgam character of Freia.

“Freia” by Arthur Rackham (1909).

In Arthurian legend, the Isle of Avalon is the final resting place of King Arthur and the mystical land where his magic sword Excalibur was forged, and it was also called Insula Pomorum, or the “island of apples“, by historian Geoffrey of Monmouth.  Avalon was believed to be the home of a group of mystical priestesses, the sorceress Morgan le Fay and her sisters, chiefly among them.

Apples also play an important function as symbols in other pagan religions.  With it’s five-petaled blossoms which resemble a pentagram, as does the center of an apple that has been cleaved in halves, apples are seen as both a symbol of the divine feminine and a potent magical.  Because of their nutritious value and the occult value endowed to them by pagans, the apple has also been associated in folklore with witches and witchcraft.  This is perhaps best exemplified in the Evil Queen who deceives the virginal and virtuous Snow White with a poisoned apple.  Interestingly, apple wood has been used in the making of magic wands, which themselves have their origin in fertility rites, the wand being a phallic symbol and the magic, whether real or imagined, that emanates from them serving the symbolic function of seminal fluid.  There is a reason that the phallic magic wand was often shown in the arts with a feminine pentagram atop it.

The five-pointed star found at the center of an apple when it is cut in half.

There’s a long tradition of bobbing for apples in the Autumn of each year dates back to ancient times.  When the Romans, in their conquest of Britain, brought the apple tree, a symbol of the Roman goddess Pomona, to Ireland, the Celts embraced the tree and the fruit and assimilated it into their own religion.  Because the seeds of an apple which has been halved forms a pentagram, which was a symbol used in magic and fertility rites, and because the apple tree was the symbol of a goddess, the Celts considered the apple to be an icon of fertility.  Apples were then used in various fertility rituals and bobbing for apples was thought to be a way to predict who might be married.  Young women who place the apples they successfully bobbed under their pillows while they slept were alleged to dream of their future spouse.  When the Roman feast of Pomona and the Celtic festival of Samhain were combined with All Hallows Eve, the resultant holiday was Halloween, and bobbing for apples has become a popular children’s game ever since.

Obviously, one does not need to look exclusively to pagan mythological archetypes or obscure magic rituals to find a very distinct connection between women and apples, for the symbol of the apple has its place in Judeo-Christian conventions as well.  One need look no further than the creation myth itself and the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  In the creation myth, God creates man and woman, Adam and Eve, gives to them the Garden of Eden as their idyllic paradise home.  They are to watch over it is as their dominion and they shall watch over all the flora and fauna that exists there.  However, God warns that they are strictly forbidden to eat of the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but temptation takes the form of a serpent who convinces Eve to taste of the forbidden fruit and to share this with her husband, Adam, and because of this they are endowed with the knowledge of sin, and thus are banished from paradise and all their progeny, meaning all of humankind, shall inherit this Original Sin.  When they eat of the forbidden fruit, they also become aware of their nakedness, something that had seemed natural before but which was then perceived as shameful.  Many see the consumption of the forbidden fruit as a metaphor for sexual awakening.

“Adam and Eve in Paradise” by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1533).

While the Bible does not explicitly identify what the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was, it has commonly been depicted as an apple since around the Medieval era when artists borrowed the image of the apple in the garden from the Greek Garden of the Hesperides.  Of course, it is from the Biblical creation myth that the apple becomes synonymous with images of serpents, concepts about curiosity and the acquisition of knowledge, themes of seduction and sexuality, and it has forever cemented the association of Adam and Eve themselves, and of the fall of man with the apple.  It is also from this myth that we derive the term Adam’s apple, which was said to be the result of the forbidden fruit getting caught in Adam’s throat.  The protrusion of the Adam’s apple is also a sign of sexual maturity in a man, so there is again a strong link between the apple and sexual maturity.  The apple appears elsewhere in the Bible, prominently in The Song of Songs, where an apple tree is used as a symbol of beauty and desire in the lover’s speech, or in Deuteronomy where the phrase “the apple of my eye” came into being, using the apple as a symbol for that which is valued or prized above all else.

The Roman goddess, Venus, the Roman counterpart to the Greek Aphrodite, has long been depicted in art with apples, mainly due to the myths tying her to golden apples.  In the Biblical iconography apples have been used to represent temptation, sin, and seduction.  Conversely, they have also been used to represent true love and fidelity.  New brides and grooms were given apples as a gesture of good will, as a blessing that their marriage would be one of fidelity and that it would be fruitful, literally and figuratively speaking.

“Venus Verticordia” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1864-1868).

In the art world, the apple has come to symbolize many things.  Apples have traditionally been seen as feminine.  They have been used to represent youth, the sustenance of nature, the well-being of the environment, and various other things.

It has been thoroughly documented that ancient civilizations had used various plants, herbs, fruits, and fungi as primitive medicines.  Certain plants were used as contraceptives and others as fertility enhancement.  Many foods and drinks (chocolate, strawberries, mangoes, oysters, red wine, for example) have been thought to be aphrodisiacs.  Anyone with food allergies is at least somewhat aware of how the chemical components of what they eat effect their own biochemistry and can cause reactions.  Certain foods are known to have certain properties that cause physical changes in our bodies.  For men, citrus fruits and foods containing high levels of Vitamin C have been shown to increase sperm health, and for women, proteins derived from vegetable sources have been shown to improve fertility.  In the 17th Century, Nicholas Culpepper claimed that asparagus was an aphrodisiac for men, and as it turns out, he was right.  Asparagus contains essential fiber, potassium, vitamins A and C, thiamin, and folic acid.  Folic acid boosts histamine which is needed in order for both men and women to achieve orgasm.  Another food which has been sited as an aphrodisiac is avocado.  Avocados are also high in folic acid and potassium, and the way they hang from trees in pairs gives them a rather sexual appearance, so much so that they were called “testicle trees” by the ancient Aztecs.

A recent study at Santa Chiara Regional Hospital in Trento, Italy, and which was published in Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics has found an apparent link between apple consumption and a woman’s sexual responsiveness and pleasure.  There were 731 female participants in the study, ranging from age eighteen to age forty-three, and with no history of sexual dysfunction.  None of the women included in the study were taking any prescription drugs.   The women were divided into two groups:  one in which the participants consumed one to two apples daily and the other in which the participants did not consume any apples on a daily basis.  The results are fascinating to say the least.  The women who ate one to two apples every day reported increased arousal, vaginal lubrication, the frequency and intensity of orgasms, and overall sexual functioning.  The reason behind this, according to the researchers, is that apples contain phloridzin, which can decrease blood glucose levels and increase metabolism, but it’s also a phytoestrogen and phytoestrogens can improve blood flow the vagina.  Phloridzin is similar to female sex hormone estradiol.  The pectin in apples also help to lower cholesterol, which is important to heart function, and again improves blood flow.  Apples also contain polyphenols and antioxidants and have been shown to lower blood-fat levels in postmenopausal women.

Now, there is a difference between causation and correlation, and it’s possible that with such a small number of participants in the study, that these findings may not be completely accurate or that there are other factors not being accounted for.  But it is possible that this is very real scientific merit to this study and that apples can improve sexual responsiveness and function in women.  And if so, does this account for the long association between apples and women, and in particular, between apples and female sexuality and fertility?

So, do apples increase sexual function in women? There’s one simple way to find out…

The Denver Diaries: Chapter 4

The Denver Diaries: Chapter 4 – October through November 2013

The busy streets of Denver after midnight. Photo taken on October 16, 2013.

There are many assumptions about what homeless people are like or how they wound up in their situation.  Most think that the homeless are lazy, unwilling to work, disabled, or addicts of one kind or another.  This is simply not the case.  While many people who live on the streets do have some kind of mental disorder, addiction, or disability, and there certainly are those that live on the streets by choice as well, the majority have found themselves there because they lost their income unexpectedly.  I’ve heard so many different stories about people whose loved ones died and tried to take time off to mourn and were then fired, people whose landlords unceremoniously kicked them out without notice and could not afford another apartment at that time, people struggling with health problems who could work a particular job and thus didn’t qualify for disability and who then lost that particular job.  There are so many sad and complicated stories.  My own was simple.  I had moved halfway across the country with insubstantial funds and found myself without work.  I couldn’t blame anyone else or say that this was the fault of another.  The truth is simple, and often cutting like a crude blade, and the consequences of my choices fell squarely upon my shoulders.  I knew that I was taking a risk moving here, but it was a necessary and calculated risk, and in my case, it just hadn’t paid off… yet.

Photo taken October 14, 2013.

I did, however, have some advantages.  I don’t have a debilitating health condition, I’m not an addict or drug user, and I don’t have a history of any prior crimes.  I had been employed the past five years, I did have a computer, a camera, and a phone with me.  I also came prepared, albeit not quite for this situation, as I had originally intended to backpack my way across the American Southwest, so I had plenty of clothes and gear to make living on the streets (somewhat) more easy.  I had applied for food stamps, which I would receive before the month was out, and I was learning a lot about both the city and the homeless community in the city.  It didn’t take long before I found potential places to volunteer, where I could give back and help to make a difference for others in a similar circumstance, and prospectively have some positive job references within the state.  I soon had a list of different places to go, places that offered food to the hungry and homeless, places where people could bathe and do laundry for free, places where one could receive medical attention and obtain prescriptions, places where one could receive mail and use toll-free telephones, and places where various services are offered to help qualified individuals find work or temporary shelter.  I wanted help.  I needed to.  So, I spoke with a few of these organizations, some run by the government, some by churches, and some by the community, and realized I needed to select the place that was in the most need of a helping hand.  That’s how I came to the conclusion that Saint Paul’s was where I needed to direct my attentions.

The exterior of Saint Paul United Methodist and Inter-Spiritual Community. Photo taken October 14, 2013.

First, let me tell you a little about St. Paul, if for no other reason than it might help to explain why I chose to volunteer there.  St. Paul United Methodist is on 16th and Ogden.  The historical roots of St. Paul can be traced back to 1860 when Methodist Reverend William M. Bradford built what is to believed to be the first church in Denver.  While there were certainly other congregations at the time, they did not have their own church building, and were relegated to meeting in town halls, theatres, schoolhouses, or then unused buildings.  Over the next few decades, St. Paul relocated from 14th and Arapahoe to 1846 Arapahoe, then to 20th and Curtis St. , followed by 21st and Welton, and then finally to the current building on 16th and Ogden, which underwent its initial construction in 1910.  During this period spanning half a century, the constantly changing community saw the comings and goings of different reverends, the onslaught of the Civil War and the destruction caused by both Northern and Southern forces, and the building of the railroads.  The church took an active stance in providing a street mission and a school to Chinese railroad workers and later, during the first World War, sponsored the Save the Children Foundation, as well as contributing bandages to the Red Cross.  During the 1960s, the church community, originated and partook in a number of outreach programs.  In 1984, St. Paul became the third “reconciling congregation” in the whole country, being part of Affirmation: United Methodist and then the Reconciling Ministries Network, which welcomes gay, lesbian, and bisexual parishioners.  In 1985, they were given an award in from the gay community in recognition of their openness and welcoming attitude reaching back to the late ’60s, something which is still emphasized today and has expanded to the broader LGBTQ community.  The church has also helped the immediate Denver community by launching various socially conscious programs, such as their Sunday Meal Program which began in 1987, and offers breakfasts each Sunday to the homeless and hungry, feeding between 120 and 200 people each week.  During the ’90s, the church welcomed Buddhists into their building, and developed an inter-faith community.  They helped people with HIV and AIDS, providing and delivering furniture and other essential household items to those afflicted with the diseases who had lost their homes or no longer had the support of their families, in an effort to make the world a more comfortable and loving place.  For two years, the church also gave shelter to homeless and displaced youth, as part of a program which was later assimilated into Urban Peak.  They also have offered their downstairs kitchen to Catholic Workers who use the facilities to make food which is then taken to the St. Francis Center and dispersed amongst the homeless, poor, and hungry.

The beautiful stained glass windows of St. Paul’s refracting the light of the setting sun. Photo taken October 27, 2013.

Normally, as an atheist and vocal critic of organized religion, I would not have aligned myself with a church organization, especially as most use their charitable efforts and philanthropy as a front to proselytize, but St. Paul has been different.  The attitude there is one of genuine altruism and societal concern, not of judgment or infallible self-righteousness, so I was surprised to find a self-proclaimed progressive church that lived up to its proclamations.  The church, with its small congregation and its ongoing social activism within the community, needed volunteers and funding to keep its doors open.  While funding is beyond my ability at this point, volunteerism is something I’m more than capable of and willing to do, so I started volunteering at the end of October.

Over the next few weeks, I found myself feeling newly reinvigorated by a sense of purpose again, and was glad to be doing something productive, even if I didn’t generate any income from it.  It was good to have something to do to keep me busy and to be again feeling a part of something greater than myself.  I was still trying to figure out how to find work and housing, and I was applying for every job I could find that I might qualify for, but things were certainly looking up.  After two weeks of volunteering at the church, two of the members and fellow volunteers there offered to open their home to me and let me stay there for a couple months while I try to land a job.  Two days after moving in, they elected to go on a trip to Colorado Springs, and asked me if I’d join along.  I was grateful to see more of the state and to be even closer to the mountains.

View of the Rocky Mountains. Photo taken at Colorado Springs on November 8, 2013.

Photo taken on November 8, 2013.

I was uncertain of what the future might hold, but I knew I would be staying in Colorado, because I’d finally found a place that one day might be home.

To be continued…

The Denver Diaries: Chapter 3

The Denver Diaries: Chapter 3 – September through October 2013

Despite my financial situation, I was loving Denver, and it had begun to feel like it might one day be a real home.  This changed, however, as the last of my money dissipated paying for living expenses and shelter at the hostel.  But there was hope, as I heard back from one of the jobs which I had applied for, working at a non-profit organization where I would be helping to prevent sexual assault and offer support to people who had survived it.  As it was, this was an issue close to my heart, and I felt that with my own experiences and understanding of human nature that maybe I could make a real difference in the local community.  To my great surprise, not only did I get an interview for the job, but I was also offered a position almost immediately.  After weeks of not hearing anything back from the places I had applied to, I finally seemed to have caught a lucky break… or so I thought.  As it turned out, I was not going to be making the kind of direct changes in the community I had hoped I would be given the opportunity to, but rather I would be “canvassing” in the metro Denver area, mostly in the suburbs, to raise funds and awareness for various programs to aid those whose lives had been impacted by sexual assault.  The cause was close to my heart, but the method (going door to door, asking for financial support for the organization and handing out flyers) was not something to which I was suited for.  Having most of my work experience in the library back in Maine, I was accustomed to being behind a counter and people coming to me with their needs and then assisting them, but here I was a fish out of water, in a new city where I couldn’t get my bearings, and trying to approach total strangers and essentially ask for their financial assistance on a sensitive subject that was a deterrent for many.  After the first few days of training made it clear that this job required a more buoyant and vivacious personality than myself, I knew that  I didn’t handle the rejection well, I was too soft-spoken, and not assertive or persistent enough.  My co-workers were all a delight, very amiable and charming, but I didn’t feel that I quite fit in with these young people who were so full of optimism.  During work, as I went from one door to another, one street to another, I was sworn at (an old man told me to “…get the fuck off my lawn!”), threatened (an old woman threatened to sic her dog on me and warned that “…he has very sharp teeth”), and treated with ridicule (a man told me, “What do I care about rape?  The government has us all bent over and fucking us up the ass.  This isn’t my problem.”).  After six days of training, by which time I was supposed to raise my nightly quota at least twice consecutively, and having not raised it at all, I was let go from the job.

I had spent all of my money staying at the hostel so that I could store my belongings and shower and be presentable at work.  And this meant that I had not had money for food, so I was starving, and this also affected me emotionally.  I became increasingly depressed, discouraged with myself, and irritable.  Before being hired, I had been eating sporadically, trying to save money so I wouldn’t be out on the street, but then when I was hired, I knew that in order to keep my job, especially since it was dealing with the public and being a representative of an organization, I needed to be presentable.  I couldn’t be looking like someone who slept in an alleyway.  I went five days straight without eating while I was working, which I am certain was detrimental to my efforts on the job, but I didn’t really have anyone I could turn to for help.  Fortunately, my cousin Char wired me some money so I wouldn’t starve, and I bought enough groceries to sustain me through the next couple weeks.  When I lost the job, I knew I was in serious trouble, because since I was on commission, the amount I made per hour was about $5, not including the amount taken out for tax deductions.  Having worked about a 40 hour week, my take home pay was less than $200, and I had to choose between staying at the hostel or saving that money for food.  I put aside some of the money, so I would be able to stay at the hostel during inclement weather, and then put the rest of it aside to pay for groceries.  I was now one of the homeless of Denver, Colorado.  And what was worse was that I had become anorexic.

The thinnest I’ve been in my adult life at 139 lbs. Photo taken October 6, 2013.

It was October, the temperatures had begun to drop dramatically, there was occasional snow showers, and I found myself sleeping in alleyways under the overhangs of fire escapes, or in churchyards concealed by shrubs, or under bridges.  Anywhere that I could find at least partial shelter from the elements and where I wouldn’t be harassed by other homeless people looking for drugs or alcohol, things they could steal, or where the police would see me.  I learned a lot from the six weeks I ended up living on the streets.  I learned a lot about Denver, about its homeless population, about how the police treat the homeless, and about the Urban Camping Ban, a local ordinance which makes it a crime for the homeless to be caught sleeping in public.  I found out where I could go to take a shower, where I could do laundry for free, where I could receive my mail, and where I could go to get a free breakfast on Sunday mornings.  I also came to realize how impractical it was to have a backpack, a bag of laundry, and a shoulder bag, altogether weighing in at about a hundred pounds (I myself only weighed about forty pounds more than that), to carry with me at all times when I myself was getting thinner and thinner and losing muscle mass due to catabolysis.

Me standing at the Denver Public Library with my hiking backpack, shoulder bag, and laundry bag, all of which weighed over 100 lbs. Photo taken November 2, 2013.

There are so many things that we take for granted, so many things that we don’t realize are luxuries that can be swiftly taken away by a change in luck or finances.  One might think that being indigent means you’re a bum, that you’re lazy and don’t give any effort, that you just leech off the system.  This is not the case at all.  Being homeless is anything but easy.  Every aspect of living without shelter and without utilities is a challenge.  Being homeless is a test of the will.

The first challenge you face is where to find food and how to prepare food when you don’t have your own kitchen.  I had food money from my cousin, so I knew I wasn’t in as bad shape there as I could be, but it would only last for a short while.  I needed to sign up for food stamps, which I was hesitant to do, as I’m reluctant to accept aid from the government which is funded by taxation when I don’t have the means to pay taxes myself.  I don’t like to rely on supplements when I feel I’m not contributing myself.  But I relented out of necessity, knowing that one day, I would be able to contribute and pay society back in some way.  So, I signed up for food stamps, and started receiving benefits.  Now, this is not a complaint, but rather an observation.  One cannot survive off the amount you receive in food stamps alone when you are homeless.  The reason being that you have to buy food that you can carry around with you at all times and you’re limited as to what foods you can get because most likely you don’t have a way to cook.  So, you end up buying pre-made foods, convenient foods, and you buy them at whatever stores are closest, not where food is the most inexpensive.  Because of this, you end up spending more, and running out of food stamps benefits long before you receive your next monthly amount.  This is where and when most people turn to soup kitchens, food pantries, and churches that offer hot meals once a week.  This, however, wasn’t really an option for me since I’m both a vegetarian and a person with numerous food allergies.  There were not many places for me to eat.

The second challenge is where do you rest and sleep.  Well, in some towns and cities, there are plenty of places you can go to find a secluded area to sleep and recuperate from carrying all your possessions around with you in whatever weather there happens to be.  In Denver, there are not many options available to men, though, fortunately there are many places you can stay if you are a woman or have children.  I only spent three nights at the shelter.  There are a number of reasons why.  The first reason is the weather.  When it’s between 15 and 30 degrees outside, damp, and snowy, you have to stay warm.  One of the best ways to stay warm is to keep moving, but you cannot maintain constant motion and just walk for days on end, especially not if you are running low on food and energy and you have a lot to carry with you.  The second reason is fatigue.  Eventually you find yourself exhausted and you cannot stop wherever your energy level has depleted and just sleep there.  Unless you want to be arrested.  You have to go somewhere designated for the homeless or to somewhere where your presence will go undetected.  The third reason is that there are sometimes dangers on the street that you need to avoid.  Many homeless people live a rough existence.  Many have been attacked, robbed, raped, or witnessed and experienced things that harden them both inside and out.  The key to surviving is knowing your limitations and adapting to your environment.

A homeless man asleep on a bench in the park. Police came and roused him and made him leave the park shortly after I took the photo. Photo taken October 27, 2013.

One of the many sign-holding homeless people who beg for money, food, drugs, or in this case, alcohol. These kinds of signs often perpetuate the misconception that all homeless people are lazy alcoholics and drug addicts. Photo taken October 13, 2013.

The third challenge is hygiene.  When you are on the street, this one thing is of so much importance, not only in trying to keep yourself clean and healthy, to avoid infections, cavities, and other health problems, but also in trying to make money.  Whether you are intending to look for employment or whether you just plan to beg for money and food on the corners, being at least somewhat presentable is important.  Generally speaking, employers don’t want to hire someone who is hasn’t bathed, has bad breath, isn’t groomed, is wearing dirty clothes, or who is visibly unhealthy.  The same goes for begging.  People don’t want to hand over their money to a beggar as it is, but especially not one that looks like he is circling the drain.  What’s more, your appearance and how you carry yourself also carries a significance in how people perceive you, and whether they find you trustworthy, untrustworthy, or even a threat.  So, it is absolutely essential that you can find places where you can bathe or shower, go to the bathroom, brush your teeth, launder clothes, and change.  Most shelters offer some of these amenities, but not all, and here in the city, many restaurants only offer their restrooms to paying customers.  You have to know where you can go.  I cannot emphasize this enough.  It’s horrible being homeless.  It’s detrimental to your self-esteem.  And it’s even worse when you find yourself in the awkward and humiliating position of having to relieve your bodily functions outside, knowing that a traffic camera or security camera may be catching you on video or that someone somewhere may be watching.

Semi-humorous graffiti outside of a church-run shelter. Where one relieves oneself is a very serious challenge when you are homeless. Photo taken September 2, 2013.

These are but three essential challenges that you are forced to confront when you’re living life as an indigent.  There are many others.  So many, many things that we take for granted because in our privileged lives we grow accustomed to them.  For me, aside from those three things, perhaps the most difficult thing to adjust to was just not having privacy or any sense of comfort and security.  Even when you can find a places to sit down, lay down, rest, or sleep, you cannot ever let your guard down.  You have to be alert at all times or your belongings will be stolen, you will be assaulted, or you will be arrested.  I couldn’t believe how hard this was to adapt to.  I sometimes found myself literally sleeping with one eye open.  My head would shoot up and I’d become fully alert the second I heard footsteps within a fifty foot radius.  Every helicopter, plane, or roll of thunder interrupted my sleep.  Every car horn or car alarm, emergency siren, or distant shouting became a cause to not just wake up, but to gather my senses and make sure that I could move myself and all my belongings should the situation necessitate it.  It was difficult to get more than two consecutive hours of sleep without interruption.  I also found that another thing that one doesn’t really think about when you think of homelessness, but which was very hard for me to deal with, is your libido.  Being poor, being unhealthy, and being on the street doesn’t just cause your sex drive to disappear.  But what do you do when you are alone, on the street, and have no privacy?  You certainly can’t have sex or masturbate in public and most shelters have very specific rules about those kinds of things and will ban you if you violate those rules.  For me, anyway, I never really figured out how people handle that aspect of life on the streets, and so that constant, gnawing urge for sexual gratification went unheeded, which only made me more restless and it was harder to sleep.  As it turns out, a certain amount of pleasure is not only enjoyable, but it is actually required for your own well-being and mind-body balance.

The Central Branch of the Denver Public Library. Photo taken on November 2, 2013.

All of these things take their toll.  It’s no wonder that so many indigents have emotional or mental problems.  Even if they found themselves on the streets without any pre-existing disorders, it’s very easy to understand how they would develop them over time.  The constant hunger, fatigue, sexual repression, loneliness, anxiety, paranoia, insomnia, depression, and the gradual decline in your own sense of self-worth.  These things are all so dehumanizing.  And that’s just what is going on in your own head and doesn’t even take into account the kind of treatment you receive from others based on how they perceive you.  There are so many threats that you have to be wary of, from the police arresting you to being assaulted, from theft to being deceived or framed for a crime, from being drugged to being raped.  Everyone one the streets is at risk.  No one is really safe.  Not safe from others and not safe from themselves.  You have to seek sanctuary, either in a physical place like a public library, a church, or a park, or emotionally/spiritually in yourself.  You are a refugee, and your survival depends on having refuge, or a fugue, to which you can temporarily escape the physical and mental stress and hardship that is your daily existence.  I’ve never used drugs, but I can understand why many people resort to drug use to insulate themselves and escape their present realities.  For many, what other options do they have?  I sought out my sanctuary, my refuge, my escape, in the form of photography and reading.  Taking photographs helped to me to capture in images what I was seeing, what I was experiencing, both the degrading ugliness and those all too few moments of astonishing beauty.  Reading enriched my mind and transported me to other places.  It gave me a chance to delve into research for my writing and to find a retreat from my own life for a few hours here and there.  The library became a haven for both of these reasons, as I could take out books, but also use the public computers to access the internet, to share photos with friends, to research and write my essays, and to keep in contact with family.

The most gorgeous sunrise I have ever had the good fortune to witness. Colorado is known for having beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and had I not moved here, had I not lost my job, had I not become homeless, I would have missed this one. And had I not had my camera returned to me when it was lost, I would not be able to share it with you. This, for me, helps put things in perspective. Photo taken on October 16, 2013.

An indigent traveler stopping by outside the library to access the wi-fi. Photo taken September 19, 2013.

Two homeless men asleep in the sunlight. Photo taken on October 14, 2013.

It’s not an uncommon sight in Denver to see a homeless person asleep on a park bench or passed out on the lawn in front of some public building or begging for money on the street corner.  Most people would see them and walk away or lower their heads to avoid acknowledging them at all.  And why?  Because there are too many homeless people in the city for any one individual to help and it creates a feeling of helplessness and guilt.  Nobody wants to feel that they aren’t contributing to society, regardless of whether they are affluent or impoverished, and so the natural defense mechanism of the ego is denial.  If you don’t acknowledge the existence of the poor, the hungry, and the homeless, then they cease to exist in your day-to-day life.  When you push someone outside of the periphery of your vision, then you essentially put them out of sight and out of mind, enabling you to go about your business unaffected.  No guilt.  The problem for me is that I cannot do this.  Here I was on the streets, homeless, starving, and becoming unhealthy, and yet I would look around me at the shelters and at the people I was encountering on the streets, and I saw that many were in much more dire situations than myself.  Yes, my situation sucked, but there are people on the streets with diseases and serious mental health issues and drug addictions.  I lost track of how many people I encountered with severe autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or some other manner of debilitating mental health problems that would prevent them from finding stability and turning their lives around.  Someone needed to help these people, to give them support, and to offer them a sign of hope that they could aspire to be more than their current circumstances allowed for.  I knew that my own circumstances were temporary.  That things would eventually improve because I wouldn’t give up because I had strong survival instincts.  But surviving isn’t enough.  I wanted to help others who were struggling, too, and I was fortunate because I found a way to do this.

The welcoming purple doors to Saint Paul United Methodist & Inter-Spiritual Community on 1615 Ogden St., Denver. Photo taken October 14, 2013.

It was late October when I came across Saint Paul’s United Methodist and Inter-Spiritual Community and discovered that they offered breakfasts to the homeless every Sunday, despite having limited funds, a small congregation of attendees, and only about half a dozen regular volunteers to keep their breakfast program going.  This was where I needed to be.  This was where I could start to make a difference.

To be continued…

The Denver Diaries: Chapter 2

The Denver Diaries: Chapter 2 – September 2013

Having become so fond of Denver so quickly, I decided that I would stay and try to find work as soon as possible since a week’s stay at the hostel cost me about $115 and I had only brought $900 with me to Colorado, and I began job-searching ferociously.  Within a matter of weeks, I had applied at over thirty-five different places of employment, ranging from novelty and souvenir shops to branches of the library, from non-profit organizations to book stores and movie theatres.  I began to worry about what would happen when mid-September rolled around and the white of snow could be seen on the mountaintops in the distance.  My initial plan to cross the Rockies and head South into Arizona was definitely not going to happen now… job or no job.

When I wasn’t scouring the city looking for work, I was often out sightseeing or visiting the Denver Public Library or the Denver Art Museum.  I was immediately impressed by the size and quality of both, which had far exceeded my expectations, and proved to be a welcome diversion from my financial and living conditions.  The museum and the library both would become my havens; places where I could not only go to be out and about among people, but also somewhere I could go when needing quiet, contemplative time.  The library was, and still is, a wonderful resource that has provided me with hours of entertainment in addition to being the main source of all my research for the essays I’ve been working on since my arrival here in Denver.  I hope that in time I may find myself employed at one of the local branches of the DPL.  It’d be a dream job.

Just one view of the fascinating architecture of the Denver Art Museum which is divided into two buildings connected by a walkway bridge. Photo taken August 24, 2013.

The monstrous Central Branch of the Denver Public Library which has become a sanctuary to me where I can acquire almost any book or film I need for research or for enjoyment. Photo taken September 7, 2013.

Things at the hostel had become, well, interesting, to put it mildly, as I met the various people passing through and staying there.  Sleep became a precious commodity, which I soon realized I had long taken for granted, that was denied me amidst a chorus of snoring men in the room.  Most of the guests at the hostel were amicable enough, and there were even a few whom I came to enjoy, among them another Sean (one of many I’ve met here in Colorado), who was kind enough to treat me to a vegetarian Chinese meal when I was running out of money for groceries.  Of all the visitors staying there, I was one of the few Americans, and this was a wonderful change for me as I had known so few international travellers having grown up in such a small town.  I met people from Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Germany, South Africa, France, Russia, Israel, Bangladesh, China, Japan, and Switzerland all while staying at the hostel.  It was wonderful to be surrounded by such a diverse, eclectic, and eccentric group of people.  Though I did miss sleeping soundly.

There were a few nights at the hostel where the lack of sleep was compensated for by free entertainment.  One night in particular was memorable for its eventfulness and surrealism.  While I was staying there, a Russian who had been begrudgingly stranded here in America, had made the habit of going out to gamble and returning both heavily intoxicated and menacingly grouchy.  Even more than myself, he was angered by any disruptions to his sleep, and on this particular night he wasn’t going to tolerate much.  People would come and go at all hours, and it wasn’t uncommon to not know who was staying in the room until it was time to settle in for the night, so when a drunk man wondered into the room in only his underwear, I was unsure of whether or not he was staying in our room.  When he paused in front of me and looked me in the eye, without recognizing me, it became more than clear to me that he had no idea he was in the wrong room.  Stunned speechless, I gestured to the door leading to the hallway, hoping that he would remain quiet and not disturb the other hostelers on his way out.  However, not only did he not comprehend that he was in the wrong, not only did he not comprehend my gesture to leave, he also failed to comprehend which room he was going into and what bed was his.  He walked into the room adjoining mine, sat down on Sean’s bed, and then proceeded to remove his underpants.  At this, Sean woke up realizing that someone was on his bed, and in a panic uttered out “What the – ?!” in his thick Irish accent, before the drunken intruder could respond, “Oh, oh shit. Wrong room,” and then drunkenly stumble out into the hall with his underwear suspended at his knees and his chubby buttocks fully exposed.  Somewhere between being shocked, horrified, and greatly amused, Sean rushed into my room and burst out, “What was all that about?!”  Stifling laughter, I began to whisper to him that a drunk hosteler from down the hall had mistaken our room for his, to which Sean began to respond before being interrupted by the drunken Russian who hollered threateningly, “It’s one o’clock in the fuckin’ morning.  Don’t you know you are in a fuckin’ hostel.  Other people are trying to sleep!”
Sean, understandably upset, attempted to explain, “Aye, mate, but some bloody fool just came in here naked…”
“I don’t give a fuck! Haven’t you ever stayed in a hostel before. This is unacceptable.  If this was Russian army, I’d have you both beaten,” the Russian responded.
At this, Sean almost reacted out of outrage, but I managed to calm him down, and he went back to bed making sure to lock the door to the room and leave the light on.  Just to be on the safe side.

The fire escape on the back of the hostel overlooking the alley, the parking lot, and the police station. Photo taken September 6, 2013.

When another hosteler, Tim, a fellow American traveller, came home a few hours later, I met him out on the fire escape that overlooks the back alley and parking lot, where I explained the events of the night so he would be forewarned of flaring tempers and comical behavior.  As he was explaining his own bizarre nightly encounter, who but the naked drunken man from down the hall should wander out into the hall.  Seeing us outside, and realizing he was more than a little under dressed, the drunk man stumbled back into his room (or at least I assume that this was his room, though it’s distinctly possible he had made the same mistake twice, and wandered into someone else’s room again), and returned wrapped in a blanket.  He bummed a cigarette and then fell asleep on the fire escape with it dangling in his mouth.  Tim and I spent the rest of the night going over the details of the whole thing and laughing until the wee hours of the morning.  Neither of us were going to forget this.

An extra large vegan Greek pizza with roasted tomatoes, red onions, jalapenos, kalamata olives, and parsley. Absolutely delicious!

Without even being too aware of it, my birthday had reared its ugly head again, and I would soon turn twenty-eight, though in all truth I have always felt much older than my biological age.  Financially destitute, alone in a new place, and on my way to malnourishment, I was, unsurprisingly not in the best of spirits the week of my birthday.  It didn’t bother me in the least being so far from family or friends, as outside of my mother my family never really acknowledged my birthday, and I hadn’t had birthday parties with friends since I was about eight or so.  My birthday would be a small affair.  But a welcome surprise came when my best friend, all too aware that I had no one to celebrate it with and was without food and money, ordered me an extra large, by which I mean gigantic, vegan pizza from socially conscious and environmentally friendly pizza chain, Pizza Fusion.  The pizza was delicious as evidenced by the rare appearance of the wide grin on my face in the below photo.

A photo of me enjoying a delicious vegan pizza from Pizza Fusion. The pizza was an early birthday gift from my best friend and fellow Coloradan. Photo taken September 12, 2013.

Despite this joyful and much appreciated reprieve, life was about to take a turn, and I would find myself in even more dire circumstances.  Homelessness was on the horizon.

To be continued…

The Denver Diaries: Chapter 1

The Denver Diaries: Chapter 1 – August through September 2013

It was early 2013, and I had moved to a rural town in Michigan to live with a friend of mine, Gail Potocki, an immensely talented contemporary symbolist painter.  I lived with Gail at her farmhouse for only two months, during which I saw her create two masterpieces for her current painting series, an elegant modern reinterpretation of the absurdist archetypal figures in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  Ultimately, it was decided that I would have to move back to Maine, the state from which I came and where I was born and raised, due to the fact that I had been having severe migraines which impacted my ability to work there at Gail’s farmhouse, which needed to be rigorously maintained and renovated.

The sun sets behind Gail’s art studio in Michigan. Photo taken from the porch of her house on April 4, 2013.

Just as my train trip there had been long, my ride back was even longer, and I was exhausted by the time I’d arrived back in my tiny hometown of Wilton, Maine, though it had long ceased to feel remotely anything like a home.  Perhaps I longed to see new places and to meet new people, to embark on an adventure and to immerse myself in other cultures.  I had grown weary of small rural towns and the lack of diversity.  I felt as much like an anachronism as anyone could, what with my general distrust of technology being used for convenience, my feeling of displacement within my own generation, and the desire to break away from the conservative, consumerist societal structure which I had been raised in.

While in Maine, I returned to my former part-time job working at the local library in the neighboring town of Jay, where I had become comfortable and made lifelong friends with my coworkers and the patrons.  It was only through the generosity of my boss and friend, Tammy, that I was able to get my job back.  My goal was simple.  I’d save up money over the next three months and look for full-time work, but if I could not find suitable work, then I would take my savings and move out of Maine for good.  This is how I’ve always been:  it would take me a long time to deliberate upon a decision of magnitude, but once my mind was made up, I took swift action.  This “swift action” was often perceived by those around me as impulsive, though in actuality this is because I’ve never been good at retaining the courage of my convictions once I’ve shared them with others.  Prone to anxiety and always hypercritical of myself, confiding my plans in life to others has always resulted in my concern that if those plans fall through then I will look all the more ridiculous as a failure (why this should bother me, when I am either oblivious or insouciant to what others perceive of me in any matter except this, I cannot say).

The Jay-Niles Memorial Library, where I worked from April of 2008 through July 2013.

Moving to Michigan was essentially a contingency plan to begin with.  Moving back to Maine was yet another contingency plan.  I knew that for economic, political, social, and health reasons, I would never be content to the confines of the small community I was raised, so staying there any longer was not an option.  I needed a more expansive environment, and I needed to push myself, so taking the advice of my doctor to move to a warmer, dryer climate, I decided to move to Arizona where I would spend the Winter in the desert before joining an ecological commune north of Phoenix.  The vast expanse of the red-sanded desert had a certain poetic appeal to me… and it was cheaper and more realistic than trying to move to India or North Africa.  I had debated with myself whether or not I would take a train directly to Arizona or whether I would first go to Colorado, stopping in Denver, and then backpacking my way from Denver southwest over the Rocky Mountains and from there to Arizona.

The welcoming view of a gorgeous sunset upon my arrival in Denver. Photo taken near the train station on August 22, 2013.

I arrived in Denver on August 22, 2013.  Upon seeing the city, I was immediately struck by its diversity, ethnic, cultural, economic, political, and aesthetic, as well as by its beauty.  I had a few of friends in different parts of Colorado, and they had always spoken of just what a beautiful state it is, and I found their descriptions to be, by no fault of their own, grossly understated.  It’s difficult to describe, especially to one who has lived either in a rural area surrounded by nature or in an urban area surrounded by skyscrapers and industrial buildings.  Denver is a peculiarity in that it has components of both.  It is a city surrounded by nature.  I fell in love with it instantly and more so with each day I would spend here, until finally I realized that I could not leave so soon.  That said, there were other factors which had an effect on my decision, and I shall get to those later.

The hostel where I stayed for many a night and met a variable rogues gallery of interesting characters.

My first night in Denver, I was well aware that I’d need to find a place to sleep for the night, as I was quite tired from a fifty-plus hour trip by train.  With the intention of living in the rough out in the desert, the prospect of sleeping on the streets wasn’t something I was at all opposed to, but I was too tired to find somewhere safe to seek temporary shelter and sleep.  Fortunately, thanks to Tammy’s suggestion, I was able to find a hostel where travelers could stay for a reasonable price of twenty dollars a night.  I would stay there my first three nights while I explored the city.  Having never stayed in a hostel or even a motel, I had little idea of what to expect.  The accommodations were rundown and crowded  ̶  five bunk beds per room and as many as ten men sharing a room  ̶  though at the price I paid, I had no complaints and was grateful for a place to take a shower and catch up on much needed rest.  The other men in the room were quite nice, although of these, I only got to know one of them staying there.  I made the mistake of taking the bottom bunk in the corner, which I came to realize was a mistake when a Chinese man whose name I never learnt jumped from the floor onto the top bunk causing the box-spring mattress to partially collapse on my head.  He leaned over the side of the bunk looking at me up-side down, the two of us both stunned, and he rather embarrassed, when he said, “So sorry.  That must ouch. You okay?”
The whole room burst into laughter at this point.  The rest of my stay there those first three nights was uneventful.

View of the Aurora Library taken on the day that my camera was lost.

On my fourth night I took the bus to Aurora to visit a friend and stayed there to see a movie and spend the night.  Unfortunately, I lost my prize camera as I transferred from one bus to another at the bus station, which dampened my mood considerably since the camera was in its pouch that happened to contain not only my camera, but also my camera’s memory cards with thousands of photos taken over two years, rechargeable batteries, and the camera accessories.  When I returned to Denver, I immediately began making calls to the bus line to see if I could locate my camera in a lost and found.  I would spend the next week checking pawn shops, shady street vendors selling stolen items, and calling the bus line trying to reclaim my camera.  Eventually, over a week later, I would be rewarded for my persistence and reminded that there were still indeed honest and caring people out there when I found a post on Craigslist in the lost and found category that someone had found my camera at the bus station.  Two days later, on September 5, I was able to retrieve my camera and thank the kind woman who had returned it to me.  You frequently hear stories about such things happening, but it is rare to see that kind of honesty and altruism still alive in people, so I was deeply touched.

This photo of myself was taken on September 5, 2013, on the day that my camera was safely returned to me thanks to the kindness of a stranger.

My fifth night in Denver was, to say the least, memorable.  I had spent the day retracing my steps from the day before, taking the bus out to Aurora and back again looking for my camera, and then I went to the Denver Public Library to access the free Wi-Fi.  Realizing that between food, staying at the hostel, bus fare, food costs, and seeing a movie at the theatre with my friend in Aurora, that my expenses were accumulating faster than I’d expected, I decided I would try my luck at a shelter.  To my dismay, by the time I found the shelter, the line was long and it had begun to rain.  By the time they opened the doors and started letting the indigents in, I had become frustrated and decided that I would just sleep on the streets wherever I could find someplace dry.  This was risky, as I well knew, merely because of the amount of gear I had on me (my new camping backpack, a good majority of my best clothes, my hiking boots, laptop, and a wallet full of cash).  Fortunately, there were no attempts by anyone to steal my belongings, however, I did meet a variety of colorful characters from three prostitutes, one of whom propositioned me, to a meth addict who squatted down ten feet from me, fully exposed herself and urinated in plain view, to a college student who was doped up on coke and tried to give me life advice. 

“I mean not to be rude,” he began.  “But like, how did you get here?” he asked.  “I mean, like here on the streets, ya know?  I know I’m messed up right now.  I am totally fucked up, man.  But I got a head on my shoulders and I see you, man.  I see you.  You just can’t let life get to you; you can’t let it get you down.  I’m probably ranting. Sorry.  But you know,” he continued.  I interjected at this point to tell him I had fortuitously not returned to the hostel before they closed their doors for the night and didn’t have the patience to stay at the shelter, but he seemed either unable to process this information due to the effects of the cocaine, or he just was in the mood to give nonsensical philosophical lecturing.  Either way, he went on, saying, “Did ya see the last Batman movie, man?  Remember what Michael Caine said?”
At this, I was avoiding eye contact and pretending not to listen.  Passersby had begun to take notice of him, and of me, and I was feeling the tinges of embarrassment.  Not embarrassment for me, though I was basically homeless, but rather embarrassment for this wannabe philosopher, this formally educated college student too drugged out of his mind to express much coherently or intelligently.  Yet he persisted in his cocaine-induced folly.
“’Why do we fall, man?  Why do we fall?  We fall so that we can learn to pick ourselves back the fuck up!’” he enthusiastically exclaimed, paraphrasing Batman Begins with a confident grin on his face.  “You may think I’m out of my head, but deep down you know I’m right.  You wanna come back to my place?  I’ve got an ounce of coke in my pocket.”
My ribs were hurting with the suppressed laughter at this point.  After politely declining his request, he walked off, and I finally caught some sleep despite the sounds of the ongoing traffic.

The following morning I went straight to the hostel and paid for the next full week in advance.  It wasn’t that I hadn’t been endlessly amused by the previous night’s bizarre happenings, or that I hadn’t even been somewhat exhilarated sleeping on the sidewalk on one of the busiest streets in Denver, but I rather liked the idea of actually sleeping peacefully.  As it turned out, peaceful sleep was harder to come by than I anticipated, regardless of where I was.

My top bunk at the hostel – not exactly cozy accommodations, but still better than the street.

To be continued…

Clinging to Life: An Examination of Gail Potocki’s “The Raft of the Medusa”

Originally written and published for Century Guild’s blog on October 18, 2012.

Amongst humans there is an inherent fascination with the sea and with the water from which we once sprang.  Over the years we have come to understand not only the life-giving and life-sustaining necessity of our oceans, but also the primal beauty of them.  Because of water’s inconstancy and ability to adapt to its environment, it has been used as a representation of the human emotional condition, but also as a symbol for the vast cosmos with its many changes and unknowns.  We have imbued water with symbolic importance, as we have observed the connection between the tides and the cycle of the moon, and how those cycles reflect the very changes of human and animal life on Earth.  We have created myths and fables: of seductive water nymphs and sirens who lure sailors to their dooms; of indomitable gods and goddesses who were borne of and ruled over the seas; of heroes whose mightiest weapons were plucked from mystic waters; and of babies sent in rafts either to meet their demise or to seek sanctuary by divine providence in new lands.

The image of the shipwreck has permeated all cultures as a cautionary metaphor for what happens when we drive ourselves too far, ignorant of the many consequences, or when we allow ourselves to be seduced by convenience and comfort rather than rationality.  Where once the shipwreck was a symbol of human failure or death, today, with the advances of technology allowing for mass transportation of passengers and cargo, the shipwreck is frequently a disaster not only for those immediately affected.  It is also a disaster for the environment and for the thousands of different forms of aquatic life that must survive, or do not survive as so often is the case, through the aftermath.  So, it should come as no surprise that there must be a cautious equilibrium between ourselves and the oceans lest we wish to face catastrophe.

“The Raft of the Medusa” by Gail Potocki (2012, Oil on linen, custom frame). Taking her title from Théodore Géricault’s 19th Century painting of the same name, Gail Potocki has created another masterpiece of environmental symbolism. This particular painting is both a lament for the destruction of nature in the past and warning of the inevitable effects should such destruction continue unchecked.

The idea that a man-made tragedy can now take a great toll on non-human life as well and wreak havoc upon the environment and ecosystems is the predominant theme in Gail Potocki‘s 2012 painting, “The Raft of the Medusa“.  The painting is a stark work of environmental symbolism that summons up an unforgettable image of a catastrophic shipwreck, which leaves in its wake a fire and plumes of smoke, a slick of oil on the ocean, and various birds and animals desperately clinging onto a woman, who represents all of humankind, for survival.  While the proverbial rats leave the sinking ship and turn the woman’s collar into a makeshift raft, birds doused in thick oil panic and struggle to survive as they flail their wings trying to free themselves from the crude.  The woman, who is garbed in an opulent dress and seemingly oblivious to the destruction and turmoil around her, discards a partially eaten apple with insouciance.  Upon that apple is a sticker with a bar code, a further reminder of humanity’s attempt to control and capitalize upon nature at nature’s expense.  In Gail’s own words, “I’ve often used the apple as a symbol of the Earth.”

Detail from “The Raft of the Medusa” by Gail Potocki (2012, Oil on linen). The woman’s hand lets go of the apple from which she has bitten into, letting it fall into the sea. The apple, which represents the Earth or the environment, has been used as a resource, a mere commodity, harnessed by humankind to suit their purposes and then unlovingly discarded. Meanwhile, the oil-soaked birds flail in distress around the woman.

 

Detail from Gail Potocki’s “The Raft of the Medusa” (2012, Oil on linen). Here, we can see the rats as they become dependent upon the woman, clinging to her collar for survival from the wreck which her species was responsible for. Standing on the back of her collar is a Vacanti mouse. The Vacanti mouse or “earmouse” as it has commonly been referred, was a SCID mouse (severe combined immunodeficiency), which are frequently used for research in biology. The Vacanti mouse had bovine cartilage grown under its skin, which then developed into the shape of an ear. Experimentation on rats and other rodents is yet another example of how humans have benefited from nature and from creatures for our own gain.

The title of Gail’s painting is an appropriation of and homage to Théodore Géricault‘s 1819 painting “Le Radeau de la Méduse“, which was one of his best known works and is a cornerstone of 19th Century French Romantic movement in art.  Géricault’s painting was an ambitious work by which the French artist hoped to secure his place among the great Romantic painters of his day.  Inspired by the 1816 wreck of the naval frigate, the Méduse, off the coast of what is now modern-day Mauritania.  This wreck was attributed primarily to the inexperience and incompetence of its captain, the Viscount Hugues Duroy de Chaumereys.  The ship was poorly navigated and had drifted a hundred miles off of its charted course, which lead to it running aground on a sandbank in West Africa.  The ship carried over 400 people, of which 160 were crew members, but the capacity of the life boats was only 250 people.  Those who could not be afforded room in the lifeboats built a makeshift raft, which was intended to be towed by the lifeboats, but the 147 people upon the raft was too great a number and almost immediately the raft began to take on water, so the raft was cut loose and the people on it left to their own devices.  Within the first day, they had eaten the only food they had and their drinking water was lost amidst an on-board scuffle.  The survivors were driven mad by exposure to the elements and starvation.  Weak, malnourished, and mutinous, they began to turn on each other, eventually resorting to murder and cannibalism.  By the time a rescue crew attempted to save those on the raft, only fifteen of the 147 people were still alive.  The rest had perished by starvation, by sickness, by being consumed as food, or by being thrown into the sea and some of those did so of their own volition.  The resulting press surrounding the tragedy became a scandal and an embarrassment for the French monarchy.

“Le Radeau de la Méduse” by Théodore Géricault (Oil on canvas, 1819). In selecting the subject matter for what he hoped would be the painting that brought him acclaim, Géricault chose to depict the harrowing moment in which the fifteen survivors of 147 upon the raft see in the distance an approaching vessel sent to rescue them. Géricault had thought that he could rise to prominence by featuring the wreck of the Méduse and its survivors as his theme, however, the painting became controversial during its 1819 unveiling at the Paris Salon in part due to its aesthetic departure from the serenity of the Neo-Classical, but also due to the sensitive subject matter and the heightened emotional response it elicited.

Gail Potocki‘s painting echoes some of the same themes as Géricault’s, such as the struggle to survive in the wake of disaster and the incompetence and arrogance of mankind.  While Géricault’s painting was inspired by the wreck of the Méduse, Gail took her inspiration from more recent disasters such as the Exxon Valdez in 1989.  The analogy is there and basically the same, but the great difference is that over the years we have better developed our ability to save human lives through safety precautions and rescue efforts, however, so often lessening the devastation wrought upon nature and wildlife isn’t made a priority until it’s too late.

An oil-soaked bird from the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989.

 

A detail from “The Raft of the Medusa” by Gail Potocki (2012, Oil on linen). All too true to life, Gail’s meticulously detailed and emotionally wrought depiction of the birds covered in oil is representative of the thousands of birds who have been affected by oil spills and similar man-made calamities. Through her art, we are allowed to experience their anguish, to empathize with them, and to accept that there must be change.

Eventually we must ask ourselves:  What happens when we overestimate our own abilities and underestimate nature?  Any conflict which arises from such a circumstance almost invariably sees a drastic loss in life, though not always human, and yet there are often consequences of horrendous proportions which some of us choose to see while others do not.  We have a responsibility to ensure that the planet we depend on, and that all systems of life depends on, is taken seriously and respected.  Nature is not to be trifled with.  This theme, this reverential treatment of nature has oft been expressed in poetry and the arts, as has the warning for humankind not to let their ambitions outreach their grasp.  Gail’s environmental paintings are a bold, always beautiful yet often unsettling, and essential reminder that we are a part of nature, that our actions do carry with them an effect (be it for good or bad), so there must be an attempt to protect the natural world around us or accept that its demise will also be our own.

Century Guild

Amongst humans there is an inherent fascination with the sea and with the water from which we once sprang.  Over the years we have come to understand not only the life-giving and life-sustaining necessity of our oceans, but also the primal beauty of them.  Because of water’s inconstancy and ability to adapt to its environment, it has been used as a representation of the human emotional condition, but also as a symbol for the vast cosmos with its many changes and unknowns.  We have imbued water with symbolic importance, as we have observed the connection between the tides and the cycle of the moon, and how those cycles reflect the very changes of human and animal life on Earth.  We have created myths and fables: of seductive water nymphs and sirens who lure sailors to their dooms; of indomitable gods and goddesses who were borne of and ruled over the…

View original post 1,460 more words

Censorship: A Necessary Evil or a Weapon Against Dissent? Part III

Controversial Masterpieces: Censorship Of Classical Art From The Renaissance Through The 19th Century
Whether the church’s chiseling the genitalia off of ancient statues or painting over blasphemous elements in a mural, art has been a contested territory, and there has been a long history of suppressing art that challenged the social mores of its day or expressed ideas deemed as obscene or heretical.  Perhaps because art existed before the written word, before most other physical mediums of expression, it could be argued that art was the first form of communication outside of verbal speech to be censored.  In the world of art, censorship often takes on three forms, either a work of art is expurgated (altered to exclude content that may offend), removed from public view, or destroyed altogether. The latter is rare since most cultures around the world hold art in high esteem and don’t wish to see its destruction regardless of its perceived objectionable qualities.  Expurgation or obscurement has been more common.

Censorship: A Necessary Evil or a Weapon Against Dissent? Part I

Introduction
Even in its most benign form, the practice of censorship is an undeniable violation of a human being’s inherent right to express his or herself, and any policy which allows for censorship is detrimental to the foundation of a progressive society.  Generally, censorship has been utilized by organizations (be they political, religious, commercial, or social in origin) as a way to suppress unpopular ideas, opinions, or viewpoints, particularly if they suggest a dissenting perspective.  While many people may associate censorship with foreign dictatorships or the corporate media, the issue is far more expansive and pervasive.  Indeed, censorship has prevented the exchange of information for many, many centuries and its history is arguably as old as our own.

At its core, censorship is a way to restrict people from self-expression and limit their exposure to ideas.  By controlling the public’s awareness of and access to certain information outlets that may be deemed controversial or subversive, authoritarian powers are able to place a stranglehold on the collective perception of a community.  Often the application of censorship is accompanied by the use of propaganda, disinformation, or materials with which opinions can be swayed in favor of one party or against another.  While these techniques are nothing new, the methods of enforcing them have greatly evolved over the centuries as technological advancement has occurred.

In today’s world, censorship is so common (as is the use of propaganda and disinformation) that the average citizen of most highly populated countries is likely to be affected by it in some manner on an almost daily basis.  As such, paranoia regarding the media has also become common.  While questioning the validity and integrity of information and its source is necessary in the world’s modern sociopolitical arena, mistaking editorialization with censorship has become an increasingly frequent problem that tends to exacerbate hostilities between people of opposing viewpoints.  To prevent unnecessary debate and conflict, it is then necessary to create crystalline definitions that lay down the extent to which free speech can be limited, altered, or discouraged altogether.  Below are definitions of censorship, editorialization, propaganda, and disinformation taken from the dictionary.

censorship
cen•sor•ship (sen´sər ship) n.
1. the act of censoring
2. the work of or position of a censor
3. the examination and prohibition of materials deemed to be objectionable

editorialization
ed•i•to•ri•al•ize (ed´ə tô ré əl ĭzā´shən) n.
1. to express editorial opinions on a given topic
2. to place editorial information into a written article
3. to present what is considered by an editor to be relevant content while omitting any content considered irrelevant or inappropriate

propaganda
prop•a•gan•da (präp é gan´da) n.
1. any system of which is used to promote or disseminate certain ideas, doctrines, practices, or people
2. any material used for the sole purpose of proselytizing an individual and/or group of individuals in a concerted effort of converting them to a specific viewpoint or to adopt a particular set of beliefs

disinformation
dis•in•for•ma•tion (dis in´fər mā´shən) n.
erroneous or inaccurate information intentionally and often covertly spread in an attempt to divert or distract people from the truth

What’s interesting about these definitions is how purposefully vague they are.  It’s clear that on a person-to-person basis, the way that censorship, editorialization, propaganda, and disinformation are perceived will vary from one person to the next, thus causing these words to be defined as much by our own perspectives as by their very nature.  Failing to establish a definitive, universal set of guidelines as to what constitutes these acts may at first appear unhelpful, but in their subtle ambiguity we can also find the very freedom that these acts negate.  To truly understand these concepts, one must look not to their definitions (as these metamorphose and evolve over time), but rather seek out their meanings through the history of their existence.  In the following essay, I shall attempt to illuminate said history and provide readers with the information needed to form their own philosophical stance on the matter.

A Sensual Fantasia from the Mind of Dave McKean: A Review of “Celluloid”

Originally written and published for Century Guild’s blog on August 23, 2012.

When it comes to the subject of erotica in art and literature, I consider myself to be a person of discerning tastes.  Outside of John Cleland’s Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, the writings of Donatien Alphonse François, le Marquis de Sade, and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, I have found most explicitly erotic literature to be banal and mechanical.  So often, it merely serves a primal function,  but rarely offers up anything more than titillation or sexual catharsis.

When it comes to art, a great example of this would be the erotic illustrations of Édouard-Henri Avril, one of the premiere pornographic artists of the late 19th Century, and an artist whose work I admire very much.  However, while Avril’s work is splendid in its timeless appeal and subject matter, what it lacks, what it fails in, is that it’s fairly unimaginative and inexpressive.  The compositions are predictable and the use of color is minimal and overly restrained.  Though his illustrations succeed in providing an iconic visual counterpart to the erotic literature it accompanies, it rarely ever offers provocation of the mind or evocation of the emotions.  In other words, it is simply visual eye candy displaying a wide range of physical experiences without the enrichment of genuine expression.

Yet there is another kind of erotic art that manages to do so much more than this.

Artists such as Gustave Courbet, Félicien Rops, Gustav Klimt, and Egon Schiele found their own unique way to convey erotic themes and ideas through artwork, and their works, while varying in style and predilection, all display a level of personality and expression that was unsurpassed during their lifetimes.  This was art, not for the sake of arousal, but art for the sake of art and with the power to elicit feelings of passion, desire, loneliness, and introspection.

With the commercial rise of erotica in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, there has been an ever outward-growing spiral of mediums to accommodate those in desire of exploring their carnality and sensuality vicariously through the creations of others.  Today, we have artwork, literature, music, cinema, and countless other media with which to express ourselves, so unsurprisingly human desire has spilt over into all of these areas, although in some areas more than others.

One art form that has been proliferating in the public eye since the late 1930s is comic books and graphic literature.  Strangely, with the exception of lasciviously humorous cartoons and buxom heroines in tight-fitting costumes (or no costumes at all, in some cases), the medium hasn’t explored sensuality as in-depth as other narrative mediums.  Outside of Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s Lost Girls, it is difficult to think of one well-known work of erotic graphic literature… until recently.

Last year saw the publication of an exceptional work:  Dave McKean‘s text-less graphic novel, Celluloid.

The cover of “Celluloid”, an erotic graphic novel by Dave McKean.

Celluloid, which was published in 2011 by Delcourt in Europe and by Fantagraphics Books in the United States, is perhaps a different kind of erotica than what people have come to expect.  Firstly, it is a graphic novel, and unlike so many graphic novels, it does not revolve around superheroes, monsters, or crime.  It’s a work of fantasy and like most works of fantasy, it is about a journey, but this book is about a journey inward into the sensuality of the human mind and into the mysteries of human desire.  It is “fantasy” in the purest sense of the word.

The unnamed woman arrives at her lover’s Paris apartment, where unbeknownst to her, she will soon begin a journey into a surreal world of uninhibited passion and pleasure. The beginning of the story opens with Dave McKean’s wonderful line drawings with their sharp angles and muted tones.

There seems to be a frequent attitude in the Western World that sexuality is still a taboo, or if not a taboo, something that is acceptable only as the subject of jokes or commercial exploitation, but not socially acceptable within the realm of a serious dialogue or as a form of expression in the arts.  Meanwhile, violence is continually paraded as entertainment.  This has been true in almost all media, but even more-so in comics.

A mysterious couple kissing in the lamp-lit city streets of the strangely voluptuous new world. And as the story progresses, the blandness of reality becomes drenched with the decadence of lush colors and rich textures.

Dave McKean acknowledges this in saying,  “There are so many comics about violence.  I’m not entertained or amused by violence, and I’d rather not have it in my life.  Sex, on the other hand, is something the vast majority of us enjoy, yet it rarely seems to be the subject of comics.”

The woman finds another film projector in the city and starts the reel. The use of light and texture here is very evocative and lends a sense of mystery to the film projectors, and begs the question, are they guiding her on her journey of self-discovery and pleasure or are they leading her down a dark path of temptation and vice?

Elaborating on his feelings about the majority of pornography, McKean states, “It’s rather awful visually and aesthetically, and it’s repetitive, and it’s rather dull, and it’s rather utilitarian.  It ticks a box, but it really doesn’t do much else.  So, I’m trying to do a book, and it would be nice to do a book, that would tickle the mind and the imagination, as well as other parts of the body.”

The hands emerge from the screen and reach out yearningly for the woman who waits in breathless anticipation for their touch. The multi-media aspect of the book is creative and inspiring as Dave uses all of his talents as line illustrator, painter, photographer, sculptor, and collage artist.

Taking the problems of erotic art into mind, McKean then set out to create an erotic comic that would defy convention and aspire to be more.  And he has certainly excelled in this pursuit, for Celluloid is quite unlike any graphic novel seen in the mainstream publishing world.  In part, this is due to the unapologetic sexual nature of the work, but more-so to do with the fact that McKean has chosen to not use literal narration or dialogue to tell his story.  Perhaps this is because he found most of the dialogue in works of erotica to be redundant or perhaps he went this route as a reflection of his own love of silent cinema.

Celluloid is certainly deeply rooted within the world of films, of visual expression, and the act of watching.  Whatever the reason, the book greatly benefits from the lack of text.  Indeed, that’s part of what makes it so special.  The story takes on an ambiguity and poetic quality, much like in a silent film, that allows for those reading (or viewing) the book to interpret it in different ways.  It also makes the book wonderful to re-examine again and again, as each time one will notice that their mood or perspective alters their perception of the work, and in so doing deepens their appreciation of the artwork and story.

The woman watches as the carnal hands retract back into the screen from which they originated. The different styles of art allow the characters to take on a new level of expression and range of emotion. This particular image is one of my personal favorites.

The story tells the tale of a woman who becomes sexually frustrated when her partner isn’t able to come join her at his Paris apartment and make love to her because he’s busy with work.  So she resorts to taking a sensuous bath and then pleasuring herself on the sofa.  However she finds herself drawn to a film projector in the apartment and an overpowering curiosity takes hold of her.  As the images project onto the wall she realizes that the film is of an erotic nature, but before she can absorb the details of the film, the reel burns out.

Now, mysteriously in the place of the projection on the wall is a set of ornate doors leading into another world.  She walks through them and finds herself in a strange, somewhat eerie, and very sexual new world where couples are making love in public view. At first shocked, then in turn amused and titillated, the woman wanders through the city streets and comes across another film projector.  There are many projectors in this strangely sensual world and with each viewing of the film she is transported through a portal to another locale where she makes love to a startling vivid and intriguingly bizarre character.

During these surreal sexual encounters, she is given a passionate massage by a plethora of hands, she makes love to a nature goddess with fourteen breasts and grapes and grapevines for hair, is seduced by a very well endowed devil whom she satiates orally, and then finally arrives at the final stage of her journey where she has a passionate tryst with benevolent shadowy figure who emerges from a vulva-like structure in the ceiling.

Meanwhile the woman’s lover back in the “real world” comes home to their apartment and discovers the film projector and plays the reel of film… at which point it is revealed that his lover is the very woman in the film.  Their eyes lock and the question remains: is this reality or is this a dream?  And if so, whose dream is it, his or hers?

The woman and the nature goddess kiss. Again, the use of photography ingeniously juxtaposed with painting and drawings gives the imagery dimension and a tangible, sensuous quality that otherwise could not have been achieved.

After her dark romance with a devil, the woman runs through a room of orgiastic goings on and finds herself before a door bearing a mask over it. The use of masks in Dave’s art, stories, and films has often been commented on and discussed. What he does with the mask is unusual, because masks as a rule are an artifice which hides the true face beneath it, but Dave takes the mask and finds a way to conjure up a greater sense of the personality behind despite the concealment of facial features.

Artistically, McKean is in his element transitioning seductively from one style to another for each segment of his story.  At times, the art has echoes of Klimt and Schiele, at times it is reminiscent of  Odilon Redon, Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, or Wiktor Sadowski, and yet it remains unique unto McKean’s own evolving style.  His aesthetic here is the culmination of his influences, but also uniquely his own.  One can see traces of his archetypal figures from the tarot decks he’s created (the lovers, the goddess, the devil, the shadow, etc.).

The woman is lost in a moment of pleasure. In this beautiful image, one can see Dave’s love of collage and photography, as the woman is lost in a world that may or may not be real and may or may not be of her imagination.

Each sequence of the story has its own texture, its own color palette, its own medium.  Through monochromatic and expressionistic line drawings done in sepia tones, the world of reality is given a somewhat stark and perhaps even unflattering depiction, but within the realm of fantasy, things take on new shapes and colors as McKean incorporates sumptuous paintings, delicate collage imagery, and alluring photography, all the while breathing life and beauty into a surreal world of voluptuous fantasies.  Because of this, the book’s episodic nature is all the more peculiar, as each of the protagonist’s lustful encounters takes on a unique aesthetic and sexual component, which not only speaks volumes of McKean’s own interests, but also allows for each individual reader to have a particular episode that they can relate to on a deeper level.

Startled by the absence of his lover, the man ponders the film projector in his apartment. Returning to so-called reality and the elegantly produced line drawings with their sepia tones.

Two bodies, two minds, two worlds coming together in a climactic moment of rapturous exhilaration. Perhaps the most overtly sexual portion of the book is the photographic finale, where reality and fantasy meet. What is interesting is that Dave avoids the excesses of photographic erotic, showing us just what we need to rouse our intellects and emotions, but never going so far as to be gratuitous. Life is balance, and even with its surrealist and expressionist extremes, “Celluloid” offers an element of balance which will keep people returning to its pages again and again.

In the final examination, Celluloid is a stunning and rather elaborate enigma – a prismatic puzzle of the mind through which we can view the complexity and beauty of the full spectrum of human sensuality.  As a graphic novel, it marks a shift in the paradigm and allows the medium to move forward in its maturity and encourages writers and artists in the industry to explore new ground.  As a series of artworks, it is a captivating glimpse into McKean’s interests and his potential for continual growth and experimentation.  As a work of erotica or pornography, it elevates its subject matter beyond the pits of commercial smut and exploitation, allowing its unabashed sexuality to be viewed as a celebration of mutual gratification between the mind and the body, between the genders, between solitary images and the sequential narrative.  Celluloid is a sensual fantasia, a journey into a wonderland of physical ecstasy, and an opulent reverie to be shared.

Century Guild

When it comes to the subject of erotica in art and literature, I consider myself to be a person of discerning tastes.  Outside of John Cleland’s Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, the writings of Donatien Alphonse François, le Marquis de Sade, and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, I have found most explicitly erotic literature to be banal and mechanical.  So often, it merely serves a primal function,  but rarely offers up anything more than titillation or sexual catharsis.

When it comes to art, a great example of this would be the erotic illustrations of  Édouard-Henri Avril, one of the premiere pornographic artists of the late 19th Century, and an artist whose work I admire very much.  However, while Avril’s work is splendid in its timeless appeal and subject matter, what it lacks, what it fails in, is that it’s fairly unimaginative and unexpressive. …

View original post 2,146 more words

Welcome to the Freakshow!

Originally written and published for Century Guild’s blog on March 2, 2012.

One of the original posters from the controversial cult classic film, “Freaks”, released in 1932 and directed by Tod Browning.

Deep down, I think we all have an attraction to the strange and unusual.  Some people don’t want to admit it and others will just as soon look away in disgust or horror, but in actuality, for a number of reasons, those that we regard as different or as strange and unusual hold a fascination for us.  Despite our best efforts, it’s still difficult not to stare awkwardly at those who live beyond the “norm” of society, those that don’t match our cultural and social expectations, or those who merely look different from us.  Often we resort to insulting terms such as “weirdos”, “creeps”, or “freaks” to describe these people whom we fail to understand.  But perhaps the greatest reason that we have this love/hate relationship with them is because they remind us of ourselves.

Perhaps there is no greater example within contemporary culture of our dualistic reaction to the social outsider than the 1932 Tod Browning horror-melodrama Freaks.  The film, which has become beloved by some and reviled by others, is considered one of the first true cult classics and even today it still manages to pack a punch.  The story is a deceptively simple tale about the companionship of a small group of sideshow performers and what happens when their inner circle is threatened by “normal” folk – the other great outsider.  One of the aspects of the film that created such an outrage and controversy when it was initially released was the fact that unlike almost any other film of its day, director Browning chose to use real life human anomalies to portray the characters of the story.

Today, this makes the film an interesting contradiction in that it is at once both an exploitation film and an empathetic look at the lives of those who are rejected by the mainstream culture.  However, ironically the film which served as a cautionary tale about judging one based upon appearances was almost unanimously panned by critics who had no desire to see “living monstrosities projected on the screen”.  During later years as viewers re-examined this flawed masterpiece of vintage shock cinema, they were struck by the seeming contradiction of a film that exploits the subjects that it attempts to advocate.  In spite of this controversy and indeed partially because of it, the film has endured for 80 years now and is regarded as a classic of horror cinema.

Director Tod Browning and a few members of his beloved consortium of freaks. This promotional photo was taken on the set of the 1932 film, which would gain notoriety among filmmakers and critics, as well as shine a light (a somewhat unflattering one) on what goes on behind the scenes at the circus sideshow.

Yet the real stories of the sideshow freaks and the characters that populated the world of the carnevale spectacular are perhaps just as unbelievable and shocking as those of their fictional counterparts in Browning’s Freaks.  These “freaks” and others have been resurrected via the skilled hand of modern symbolist painter Gail Potocki in a series of paintings that must be seen to be believed.  So, if you dare read on, and you must, I shall share with you a glimpse into a world of grotesqueries, oddities, and anomalies that once scandalized the general public and left the faces of outsiders forever emblazoned in the minds of the world.

As one might imagine, I have always been a bit obsessed with the seedy underworld of the circus and sideshow spectacles.  I am not alone in this regard.  Many filmmakers, artists, musicians, and writers have used the world of vaudeville, cabarets, and carnivals to find inspiration.  Amongst these creative geniuses are Tod Browning, Terry Gilliam,  David Lynch, Tim Burton, Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, Amanda Palmer, and of course, Gail Potocki.  I was curious as to whether the allure that this kind of performance and lifestyle had for me was also the same as felt by Gail.  We discussed the matter at length and found certain similar themes, and emotional as well as social resonances, that seemed to be common.

Gail was a single child and grew up with her mother in Detroit.  Describing herself as introverted and creative, Gail felt a kinship to so-called outsiders as her love of nature and her strong independent streak seemed at odds with the industrial city and the relatively conservative values of many of the inhabitants there.  Developing a reputation amongst her family and peers as “the black sheep” or “the artsy one“, Gail had interests and enthusiasms which also set her apart from those around her.  “I always had a bit of a morbid curiosity about things and was attracted to the odd and unusual,” she says.

Her series of paintings created in 2009, aptly titled “Freaks”, is a serious and at times disarming look at the different individuals who in the past plied their trade in the world of circus sideshows.  Like all of her works, these paintings are created in her trademark Symbolist style and possess a powerful level of humanism and emotion.  However, they also stand out from the paintings she has created in the past as each of the subjects in these works has been deceased for quite some time.  Using photographs, poster illustrations, and film footage for research, Gail set out to capture the essence of each figure.  This was a particular challenge as most of the photographs are old, grainy, damaged, and naturally in black and white.  Every detail from skin tone to eye color had to feel authentic, so what the photographs failed to offer in detail had to be compensated for, thus Gail was given the unique opportunity to embellish upon or to imbue some of her own ideas into the paintings.  The result is an extraordinary example of how a masterful artist can evoke personality and intimate characteristics in their work.

“Pip” – Jenny Lee Snow (Gail Potocki, 2009). “Pip” is a perfect example of Gail’s ability to articulate a personality and emotions with imagery.

“I had to project my own feelings that I experienced while I look at them,” Gail said of the diverse group of characters. “Pip (Jenny Lee Snow) was a microcephalic with the IQ of an infant, but when I looked at her she had this proud and intelligent expression on her face.  I wanted to show her dressed in a romantic vintage costume that made her look regal and feminine.  I added some fraying to the fabric to symbolize her true fragility.“

Jenny Lee Snow (a.k.a. ‘Pip’) and Elvira Snow (a.k.a. ‘Flip’) in a photograph taken on the set of “Freaks” circa 1932. Sometimes billed as “The Snow Twins” or as “Zip and Pip”, Jenny Lee and Elvira Snow were siblings born with microcephaly, a neuro-developmental disorder characterized by a small skull and brain, especially the frontal lobe, and generally were mentally retarded though not always. The Snow sisters, who came from Georgia, were among the many “pinheads” (a derogatory term used for microcephalics) that performed in the circus.

“Flip” – Elvira Snow (Gail Potocki, 2009). Gail takes inspiration from “Whistler’s Mother” for this composition, but adds a subtle and delightfully anarchic touch in the background.

“Flip (Elvira Snow) had such an odd profile that I really wanted to capture.  I immediately thought of the painting Whistler did of his mother and used this as my inspiration.  Of course, I added the doll in her hand, the chalk scrawling on the wall, and the burning circus tent in the distance.  It was fun for me to create this possible scenario that she had caused some chaos back in the circus and was now contemplating the deed.“

James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s iconic 1871 painting “Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1”, commonly known as “Whistler’s Mother”, served as inspiration for the composition of the above painting.

In some of the other paintings in the series, Gail took artistic license with the roles of the performers in the circus and created poetic visual motifs acknowledging their unusual appearance or traits.
“Annie Jones, the bearded lady, was a bit of a pun.  She’s holding bearded irises and is surrounded by hairless cats.  ‘Jo-Jo‘ seemed so otherworldly yet classical in his ornate jacket.  I looked to Albrecht Dürer‘s self-portrait for this one and added the toy dog on wheels because there was a child-like look to ‘Jo-Jo’.  I also added the night sky with the ‘dog star’.“

“Annie Jones the Bearded Lady” (Gail Potocki, 2009). Here Gail creates a somewhat melancholic and somewhat playful portrait of a bearded lady.

“Jo-Jo, the Dog-Faced Boy” – Fedor Jeftichew (Gail Potocki, 2009). In this haunting painting, Gail conjures up feelings of lost innocence and nostalgia, almost giving Fedor Jeftichew the normal childhood he never had.

Fedor Jeftichew (a.k.a. Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy) had a rare condition known as hypertrichosis which he inherited from his father. Jeftichew toured with traveling circuses throughout France along with his father until his father’s death. At age sixteen he came to America where he became a prominent “freak” with P.T. Barnum’s show. There he was denigrated to sitting and barking as a dog would at Barnum’s request.

Albrecht Dürer’s famous 1500 self-portrait which Gail derived some inspiration from for her painting of ‘Jo-Jo’.

Surprisingly, Gail was one of the few children who, growing up, did not want to to run away and join the circus and she rarely went.  However, she did have vivid memories of going to the Michigan State Fairgrounds during the fair season and seeing sideshow attractions.  “When I was a kid, there were still freak shows with barkers enticing spectators to come inside for a view,” she recalls.  “Many of them were fakes, of course, but at that age it still made an impact.”

During the first thirty years of the twentieth century, especially in America, circuses and carnivals were very popular forms of escapist entertainment.  There have been attempts by numerous cultural critics and historians to identify exactly why these kinds of attractions and performances were so prolific during this period.  Interestingly, it is also during this same time that horror movies, especially in the twenties and thirties, began to rise to prominence as a distinct film genre.

One author and cultural historian, David J. Skal (who wrote the biography Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning), has suggested that at the time popular culture was fascinated with “the other” and the “outsider”.  In particular, he theorized that one of the reasons that so many people were morbidly obsessed with physical deformities and outsiders was due to the advances in medical science which allowed for many wounded and disfigured war veterans to survive, particularly those who saw the trench warfare of WWI.  So, in a way, the voyeuristic appeal to sideshows could be explained as a dualistic impulse triggered in part by guilt over being normal as well as a kind of perverse satisfaction in seeing the afflictions of others. Yet, the fascination goes much deeper than that.  Many of the films of director Tod Browning dealt with misanthropic antiheroes who suffered from some physical malady, often to be rivaled by an even greater psychological one, which prevented them from experiencing love on a physical level.  These films were often one-part romantic tragedy and two-parts revenge melodrama.  Perhaps, at its core, we crave this kind of entertainment because we identify with the feeling of being rejected.  Maybe we even wish to be “freaks”; to be simultaneously individuals and part of a community, to be unique and still accepted, to live in the comfort of routine and still possess spontaneity.  These are the things that circus sideshows provide.

There certainly was a complicated dichotomy since many of the performers in the circus couldn’t find work elsewhere in so-called respectable bourgeois society, yet almost by a cruel ironic twist, many members of that same respectable bourgeois society protested the circus sideshows because they felt that they were exploitative and grotesque.  Hence, the freaks really had nowhere else to go in terms of employment or finding acceptance.  For many, the circus was not only their home and their job, but also their shelter from the “normal world” that ostracized them.  What’s more, when looking at these performers, one can’t help but feel an affinity for them and to look beyond their superficial differences to see the true beauty within.  After all, what is normal?  What is beautiful?  I think Gail’s painting of the Siamese twins says it all.

“Daisy and Violet Hilton” (Gail Potocki, 2009). Born in 1908, Daisy and Violet Hilton grew up in show business. Their condition of being conjoined twins, connected at the hips, was capitalized upon and the twins were essentially purchased from their mother and went into the world of carnivals, sideshows, vaudeville, and films. They fought for and successfully won their legal independence and became stars. Perhaps the most publicized and well documented figures in Gail’s “Freaks” series, the Hilton sisters may seem to be less of an enigma at first. Upon closer inspection, they offer perhaps the greatest enigma of all: What separates me from you?

In the final view, Gail’s Freaks paintings are much like their subjects.  Individually, they are intriguing and full of complexity, beauty, and each has a story to tell.  Collectively, they form a spectacle that is unforgettable.

 

Century Guild

Deep down, I think we all have an attraction to the strange and unusual.  Some people don’t want to admit it and others will just as soon look away in disgust or horror, but in actuality, for a number of reasons, those that we regard as different or as strange and unusual hold a fascination for us.  Despite our best efforts, it’s still difficult not to stare awkwardly at those who live beyond the “norm” of society, those that don’t match our cultural and social expectations, or those who merely look different from us.  Often we resort to insulting terms such as “weirdos”, “creeps”, or “freaks” to describe these people whom we fail to understand.  But perhaps the greatest reason that we have this love/hate relationship with them is because they remind us of ourselves.

Perhaps there is no greater example within contemporary culture of our dualistic reaction to the…

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Ray Harryhausen’s Legacy: The Golden Age of Special Effects in Science Fiction & Fantasy Films

Originally posted on Lunch.com on August 1, 2011.

This list is dedicated to fellow sci-fi, fantasy, and classic special effects enthusiast Karen (QUEENBFLIX).  I hope this will give her her Harryhausen nostalgia fix.

Ray Harryhausen’s original concept art for the climactic battle in “Jason and the Argonauts”, which sees Jason and his fellow adventurers battling skeleton warriors.

When I think back on the history of special effects in films, there are a select number of people who immediately spring to mind for their resourcefulness, their innovation, their creativity, and their audacity to go beyond the boundaries of what has been done before without knowing whether their efforts will end in success or failure.  It requires a great deal of imagination and patience to create scenes of fantasy and spectacle that are realistic enough to enable viewers to suspend their disbelief while at the same time providing them with a uniquely heightened quality that reminds them of the wonders of the motion picture medium.  Of the many great special effects artists that have risen in prominence, it’s hard to imagine anyone as celebrated and inspiring as Ray Harryhausen.

It’s rare for a person who works behind the camera to receive the same kind of acclaim and kudos of those who are thrust into the spotlight.  Additionally, it’s not often that a special effects creator is even more revered than the directors, writers, and actors with whom he has collaborated.  Yet Ray Harryhausen has achieved this kind of fame through his technical wizardry and his generosity in giving moviegoers what they crave:  adventure.

Harryhausen and one of his most iconic and celebrated creations, the reanimated skeleton warrior.

With this list I hope to showcase Harryhausen’s extraordinary talent and his miraculous manipulation of models, puppets, and stop-motion animation to create vividly realized scenes of the fantastic.

Awareness, Perplexity, and Transcendence

Previously published on Blogger.com on March 30, 2011.

Is there nothing more intolerable than the intolerance of dogmatic ideologies, which fail to acknowledge ambiguity or the full spectrum of complexity within the human conscience, or the collective components of a fully functioning reality?  We have adopted an egotistic, insular view of sentient life that places us, humans, as the elite life form.  And then the masses wonder why there is such conflict and why we fail to progress.

Our dilemma rises not from the battle between dualistic thinking, but from the false belief that there are merely dualities to which we are aligned.  There is no black nor white, no liberal nor conservative, no rich nor poor reality.  If humanity was capable of transcending the ego and the need for self-gratification and self worth, then we would see that truth is a universal flow, and it is the emotional taint of the individualist and the conformist alike that is responsible for the cessation of our evolution, as our technologies grow in their conception while we regress on a spiritual and intellectual level.  The failure of the self comes not from its own imperfections, but from the ability to criticize the imperfections of others without constructive cause, to praise the self without constructive need, and from the inability to restrain all critical thought until real observation (not the temporary observation of the media-drunk society that we have established in our modern Babylon, but the serene observation that exists outside of the self) can occur.

We must think laterally to evolve, to move beyond our somnambulist and stagnant repose, to transcend the disharmonious state that we have resided in since we evolved from a single-celled organism into our current bio-molecular composition.  We are not separate as we think, nor are we identical as we fear, nor are we obsolete or significant as has been suggested.  We are not cogs within a machine, nor are we machines unto ourselves, but rather we are the encompassing aura that exists both outside and within the physical mechanics that we call reality.  We are solid, and fluid, an expansive nebulis of energy, constantly metamorphosing from one form to another — all the while falsely asserting to ourselves that we can be static, consistent, stubborn, and unwavering.

We cannot continue to labour under the misapprehension that we move in a linear progression, either vertically or horizontally, or that we move in endless circles until we reach our finale back where we began.  We exist in a universe where creation and destruction exist within a spiral pattern, wherein we move upward and outward from the point of our origin, as matter until we transition to our state as energy; a process which is eternal.

There is no straight line from beginning to end, because there is no beginning and there is no end.

Here is a poem I wrote on this subject after a long period of meditation.  My hope was to communicate the importance of adopting multiple perspectives and establishing a capacity to consciously accept that all life within the universe is symbiotic, connected, and yet simultaneously unique and individual.  Another element was my desire to express that by putting aside the singular perspective, which forms itself through experience and preconception, and by reaching for a higher understanding of psychology, one could become capable of a fully formed comprehension of the sentient minds of all races and species.

A Matter of Perception

I can choose to be
You or me
I can choose to see
The world from all perspectives
Adjusting my vision
To account for all possibilities
Seeing every combination
Working out the patterns
Dissecting preconceptions
Accepting universal truths
That the will and fate are connected
And consciousness shapes our reality
Just as reality defines our perception

So, rise above your singular perceptions
So, rise above your singular emotions
Break through the boundaries
Reconnect to that cosmic unity
From whence we all came into this life
Before we fell into discordance, ignorance, and strife

Drink deep from the endless waters
That wash upon that most distant shore
Breathe deep that air which has been
Circulating through all life since the first life was born
Now, bleed and become one with the cycle
The spiral of life, as it elevates us to another phase
Of evolution, bringing us closer together
Until our fates are all the same

I can choose to be
You or me
I can choose to see
The world from many perspectives
Since that moment when I fell in love
When I stared down death
I’ve been rising above my own self
Serving as conduit for energies
Those timeless and limitless powers
That brought me up from the depths
Of my singular, lowly self-deception
But now I perceive the illusion
And break through the locked doors of perception

The Psychology of Love and the Philosophy of Loneliness

Previously published on Blogger.com on March 10, 2011.  Updated and revised for WordPress on November 10, 2012.

Love.
It’s a subject that has been at the forefront of human existence for longer than we can remember, filling the pages of our history, etching its name in our poetry and songs and stories.  It has been the catalyst for great romances which have become legend, it has been the driving force behind great conflicts that have stained the earth with blood, and it has proven to be one of the most complex occurrences within human nature.  We use the word “love” with frequency, describing everything from our preference for certain foods to our fondness for a particular author, musician, actor, director, or artist.

Yet what is love?
It’s been categorized in many ways; discussed endlessly by poets who often idealize or romanticize love even when tragic, dissected by scientists who have struggled to determine what part of our bodies is responsible for the impulses we associate with love, and examined by all those who have experienced it and yearned for by all those who have not.  It seems almost impossible to place a definition on something as transcendent and amorphous as love.  There are those who perceive love to be simply an emotion, a chemical reaction in the brain to an external stimuli in the form of another person, but this cannot be since, in my own experience anyway, all emotions are momentary and pass with time yet love remains as a constant presence.  Certainly, love can influence a person’s emotional state dramatically and there are those who say that love makes us blind and act foolishly.  Contrarily, many people believe that love elevates our consciousness, lifting us from our own selfish egotism, and allows us to experience empathy and affection in a manner that evolves our sense of reality, thus it transcends beyond any mere emotion.  In my personal experience, I have found that the latter is true.

Matheson’s Legend and Its Legacy

Originally posted on Lunch.com on October 31, 2010.

Having written some of the most important and influential science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels of the past century, Richard Matheson has become a revered figure in the world of genre entertainment.  Matheson first experienced success in the 1950s when his early fantasy and science fiction short stories were published in magazines.  His first novels were Someone Is Bleeding (1953), I Am Legend (1954) and The Shrinking Man (1956).  Matheson became a household name for genre geeks in the late ’50s and ’60s when he scripted a number of classic screenplays and teleplays.  In 1957, The Shrinking Man was adapted into The Incredible Shrinking Man, which is now regarded as a sci-fi film classic.  He also adapted one of his own short stories, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, into a teleplay for what may be the most famous episode of The Twilight Zone.  In 1964, his science fiction vampire novel I Am Legend was adapted into a horror film starring Vincent Price.  The release of this film would not only have a great impact on the way vampires, as well as zombies, would be depicted in the future, but also became the basis for a whole slew of similar films.

I Am Legend (1954)
In 1954, author Richard Matheson saw his science fiction/horror story I Am Legend published.  The novel would be revolutionary in the way that it took existing vampire mythology and updated it with a scientific explanation.

“I Am Legend” by Richard Matheson

Matheson created a suspenseful and psychologically driven story in which a scientist, Robert Neville, must cope with the horrific aftermath of a pandemic that has caused the human population to turn into vampiric beings.  Neville must also deal with his own haunted memories of watching his family, friends, and coworkers die of the disease.  One of the unique elements of the story is the way that Matheson takes elements of vampirism and robs them of their supernatural quality, which he then replaces with pseudo-scientific origins. It turns out that the vampiric disease is spread by a bacteria.  Matheson also explains why vampires are repelled by garlic, mirrors, and their weakness to sunlight.  He also allows for the vampires to evolve and create a social structure to replace humanity.
Though I Am Legend was received with mixed criticism upon its publication, it has since become regarded as a modern classic and an essential work of vampire fiction.

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

Vincent Price as Robert Morgan in “The Last Man on Earth” (1964) directed by Sidney Salkow & Ubaldo Ragona

The first adaptation of Matheson’s novel was originally going to be produced by the legendary Hammer Films.  Having been harshly criticized and threatened with government censorship after their 1957 film The Curse of Frankenstein and their 1958 film Horror of Dracula, it was decided that the story would be an obvious lightning rod for controversy.  Hammer Films ultimately passed on the script, which was written by Matheson himself.  Eventually, the script made its way through a number of studios and got a greenlight, though, it was dramatically revised and rewritten by three other writers.  Matheson felt that little of what he had envisioned remained in the script and asked to have his name removed from the credits, but upon discovering that this meant he would lose all residuals, he opted to be credited under the pseudonym Logan Swanson.

The film, which was shot predominantly in Italy with an Italian, English, and American cast, starred horror icon Vincent Price in the role of the scientist, now renamed Robert Morgan.  While the story is relatively faithful to the original by Matheson, there are certain minor changes of character and incidence, as well as omitted material which would have helped to better expand upon the backstory and ideas behind the vampire disease.
Today the film is considered a cult classic and despite Matheson’s disappointment in it, it remains the most memorable adaptation of I Am Legend.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Duane Jones as Ben in “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) directed by George A. Romero

As mentioned above, I Am Legend proved to influence the way that vampires were depicted in mainstream media, but it also helped to evolve the concept of zombies.  When young aspiring filmmaker George A. Romero set out to create an independent film, he decided that the horror genre of which he was very fond would be the perfect entrance into low-budget filmmaking.  Recalling how he was enthralled by I Am Legend and The Last Man on Earth‘s premise of a monstrous disease causing dead humans to become reanimated, Romero came up with a concept that was very similar.  The main difference being that his undead were flesh-eating zombies.  Romero also added a level of social commentary to his film.  In 1968, the film was released and was slammed by critics across the U.S. for its graphic depiction of violence.  It also caused controversy because the film was released before the MPAA-instituted ratings and as such children saw the film.  When the film was released in art house theatres in Europe, it was immediately hailed as a shocker and a classic. European audiences picked up on subtle social commentary and applauded the film for having an African-American hero (something that was uncommon at that point).  The film has been seen as a parable for consumerism in America, as an anti-war statement during the Vietnam Era, and as a metaphor for racism and prejudice.

The cannibalistic ghouls from “Night of the Living Dead”

Over forty years after its release, the film has morphed from “a vile piece of exploitation” into an “enduring cult classic of the genre”.  There have been numerous sequels, remakes, and spin-offs and the film is often sited as being the first film of the modern zombie sub-genre.

The Omega Man (1971)

Charlton Heston as Robert Neville in “The Omega Man” (1971) directed by Boris Sagal

The next real adaptation of Matheson’s I Am Legend came in 1971.  This reinterpretation had little to do with the original story and replaced the vampire pandemic with a plague of nocturnal mutants that were the result of experimental biological warfare.  The film is set against the Cold War and tells the story of Robert Neville, a military scientist who survives the mutant plague by vaccinating himself with an untested vaccine, thus rendering him immune.  Unlike the novel or the previous film adaptation, The Omega Man is a basic survival story with Neville (who is played by Charlton Heston) fighting against the albino mutants with seemingly unlimited ammo.  The story changes pace though when Neville is captured and put on trial by the mutants, who intend to burn him on a stake.  Neville is rescued, conveniently, by a young couple, Lisa and Dutch who are also unaffected survivors of the mutation.  Neville ends up creating a serum from his own immune blood which he hands out shortly before his death.  The final scene of the film is of the dead Neville lying in a messianic pose.
The film was met with mixed criticism, most of which was negative, but has since developed a small cult following.

I Am Omega (2007)

Mark Dacascos as Renchard in “I Am Omega” (2007) directed by Griff Furst

Another adaptation, which was very, very loosely based on the premise, came out in 2007.  The film was released a month before the big-budget film I Am Legend and was intended to capitalize on that film’s success.  Released directly to DVD, it starred martial artist/actor Mark Dacascos as Renchard a survivor of a virus that has transformed the human race into cannibalistic creatures. Renchard fights a relentless daily battle against the cannibals until one day he is contacted by a fellow survivor via webcam.  The survivor, Brianna, pleads with Renchard to help her escape the city and make her way to Antioch, a survivor’s camp.  Two men show up from Antioch and explain that Renchard must help them find Brianna and escort her safely to Antioch.  After saving Brianna, a bit of intrigue and betrayal occurs and the film ends anticlimactically with Renchard trying to cure Brianna, now infected, back at Antioch.

The film was pretty much panned universally by critics and criticized for being such a blatant effort to cash-in on I Am Legend and similar zombie movies.

I Am Legend (2007)

Will Smith as Robert Neville in “I Am Legend” (2007) directed by Francis Lawrence

The next major film adaptation of Matheson’s novel was the big-budget 2007 film.  Though it marks the first time that a film bore the title I Am Legend, the film had more in common with the two prior film adaptations than it had in common with the novel.  It starred Will Smith as Robert Neville, again a scientist who believed himself to be the sole survivor of a global pandemic that turned the infected into violent cannibalistic mutants that have a severe form of photosensitivity.  The film attempts to give greater access into Neville’s character and shows his life during the day as he takes out old movies from the rental store, converses with mannequins for company,  listening to reggae music, and fortifying his holdup.  He then spends his nights hunting the cannibal creatures and setting traps for them.  During one nightly outing his dog is bitten by an infected dog and Neville is forced to kill it.  Now, completely alone, Neville becomes reckless and sets out to get revenge. However, he is greatly outnumbered and only survives when he is, again conveniently, rescued by two human survivors, a woman named Anna and a young boy named Ethan.  The three go back to Neville’s house where they form a familial bond and where Anna tells Neville of a small group of survivors.  The next night the house is attacked and Neville is forced to sacrifice himself, but before doing so he discovers that his experimental cure is working and he gives it to Anna so that she can take it to the remaining survivors.
While the film boasted impressive special effects and some strong acting, it was met with mixed reviews and many criticized the director, Francis Lawrence, who is best known for his visually impressive music videos.

Count Dracula: A Vampire for the Ages – The Evolution of the World’s Most Famous Vampire

This essay was originally posted on Lunch.com in an abridged review format on October 26, 2009.

Introduction
How did one of the most violent tyrants in history help to inspire the most legendary of fictional villains?  Well, to answer that question, one must examine not only Bram Stoker‘s Gothic horror novel, but also the terrible and fascinating history of Roumania’s most famous prince.  There are so many influences and inspirations that went into the character of Count Dracula and not all of them are well-known.  Today, Stoker’s vampiric villain is now a cultural icon and he has undergone many changes, some of which are barely noticeable and others that radically contradict the original character that Stoker invented. Indeed, Count Dracula must be undead for his image and his legacy never seem to die.

A Blood Soaked History: From Lilith to Dracula – The Vampire Myth Exposed

This essay was originally posted on Lunch.com in an abridged review format on October 23, 2009.

Foreword
Myths and legends of vampires are widespread.  Tales of their existence can be found in virtually every culture across the globe and they date back to thousands of years ago.  Contrary to Western beliefs, the vampire has been around since long before Bram Stoker‘s Dracula popularized the bloodsucking fiends, and the presence of vampires have been rumoured in almost every country.  Indeed, these terrifying creatures of darkness are not limited to the folklore of Eastern Europe or to the confines of Gothic literature.The history of vampires is a long, dark, and brutal glimpse into the past.  Most “rational” people will immediately dismiss vampires altogether as outdated mythology, escapist fiction, or the nightmarish delusions of the emotionally disturbed.  But how is it then, that tales of vampirism have been echoed in eerily similar fashion on multiple continents over the course of millennia?  Where did this concept of vampires come from and does it have its origins in reality?  To find the answers to these questions, one must be willing to probe the dark secrets of the human subconscious and walk in the shadows of a forgotten history recorded in blood.  Do you possess the innate ability to separate fantasy from reality and can you acknowledge the fact that science and history aren’t infallible?  If so, then maybe your mind is open enough to accept that we live in a universe of unlimited potential, where anything is possible…  even the existence of the supernatural!