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dwellordream · 2 years

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“...As an important part of public commitment, anti-Catholicism remained a powerful force. Indeed, as a central aspect of the Anglican Church-State, Catholics continued to be barred from some aspects of public life until 1829, although the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy were amended for Catholics in 1791 after negotiations with the Catholic Committee. When Austen’s cousin Eliza Hancock married a French count in 1781, there was concern that she would convert to Catholicism. Yet she did not do so, and her husband was an Anglophile, therefore a more acceptable choice. The novelist Fanny Burney married a French émigré Catholic in 1793. Prime minister from 1783, Pitt the Younger had to resign in 1801 because George III would not accept his more liberal proposals for Catholics, such as Catholic emancipation, a key political issue, which did not come until 1829. Such views were also not accepted elsewhere—for example, by Shute Barrington, who wanted to keep Catholics from political power.

In 1807, “No Popery” was the issue that dominated the general election. Spencer Perceval, an Evangelical Tory and the prime minister from 1809–12, stood firm against Catholic emancipation. Nevertheless, there was a spread of open Catholicism, particularly in the shape of the foundation of Catholic chapels. Although a devout Anglican, Austen herself was not critical of Catholicism. In her History of England, she vilified Elizabeth I for her treatment of Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic, and drew out the religious element in her positive account of the latter: “She bore it with a most unshaken fortitude; firm in her mind; constant in her religion; and prepared herself to meet the cruel fate to which she was doomed, with a magnanimity that could alone proceed from conscious innocence. And yet could you reader have believed it possible that some hardened and zealous Protestants have even abused her for that steadfastness in the Catholic religion which reflected on her so much credit? But this is a striking proof of their narrow souls and prejudicial judgments who accuse her.”

Subsequently, in her treatment of Mary’s Protestant son, James I, Austen voiced criticism of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 but after the remark wrote: “I am myself partial to the roman catholic religion.” This fitted in with her sympathies with the Stuarts. As a context, Anglican ecclesiology was closer to Catholicism than Reformed Protestantism. Many Tories—for example, Samuel Johnson (and later George Canning, Tory officeholder from 1807 to 1809 and 1814 onward and prime minister in 1827)—preferred Catholics to Dissenters, especially so before George III opposed Catholic emancipation. Protestant Nonconformity was significant. Dissent was affected by a revival from the 1770s that owed much to itinerant and lay preaching. Methodism was a vibrant new force, and its position was entrenched with imposing churches, such as that built in Plymouth in 1813. At the same time, the Church of England remained dominant.

Religious tension is difficult to measure because its classic product was not the violence that might attract judicial and possibly political or even military attention but the prejudice that was expressed in endogamy (marriage within the group); discriminatory political, social, economic, and cultural practices; and words and actions of abuse and insult. The role of clergymen and ecclesiastical and religious bodies in education, charity, and social welfare furthered identification with confessional groupings, although, at the same time, different religious groupings were not isolated from one another. Clerics played a major role in the cultural world of the period, notably in various branches of literature.

Among Austen’s contemporaries who impressed her, this was especially the case of George Crabbe, a poet and naturalist as well as a cleric. He benefited from the patronage of John, fifth Duke of Rutland, duke from 1787 until 1857, and became his chaplain at Belvoir Castle. During these years, Crabbe published The Village (1783), The Borough (1810), and Tales (1812). Like Austen, he was sincere, pious, self-controlled ,and lacking in arrogance. He later became a rector in Wiltshire. Pious herself, as the inscription on her gravestone in Winchester Cathedral notes, Austen was a daughter of a rector, and two of her six brothers became clergymen. Moreover, her sister Cassandra became engaged to the Reverend Thomas Fowle in 1795.

However, he accompanied his patron, the libidinous William, seventh Lord Craven, to the West Indies as a regimental chaplain and died there in 1797 from yellow fever. Three of Austen’s prayers survive, and she was able to write to Anna in September 1814 about her views on sermons (also a topic when George III met Johnson): “I am very fond of Sherlock’s Sermons, prefer them to almost any.” This reference to the sermons of Thomas Sherlock (1678–1761), bishop of London (1748–61), serves as a reminder of the influence of earlier works and ideas, not least through new editions, as with the 1812 edition of Sherlock’s sermons. The bishop himself had published his sermons in 1725 and 1754–58.

Austen’s piety was the background for her judgment of individuals. Austen had scant time for those clerics who did not meet her standards. The fictional Mr. Collins was in part based on a clerical cousin, Edward Cooper, an Evangelical who, self-centered, sent letters of little comfort. Rector of Hamstall Ridware in Staffordshire, where Austen visited him in 1806, the wealthy Cooper included among his friends William Gilpin (see chap. 11) and Thomas Gisborne (1758–1846). As a reminder of the multiple links of individuals, the latter, an Anglican priest, was author of the censorious and much reprinted Duties of the Female Sex (1797), which emphasized subordination to the divinely ordained social order, as well as a critic of circulating libraries, a poet, an active opponent of the slave trade, and an opponent of geology’s abandonment of a biblical background.

A facetious Austen refers via Elizabeth Bennet to Mr. Collins’s “kind intention of christening, marrying, and burying his parishioners whenever it were required.” Collins’s interest in accumulating “other family livings” is noted. As far as the antisentiment of Northanger Abbey is concerned, Richard Morland, the father of the heroine, is neither neglected nor poor but has two good livings. One, of which he was patron and incumbent, was worth about four hundred pounds yearly. That is what he proposes to give to his son James as soon as he is ready for ordination. Meanwhile, Woodston, a family living of the Tilneys, is held by General Tilney’s younger son, Henry, a positive character.

In Mansfield Park, a novel with much Evangelical influence, Edmund Bertram, also a positive character and the young son of Sir Thomas, is intended for the Church. He plans to reside in his parish and provides Austen, in the voice of his father Sir Thomas, with an opportunity to denounce pluralism: I should have been deeply mortified, if any son of mine could reconcile himself to doing less . . . a parish has wants and claims which can be known only by a clergyman constantly resident, and which no proxy can be capable of satisfying to the same extent. Edmund might, in the common phrase, do the duty of Thornton, that is, he might read prayers and preach, without giving up Mansfield Park; he might ride over, every Sunday, to a house nominally inhabited, and go through divine service; he might be the clergyman of Thornton Lacey every seventh day, for three or four hours, if that would content him. But it will not. He knows that human nature needs more lessons than a weekly sermon can convey, and that if he does not live among his parishioners and prove himself by constant attention their well-wisher and friend, he does very little either for their good or his own.

Described by Austen as a “little harangue,” this was a deeply serious account. Far from being solely Evangelical, this view reflected the strong Anglican commitment of many clerics and much of the laity both when Austen was writing and over the previous century. High Churchmen, including Liverpool, disliked pluralism and sought to remedy it within the limited means available to them. Mary Crawford, who had designs on Edmund, was startled by the views of the Bertrams, as she had hoped “to shut out the church, sink the clergyman, and see only the respectable, elegant, modernized, and occasional residence of a man of independent fortune.” Her brother also emerges as flawed, not least through declaring that, if a preacher, he would only wish to preach occasionally. Fanny Price shakes her head.

Pluralism led in the absence of incumbents to curates being appointed and paid to serve some of the benefices. In 1780, only about 38 percent of English parishes had resident incumbents, and 36 percent of Anglican clergy were pluralists. Pluralism often arose due to lay impropriation or clerical poverty arising from major discrepancies in clerical income and the inadequacy of many livings, but nonresident incumbents frequently lived nearby, and, in general, there were resident stipendiary curates. The difficulties of their position, not least needing to wait to be able to support a wife until they got a living, are brought out by Austen. Pluralism was more common in areas where many parishes had poor endowments—for example, on the Essex coast—but that would not have been an issue for Mr. Collins.

Mr. Collins has a very harsh response to Lydia’s elopement with George Wickham, informing Mr. Bennet: “The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this . . . this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter, has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence, . . . this false step in one daughter, will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others . . . throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offence.” He subsequently writes to Mr. Bennet: “I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain from declaring my amazement, at hearing that you received the young couple into your house as soon as they were married. It was an encouragement of vice; . . . You ought certainly to forgive them as a christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing.”

Mr. Bennet adds: “That is his notion of christian forgiveness!” The punctuation makes Austen’s attitude clear. Criticism of clerics who did not meet appropriate standards was seen in Austen’s correspondence and writing. Writing to Cassandra in April 1805, Austen referred to another cleric, Edward Bather, as a “wretch!” who did not deserve the maid of the woman to whom he had become engaged. Austen herself was criticized by an Irish cleric who liked living in Bath for the comment in Mansfield Park about nonresidence. In Catherine, or the Bower, Austen presents as a parish clergyman the proud Mr. Dudley, “the younger son of a very noble family,” who is “forever quarrelling” about tithes, “and with the principal neighbours themselves concerning the respect and parade, he exacted.”

This is a psychological and social dislike on Austen’s side, but there was also an ideological and historical side. In her correspondence with Cassandra, Austen felt able to write in January 1809 that she did “not like the Evangelicals.” Their enthusiasm and zeal would have reminded her of the Puritans, who were perforce villains due to her views of the civil war. Thus, the clergy are not necessarily the heroes in Austen’s novels or always significantly virtuous. This is particularly the case if one overlooks the young clergy, as they are often the positive clerics.

There was no equivalent of Henry Fielding’s Parson Adams or the Reverend Arthur Villars in Evelina (her careful guardian) or a narrator like the Vicar of Wakefield. Collins is less attractive than the dully respectable Mr. Boyer, an unsuccessful suitor, in Hannah Foster’s novel The Coquette (1797), while the Reverend Norris in Mansfield Park is presented as fairly useless and his wife as monstrously selfish. It is appropriate that they would have “carried on the garden wall, and made the plantation to shut out the churchyard,” as their successor, the keen-on-the-claret Dr. Grant, does.

Offered the patronage of the prince regent, or at least of his librarian, Austen turned down James Stanier Clarke’s idea that she write a novel about a clergyman or, as he continued later in 1815, a naval chaplain. Yet, while there are no Dissenting heroes in her novels, there are clerical ones, notably Edmund Bertram, Henry Tilney, and Edward Ferrars. Elinor Dashwood is able to assure Colonel Brandon that “Edward’s principles and disposition” deserved the living of Delaford that he was giving him. Edward indeed shows both good character and humility. Austen condemns characters who are contemptuous of the clergy—for example, Robert Ferrars’s attitude toward his elder brother:

The idea of Edward’s being a clergyman, and living in a small parsonage house, diverted him beyond measure;—and when to that was added the fanciful imagery of Edward reading prayers in a white surplice, and publishing the banns of marriage between John Smith and Mary Brown, he could conceive nothing more ridiculous. Elinor, while she waited in silence, and immoveable gravity, the conclusion of such folly, could not restrain her eyes from being fixed on him with a look that spoke all the contempt it excited . . . it relieved her own feelings.

Such anticlericalism was associated with Whigs; in Elinor, Austen was very much expressing a Tory clericalism. Austen expected others to be pious. Her naval brother, Francis, was very much so and was part of a powerful devout tendency in the Royal Navy. In 1809, she responded to the death of General Sir John Moore in battle at Corunna: “I wish Sir John had united something of the Christian with the Hero in his death.” This response was an aspect of a wider engagement with the providential character of Britain. In September 1814, with reference to the possibility of continued war with the United States, which, on rational grounds, she viewed with much foreboding, Austen wrote to Martha Lloyd: “I place my hope of better things on a claim to the protection of Heaven, as a Religious Nation, a Nation in spite of much Evil Improving in Religion, which I cannot believe the Americans to possess.” There was a higher proportion of Protestant non-Anglicans (non-Episcopalians) in North America than in England.

Austen has little time for the laity who are wanting in piety or, more particularly, behavior. Some faults are minor. Typically self-centered, Lady Bertram, crying herself to sleep “after hearing an affecting sermon,” achieved little. Vice receives more attention. Austen is critical of the adulterous elopement of Henry Crawford and Maria Rushworth, and, both in Lady Susan and in her correspondence, Austen is hostile toward adultery. Mr. Price remarks, “So many fine ladies were going to the devil now-a-days that way, that there was no answering for anybody.” As an instance of observance of the Sabbath, Anne Elliot is critical of Sunday traveling. The disagreement at Sotherton Court over chapel attendance reflects Austen’s values. Mary Crawford jokes, when told that the chapel was formerly in constant use, both morning and evening, but that the late Mr. Rushworth had stopped this, “Every generation has its improvement.”

This leads Fanny to respond: “It was a valuable part of former times. There is something in a chapel and chaplain so much in character with a great house, with one’s ideas of what such a household should be! A whole family assembling regularly for the purpose of prayer, is fine!” The immoral and selfish Mary replies, bringing up social control: “It must do the heads of the family a great deal of good to force all the poor housemaids and footmen to leave business and pleasure, and say their prayers here twice a day, while they are inventing excuses themselves for staying away . . . it is safer to leave people to their own devices on such subjects.” Edmund Bertram ably answers Mary’s points, as he also later does when discussing his sister’s elopement with her brother.

Edmund also shows a grasp of human flaws in describing Mrs. Norris not as cruel but as having “faults of principle . . . and a corrupted, vitiated mind.” Such remarks capture Austen’s insights into personality, insights that drew on her experience. Yet Edmund is able to draw attention to “a spirit of improvement abroad,” both in preaching and among the laity: “It is felt that distinctness and energy may have weight in recommending the most solid truths; and, besides, there is more general observation and taste, a more critical knowledge diffused, than formerly; in every congregation, there is a larger proportion who know a l little of the matter, and who can judge and criticise.”

In a broader sense, alongside such criticism, Austen’s novels are Anglican works, not least in their faith in human nature and their desire to be positive: “Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.” The discussion of sin is very much restrained, even in the somewhat amoral Lady Susan. Nevertheless, according to her brother Henry, Austen objected to what he presented as the low moral standards in the work of Henry Fielding, whose approach was certainly very different, while her favor for Richardson was a key indicator of her preference in style and content.

Moreover, Austen makes explicit reference to evil in Emma and Persuasion, and, more potently so in Sense and Sensibility, when Elinor’s response to John Willoughby’s revelations leads her to consider the origins of evil: Her thoughts were silently fixed on the irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling, affectionate temper. The world had made him extravagant and vain—Extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment.��

The religious theme is brought forward melodramatically soon after by Marianne Dashwood, who wishes to have time “for atonement to my God.” Sin was generally seen as communal as well as individual, with the former having political consequences, and understandably so, in a world governed by providence. Thus, George III was convinced of the widespread propensity of fallen man, of elite and populace alike, to corruption and factionalism. If Austen’s works rest on a judgmentalism born of Anglican piety, the focus is, as Elizabeth Bennet points out, on “thoughtlessness, want of attention to other people’s feelings, and want of resolution,” rather than sin.

“Self-denial,” paradoxically rather a Whiggish, Low Church attitude, is applauded as part of a God-given desideratum of “a good mind and a sound understanding.” Similarly, in Sense and Sensibility, Edward Ferrars, a clergyman, his suit for Elinor’s hand in marriage accepted, “was not only in the rapturous profession of the lover, but in the reality of reason and truth, one of the happiest of men.” He and Colonel Brandon resemble each other “in good principles and good sense.” As a result, the moral quality of Austen’s work fits into a strong tradition of pragmatic Anglican didacticism. Worried about the effect on Catherine Morland of her visit to Northanger Abbey, her sensible mother recalled: “There is a very clever Essay in one of the books up stairs upon much such a subject, about young girls that have been spoilt for home by great acquaintance—‘The Mirror,’ . . . I am sure it will do you good.”

When Catherine did not improve from her listlessness, Mrs. Morland “hastily left the room to fetch the book in question, anxious to lose no time in attacking so dreadful a malady.” Number 12 of the Mirror, that of March 6, 1779, included a letter from “John Homespun” on the bad consequences for his daughters of visiting a wealthy lady and acquiring bad habits. The Mirror is made superfluous by the unexpected arrival of Henry Tilney. Otherwise, Catherine, to a modern eye, might have had another reason for listlessness, although that would not have captured the attitudes of Austen’s contemporaries. Austen, indeed, takes the didactic tradition forward in a fashion shown as sensible by the trajectories of her characters.

In Mansfield Park, Sir Thomas Bertram comes to reflect that his daughters’ education was flawed because, while “instructed theoretically in their religion,” they were “never required to bring it into daily practice,” and this is related to the lack of “that sense of duty which can alone suffice” when teaching how to govern “their inclinations and tempers.” Thus, he had failed in his wish for “them to be good.” At the same time, Austen was cautious about her public stance:

Miss Austen had on all the subjects of enduring religious feeling the deepest and strongest convictions, but a contact with loud and noisy exponents of the then popular religious phase made her reticent almost to a fault. She had to suffer something in the way of reproach from those who believed she might have used her genius to greater effect; but her old friend used to say “I think I see her now defending what she thought was the real province of a delineator of life and manners, and declaring her belief that example and not ‘direct preaching’ was all that a novelist could afford properly to exhibit.”

The novelist certainly dissected the social aspect of religious observance, as in a superb chapter introduction: “Mrs Elton was first seen at church: but though devotion might be interrupted, curiosity could not be satisfied by a bride in a pew, and it must be left for the visits in form which were then to be paid, to settle whether she were very pretty indeed, or only rather pretty, or not pretty at all.” This was ironic, and accurate, human observation linked to a spirited engagement with life, a life illuminated by spiritual purpose.”

- Jeremy Black, “Faith and the Church.” in England in the Age of Austen

#jeremy black #england in the age of austen #regency #jane austen #religion #christian

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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What’s the difference between a pulp hero and a super hero?

There is a common sentiment when discussing pulp heroes, when compared to superheroes, that positions the two as if they were separate by entire eras, with pulp heroes being as distinct from the superheroes as the dinosaurs are to mankind. But then again, the dinosaurs never really went away, did they?

Oh sure, they endured a great extinction, they downsized and ceded their thrones to the tiny little rats that scurried in their shadow, who then grew to become just as big, and then even bigger, but they never went away. They simply adapted into new forms and formed new ecosystems. We call them birds now.

The gap between Superman and The Shadow is merely 6 years, hardly much of a generation. There are those that argue that the Marvel and DC universes still have pulp heroes, that Batman is (or was) one, that characters like The Question and Moon Knight carry on the tradition. We have characters like Hellboy, Grendel, Tom Strong and Zack Overkill as original, modern examples of pulp characters, strongly identified as such. Venture Bros had in 2016 the best modern take on the Green Hornet. Lavender Jack is still going strong. So the idea that pulp heroes are defined solely by being old and outdated isn’t exactly true, when clearly there’s still enough gas in the tank centuries later for stories with them to be told.

Is there any meaningful distinction between pulp heroes and superheroes? If not, can we identify one?

Costume is definitely a big part of it, as Grant Morrison famously argued in his own summation. Of what he considers the big difference between the two:

“What makes the superhero more current is the performance aspect. That's what The Shadow and those other guys don't really have. Their costumes are not bright, and they don't have their initials on their chest, and everything isn't out front and popping like the superheroes. I think we can relate to that about them because in the world we live in, everyone has a constant need to be a star. I think superheroes are keyed into that parallelism. They're performers. They're rock stars, and they always have been.

And he’s right, to an extent. It’s definitely tied into the central differences between The Shadow and Batman, as I’ve elaborated. While The Shadow was far, far from the only type of pulp hero, the superhero’s costume has long been defined as THE thing that sets it apart from every other type of fictional character. At least, when it comes to American superheroes.

Because the “criteria” for superheroes is nowhere near as set in stone as some would like to believe. Our basic definition of superheroes is based around comparisons and contrasts to Superman and Batman, and how they fit into what we call “the superhero genre”. The existence of a superhero genre is, in and of itself, debatable, and any working definition for superheroes is inevitably going to have too many exceptions.

Superheroes are not defined by settings, like cowboys or spacemen, or their profession, like detectives. They can’t be defined by superpowers (Batman), a mission statement, having secret identities (Fantastic Four, Tony Stark), being good people, or good at their jobs. The costume, the closest there is to a true, defining convention, still has a considerable share of exceptions like Jack Knight’s Starman, a great deal of the X-Men who do not wear uniforms, or most superheroes created outside the US. The most basic definition of superhero is of comic book characters with iconic costumes and enhanced abilities who fight villains in shared superhero universes, but even that falls short of exceptions by including characters who are not superheroes (John Constantine and other Vertigo characters, Jonah Hex, the Punisher). Some people would call Goku or Harry Potter or Lucky Luke or Monica’s Gang superheroes, Donald Duck has literally been one. “Character with a distinctive design and unusual talents who fights evil” includes virtually every fictional hero that’s ever achieved a modicum of popularity in a visual medium.

Even telling stories with super characters doesn’t mean you’re going to be writing a superhero story (Joker). Superheroes are not defined by settings and genres, but they can inhabit just about any of them you can imagine. Horror, westerns, gritty crime drama, historical reconstruction, romance, space adventure, war stories, surrealism stories. As Morrison put it, they aren’t so much a genre as they are “a special chilli pepper-like ingredient designed to energize other genres”, part of the reason why they colonized the entire blockbuster landscape.

Aviation became a thing in the war years, so they started producing en masse aviation pulps as a subgenre. Zeppelins became popular, so they had a short-lived zeppelin subgenre. Celebrities starred in their own magazines. The American pulps were different from the German pulps, or the Italian pulps, or the Canadian pulps. In China, wuxia arose at a similar time period and with similar themes and distribution. In Brazil, we have “folhetos”, short, poetic, extremely cheap prose often written about romantic heroes and “cangaçeiros”, the closest local equivalent to the American cowboys. In Japan, “light novels” began life as pulp fiction, distributed in exactly the same format and literally sold as such. Pulp fiction has long outlived any and all attempts to define it as 30s literary fiction only.

Likewise, “pulp” and “pulp heroes” are terms employed very, very loosely. Characters like The Shadow and Doc Savage arrived quite late in the history of pulp fiction. You had characters like Jimmie Dale, Bulldog Drummond, Tarzan, Conan, a billion non-descript trenchcoat guys, and before those the likes of Nick Carter and Sexton Blake, dime novel detectives who made the jump to pulp. You had your hero pulps, villain pulps, adventure pulps, romance pulps, horror pulps, weird menace pulps. Science fiction, planetary romance, roman-era adventures, lost race adventures, anything that publishers could sell was turned into pulp stories starring, what else, pulp heroes.

How do you make sense of it all?

The main difference to consider is the mediums they were made for.

Pulp heroes were made for literature, superheroes were made for comic books.

Superheroes NEED to pop out visually, to have bold and flashy and striking designs, because comic books are visual stories first and foremost, who live and die on having attractive, catching character designs and the promise of an entertaining story with them. Pulp heroes, in turn, can often just be ordinary dudes and dudettes and anything in between in trenchcoats or evening wear or furry underwear, or masters of disguise rarely identifiable, because the only thing that needs to visually striking at first glance in a pulp magazine is the cover, so your imagination can get ready to do the rest. Smoking guns, bloody daggers, a romantic embrace, monsters hunched over ladies in peril, incendiary escapes. The characters can look like and be literally anything.

Comic books are a sequential art form where art and writing come together to tell a story, and every illustration must serve the story and vice-versa. It needs to give you an incentive to keep being visually invested in whatever’s going on. Pulp literature stays dead on the page unless animated by your expectations; you may have the illusion of submitting to an experience, but really it’s you expending your imagination to otherwise inert signals. You have to provide the colors and flashy sequences and great meaning yourself, and as a trade, you get much more text to work with in novels than you do in comic books, where the dialogue and narration are fundamentally secondary to the visual, whether it’s a superhero punching stars or a monster covered in blood.

Each art form has its strengths and weaknesses, of course, which are only accentuated when each tries to be of a different kind. There's been pulp heroes that tried making the jump to comics, and comic heroes that made the jump to literature. There’s good, even great examples, of both, but even at their best, there's always some incongruity, because that's not the medium these characters were made for.

Superheroes are characters defined by being extraordinary. The pulp heroes are too, in many cases, distinguished from their literary antecessors because they were too uncanny and weird, a middleground between the folklore/fairy tale heroes and the grounded detective and adventure characters such as Sherlock, and the later far out superheroes. But they don’t necessarily have to be extraordinary. Sometimes they can very well just be completely ordinary characters, caught in bizarre circumstances and managing them as best they can, or simply using skills available to anyone who puts in effort to do good. Often enough the extraordinary comes in the form of a bizarre villain, or a tangled conspiracy, a monster from outside the world, a unique time period. The extraordinary is there, but it doesn’t have to be in the hero.

That is, I’d argue, the other big fundamental difference between the two. "Superhero” is a name we use to define a type of character who fits an extraordinary mold, a Super Hero. It’s a genre, it can be every genre, it’s a shared universe and a stand-alone epic. There are guidelines, structures at work here. Grids, page count, illustrators. The Big Two and their domain over the concept. Academic usage of the term, standards that rule the “genre”, when it is defined as a genre. Malleable and overpowering and adaptable and timeless as the superhero may be, it’s still bound by a certain set of rules and trends.

The term “pulp hero” is a term that we use to label just about any character that happens to star in something we recognize as “pulp fiction”, even if it isn’t literally written in pulp, even if it’s decades later. It’s a “metaphor with no brakes in it”. Superheroes can be pulp heroes. The most powerless, unlucky, homeless bum can be a pulp hero, there were entire subgenres of pulp stories based on homeless protagonists or talltale stories told in bars. The cruelest villain can be a pulp hero. Boris Karloff about to stab you with a knife named Ike IS a pulp hero, and so is a space slug on a warpath (look up what happened when Lovecraft and R.E Howard collaborated).

As much as I may dislike the idea of pulp heroes largely only existing in the shadow of superheroes nowadays...that is kinda appropriate, isn’t it? Of course they are going to live and make their homes in the place where the sun doesn’t shine. Where Superman and co would never go to.

Of course the 90s reboots of these characters failed. Because they tried turning these characters into superheroes, and they are not superheroes. They can visit those world, but they don’t belong in them, or anywhere else. They live in places where the light doesn’t touch, worlds much bigger and darker and more vast than you’d ever think at first glance, worlds that we still haven’t fully discovered (over 38% of American pulps no longer exist, 14% survive in less than five scattered copies, to say nothing of all pulps and pulp heroes outside of America). Not lesser, not gone, despite having every reason to. Just different, reborn time and time again. The shadow opposites.

In short: One is represented by Superman. The other is represented by The Shadow. There are worlds far beyond those two, but when you think of the concepts, those are the ones that things always seem to come back to.

#pulp heroes #pulp fiction #pulp art #pulp essays #comic rambles #superheroes #the shadow #superman

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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How F9 Brings Back Justice for Han and Asian Inclusion

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This article contains F9 spoilers.

One thing is for certain about the Fast and Furious film franchise—it has been a wild ride. Other aspects of the Fast Saga are less certain. Although the F9 title definitively labels the latest film as the ninth installment, it’s actually the 10th film. Or the 11th. You could even say the 12th if you include the short film. It depends how you want to count it. For a franchise laden with car chase clichés, the Fast Saga makes a lot of long, winding detours.

Consider how these movies treat death. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) set the precedent by ‘dying’ back in Fast & Furious (aka Fast & Furious 4) only to return in Fast & Furious 6, working for the other side. Coincidentally, at the end of that film, there was a major reveal about Han (Sung Kang). The character was introduced in the third film in the series, The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, but dies about three quarters of the way through the film. Yet he then reappears in the next three Fast and Furious movies, which were set before Tokyo Drift. The circumstances of his death were clarified in Fast & Furious 6. Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw killed Han. Now those events have been clarified even more in F9, thanks to returning director Justin Lin. As it turns out, Han didn’t die at all.

F9 is the fifth Fast and Furious film directed by Lin, and by design, Han Jue’s story arc is the central thread for all five Lin installments. Tokyo Drift was Lin’s first Fast film, as well as the franchise’s sharpest turn. It was almost an entirely new cast in a new setting. Lin stayed on to direct the following three installments. To keep Han’s story going, he shifted gears and jumped back in time. Just like with Star Wars, Fast & Furious through Fast & Furious 6 comprised a prequel trilogy, so the order in which the Fast Saga films were released doesn’t match the story’s timeline. The second film, 2 Fast 2 Furious, is followed chronologically by the fourth, Fast & Furious. The next two are in order: Fast Five followed by Fast & Furious 6. Then comes the third release, Tokyo Drift where Han dies. Fast & Furious 6 and Tokyo Drift take place more or less at the same time. Even the beginning of Furious 7 overlaps with the final events of Tokyo Drift.

After stepping away from the franchise for its seventh and eight films, Lin is back in the driver’s seat in F9, which is why Han is also back. However, Han has always been riding with Lin, even predating his involvement in Fast and Furious lore…

High School Han

In 2002, Lin directed the critically-acclaimed Better Luck Tomorrow. That film also starred Sung Kang in the role of Han. It was a story about four overachieving Asian teenagers who start selling cheat sheets and subsequently fall into the gangster lifestyle of drugs and crime. It was loosely based on the murder of Stuart Tay. Tay was an Asian teenager who was killed by his fellow high schoolers when they thought he would betray a computer heist they were planning. The murderers were college-bound with Ivy League potential, and the story was branded as “the honor roll murder” by the Orange County register. In Lin’s interpretation, Han is one of the murderers.

Widely hailed as a benchmark film for Asian-American representation, Better Luck Tomorrow won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance where it was rigorously celebrated by Roger Ebert, which led to MTV acquiring it.

When Lin took on Tokyo Drift, he wanted to add a cool Asian character into the mix. He tapped Kang to reprise the role of Han, albeit an incarnation of Han that was tailored to the franchise. The Better Luck Tomorrow Han is young and brash. Han is a teenager, although Kang was 30 he first played him. In Tokyo Drift, Han is older and wiser, a mentor to the film’s protagonist Sean (Lucas Black). Nevertheless, there are connections that make the character whole. The Better Luck Tomorrow Han is a chain smoker. In Fast Five, Han’s girlfriend Gisele (Gal Gadot in her first feature film). She attributes Han’s constant need to occupy his hand to being a former smoker. Tokyo Drift was only four years after Better Luck Tomorrow but the character of Han aged considerably.

Why Han Matters

The Fast Saga currently ranks as the seventh highest grossing film franchise in the world. And unlike the other top-earners, these movies were arguably the most diverse and inclusive from the onset. While the MCU has Black Panther and the upcoming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Star Wars introduced Finn (John Boyega) in its third trilogy, those casts remain predominantly white. In fact, the top 25 top grossing global franchises are all led by white casts. Fast and Furious is the exception. This makes Han the most prominent Asian character in a Hollywood franchise in the world.

What’s more, Han is cool. Until very recently, most Asian Hollywood roles were stereotypical or tokens. Han a richly developed character, even if Better Luck Tomorrow is disregarded. In Tokyo Drift, he’s a wealthy elite street racer with his own garage packed with awesome cars, attached to a club where he’s surrounded by gorgeous women. That was an unprecedented role for how Asian characters were presented in mainstream Hollywood entertainment in the 2000s.

Han’s relationship with Giselle is also extraordinary. While there is a long cinematic history of white men hooking up with Asian women, it was extremely rare for an Asian man to kiss white woman in Hollywood cinema. Han and Giselle become an item in 2009 with Fast & Furious. The following year, it was a huge deal for Jackie Chan’s interracial kiss with Amber Valletta in The Spy Next Door.

Jackie claimed it was his first onscreen kiss and he was already well past a hundred films to his credit at that time, although most of them were China-made. Han got to snog Wonder Woman onscreen before anyone else, including Chris Pine, and if that’s not cool, what is?

Lin carried another actor over from Better Luck Tomorrow. Jason Tobin played Virgil Hu, Han’s cousin and another one of the murderous teens. Virgil is the biggest punk of the gang. In Tokyo Drift, Tobin plays Earl Hu, one of Han’s friends and a master mechanic. Is the Hu surname a coincidence? Not likely for Lin. Tobin also appears as Young Jun in the Bruce Lee inspired TV series Warrior, where Lin is an executive producer alongside Lee’s daughter Shannon. Again Tobin plays a punk gangster. Tobin reprises Earl in F9.

Beyond Hollywood inclusion and representation where Han really matters is global box office. Hollywood was another COVID casualty. During the pandemic, the United States was dethroned as the biggest box office in the world. As of right now, China claims that title. Perhaps this is one reason F9 premiered there first, as well as in other Asian regions along with the Middle East.

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It’s been out for over a month and has already grossed $203 million in China alone, plus an additional $8.8 million in the other markets at the time of the U.S. premiere. Thanks to this, F9 is already the fourth highest earner in the world in 2021. It is right behind Godzilla v Kong, but both of them are trailing behind two Chinese blockbusters that most American are completely unaware of yet, Detective Chinatown 3 and Hi, Mom.

The Fast Saga’s rise has a lot to do with its international appeal, culminating with winning over Chinese audiences. It was under Lin’s steady hand that the franchise became a global player. Adding Han brought Asian representation to an already diverse cast. Tokyo Drift passed an international milestone where the film made more outside of the U.S. in the foreign markets—$33.9 million more. This disparity widened with each successive movie, so by the time Fast & Furious 6 rolled around, the international earnings accounts for nearly 70 percent of the total box office, and the door was open to that lucrative Chinese market.

Furious 7 was the first of the franchise to be shown in China and blew up there with a record-setting $390 million take, earning the title as the biggest non-Chinese film in the country at the time. That helped to elevate the worldwide box office past $1.5 billion, with over 76 percent of it coming from international earnings. The Fate of the Furious did even better, breaking its own record as China’s top-earning foreign film with $392 million, and the international box office accounted for 81 percent of the worldwide take.

Lin is smart to bring Han back. And if he really wants to appeal to that Chinese market, he’ll boost Virgil Hu’s role in F10. Han is Korean. Hu is Chinese. Tobin has appeared in Chinese films previously, including Jackie Chan’s Rob-B-Hood so the Chinese audience is familiar with him.

Justice for Han

At the end of the previous installment, The Fate of the Furious, Shaw is awkwardly accepted into Dom’s cookout. Fans of Han Jue and the franchise were outraged. How does Han’s murderer become part of the club? This triggered the Twitter movement #justiceforhan. Now that we know Shaw didn’t murder Han, it’s up to Lin to decide what happens in F10, which he is slated to direct next (it still doesn’t resolve Shaw’s acceptance at the barbecue because Dom’s gang still believed Han was dead then).

Perhaps it’s all some grand scheme by Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell). With the Fast Saga, so much is uncertain, even Han’s name.

For F10, a confrontation between Han and Shaw seems inevitable, especially with F9’s post-credits cameo showing Shaw. Perhaps the next film will finally give enough closure for Shaw to earn his seat at the table, or for Han to banish him from it.

At the end of F9, when the car drives up to fill the empty seat at the barbecue table, it’s uncertain who the driver is. Maybe it’s Jakob (John Cena), Dom’s newly introduced brother in F9. Maybe it’s Shaw coming back for seconds, or maybe Brian O’Conner (although reviving the late Paul Walker digitally again would be tacky now). Maybe it’s even Giselle (sure, Giselle ‘died’ in Fast & Furious 6 but if Gadot came back, just think of how many tickets they’d sell). Fast and Furious is full to twisty turns, like any good car chase. But with Lin in the driver’s seat, Han is sure to get the justice he deserves.

F9: The Fast Saga opened only in theaters on Friday, June 25.

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thepageofhopes · 4 years

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Pathologic Classpects

Literally no one asked for this but here it is:

Bachelor: Prince of Light

Haruspex: Heir of Blood

Changeling: Bard of Hope

Explanations are under the cut as to not clog up peoples dashes.

DanDan Daniil Dankovsky – Prince of Light

The Bachelor was obvious to me exactly what aspect and class he was from the moment I decided to classpect the 3 main characters. While I’m not the biggest fan of the extended zodiac’s description of Light (I think it’s serviceable but leaves out the concept of importance/relevance which was always a key part of the Light aspect in Homestuck) DanDan fits it to a T. ‘Those bound to the aspect of Light are the universe's knowledge-seekers. They are, above all, driven to learn and understand...The Light-bound will go after knowledge with a fierce intensity that others may find distasteful. They aren't overly concerned with laws or norms, either.’ This fits perfectly with his quote from the opening ‘The truth is my shephard. Whatever happens, I will find answers and justice will be restored.’

But Daniil is particularly obsessed with only what he considers important and relevant, dismissing all of the knowledge of the people of the steppe as backwards and savage. In his pursuit of higher meanings and utopias and bringing the impossible to life, he ends up actively causing harm (THE BULL IN THE BONE STAKE LOT) and if you do all the quests near the end, will probably end up having a higher body count than Artemy by the time you make the last decision in the cathedral. He ends up destroying more knowledge and history than gaining it throughout the course of the game, ending of course in his decision to destroy the entire town just to preserve the impossible Polyhedron. He is an active destroyer through and through.

Also all princes are pricks so the prickly prick himself has to be one

Artemy Burakh – Heir of Blood

Yes I know this title is about as on the nose as it can get but it really does fit him. I struggled a lot between putting Artemy as Time or Blood because both aspects fit him really well. Time is all about getting your hands dirty and the struggle that leads to change. Clara describes him well as a man of ‘hard logic and direct action’. But when I really thought about it, his whole storyline revolves around him learning his place in the Kin and becoming a leader of sorts. While the game puts constant struggles in both the players and Artemy’s way, he pulled through the struggles not just from his own determination but through the help of others. While the Bachelor certainly does many things for other people, his story feels much more independent than the Haruspex. In the end it’s his love and bond of both the town and Aglaya that lets him make the decision to use the Polyhedron as a sacrifice to save the town.

While Heir has never been officially defined in Homestuck, I’ve heard many people theorize it’s the passive change class, which I certainly agree with considering John. While putting the Haruspex who is also defined by direct action as a passive class might seem contradictory, I really think it fits. Artemy certainly does not actively go after bonds or try and make friends, and when the end comes he leads as almost more of a figurehead where Capella organizes who are going to be the new mistresses and what roles each of the other children will have. He doesn’t as much change the town as facilitate it and allow the children to come into their own.

Clara the Changeling – Bard of Hope

This is another one I struggled with deciding between two options- Life and Hope. Life seems at first the immediately obvious choice given Clara’s healing powers, but to me her healing is only one small part of her character, and it’s not even really healing- it’s transformation. No, the central theme of Clara’s entire line is belief and the power of that belief to shape reality. Clara literally can’t lie because whatever she says always comes true in some fashion (though not always in the most direct way). Plus, this line from the extended zodiac fits her so well: ‘They put great value in the power of the imagination, the ability to dream up a better and more beautiful future. If anyone could dream a better world into existence, it would be one of the Hope-bound’. Clara is fantastic at telling stories both to herself and others as well.

Also yes, I know Bard is supposed to be a male only title but fuck gendered titles, Clara is a Bard. Calliope says this about bards: ‘UU: somewhat like a wildcard role for a hero. very Unpredictable. UU: they are typically known for their spontaneoUs and dramatic story-altering inflUence on the fate of a party.’ Clara is the biggest wildcard of the entire story, the only one even close might be Aglaya. Clara is such a wildcard she terrifies the children and even made the developers change their original ideas and paths for her. But not only is she a wildcard, the Bard fits well with her duality aspect and that as much as she brings healing, she also brings destruction. While she saves the town and the polyhedron, it’s at the cost of human sacrifice. While she is a miracle worker, her hands not only kill most people with their touch but she is also the embodiment of the plague. The very miracles and beliefs she uses to make things better all have an aspect of destruction and chaos to them.

Now someone please make art of all of them in costumes. Just please don’t put the cod piece on clara, I beg of you.

Poofy pants DanDan tho.

#homestuck #pathologic #classpect

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studiesinconnoisseurship · 4 years

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Leonardo - A Radical Suggestion

1 : INTRODUCTION

For those of us who operate in the Arts and not the Sciences, what is the difference, I wonder, between a hypothesis and a thesis? If both are based on research, is it mostly a degree of conviction? What begins as one can turn into the other. For my part, as I will set out in this essay, what began as an inkling regarding certain pictures ‘by Leonardo’ is now a genuine conviction which has become nailed to a Lutheran door, as it were, as an article of faith. There is something risky about it, it is provocative, radical in fact and will doubtless be considered heretical by those with a settled opposing view. My proposal is this: I believe that four paintings which currently bear the ‘Leonardo’ attribution are not by Leonardo, but the works of two other artists: three by Ambrogio de Predis and a fourth by an unknown hand. I will demonstrate how, using methods of connoisseurship, it is possible to discern the techniques of these other artists in the paintings whilst also offering comparisons to genuine works by Leonardo. I will be looking at the following paintings (left to right): The Virgin of the Rocks (National Gallery London), Ginevra de Benci (National Gallery Washington), Portrait of a Musician (Ambrosiana, Milan) and Lady with the Ermine (presently at Wawel Museum Krakow)

Opinions such as these are likely to provoke outrage quickly turning to contemptuous dismissal, especially among the curators of the galleries concerned. The National Gallery in London, for example, despite already owning the genuine Leonardo Cartoon of the Virgin and Child with St Anne – a drawing, albeit a large one – has placed a great deal of significance in its claim to owning an important painting by the same. Similarly, the National Gallery in Washington has accepted its Ginevra de’ Benci as authentic Leonardo for so long, it has appeared in so many books on him and been seen as his by so many gallery visitors, that any suggestion to the contrary is likely to be dismissed as weird or ridiculous. The portrait of the Lady with the Ermine at Krakow is so confidently ascribed to Leonardo that she even became the poster-girl for the 2011 Leonardo exhibition in London.

In view of this expected hostility I feel it prudent to revert to the more tentative position of having a hypothesis or hunch, a voice that says ‘Suppose that this is the case, what are the arguments for it, what is the visual evidence?’ Hence the title of this Study: a supposition or ‘radical suggestion’.

Before looking in detail at pictures and drawings it is helpful to reconsider what kind of a man Leonardo was. What impression do we gain from all his drawings and notebooks, the records of his thinking? Surely it is of a person of immense curiosity. Mentally he was always moving on, investigating the forms and mechanisms of life, inventing solutions to problems, addicted to exploring the variety, complexity and sheer beauty of anything he encountered. There was, however, a synthetic aspect to his imagination as well as the analytic one, and every now and again he turned to painting and through it gave expression to that poetic rather than scientific side of his nature. This switch occurred at intervals in a life otherwise devoted to description, analysis and problem-solving. Hardly a day passed, one imagines, without him drawing and making notes, but months, even years may have passed in which he was not painting, though a painting awaited his return to it. Even without the subtractions I would make, what has survived of his painted oeuvre is small relative to that of any other major artist one can think of. Painting was not a constant preoccupation of his life, though he took its practice seriously and was interested in its status vis-a-vis other arts.

I : LONDON AND PARIS

The Virgin among the Rocks - National Gallery London

Given all this, what are we to make of the proposition that Leonardo made a large-scale copy of one of his own works? How likely is it that such a restless mind would allow itself to be detained for as long as it would take to paint a huge version of a composition which he had earlier completed and from which he had mentally moved on? Even if some circumstance had forced this on him, would he not have taken the opportunity to make revisions of the composition far more radical than we see? Beethoven at the piano was inspired and inventive: when he took his hands off the keyboard and a lady exclaimed that she would never hear such a thing again, he replied, so the story goes, ‘oh yes you can, madam’ and started off again, yet not repeating himself but inventing along the way because he could not help doing so. The same is surely true of Leonardo, witness the profusion of compositional ideas scattered through his drawings.

The Virgin among the Rocks - Musée du Louvre Paris

The Louvre Virgin among the Rocks is authentic Leonardo, I have no doubt. The forms of the figures, the shape of their faces, the drawing-related observation of plants and rocks, the suggestiveness of the cavernous environment, and the warmth of the palette, are all entirely characteristic of him.

The Virgin among the Rocks - London (left) and Paris (right)

It is the status of the London version that one has to question. The composition is broadly the same, but the colour scheme is colder and bluer, the handling of paint heavier and more prosaic, the atmosphere sepulchrally chilly.

Detail of the Virgin’s head in both paintings

One of the differences between the Paris and London pictures is the lighting which affects, of course, the colouring. In Paris we have a light reminiscent of evening, the western sun to our left; faces, hands and naked bodies glow with a golden warmth. The arm of the infant Saint John, pressing for balance on a ledge of rock, is like an arm in Caravaggio, lit dramatically with warm shadow. Despite the cold, damp, uncomfortable setting, there is the residual warmth of a day, embers of a fire that the angel’s red cloak under the greenish-grey mantle keeps alive. In London we have a lighting closer to moonlight, colder, whiter and bluer; the faces and bodies are illuminated more emphatically but less subtly. This relative heaviness and simplification does not suggest Leonardo but is characteristic of Ambrogio.

Colder blues in London, warmer lights cast in Paris

The circuitry - like a cat’s cradle - of hand gestures and eye focus that depends, in the Paris picture, on the Virgin’s left hand being poised above the angel’s pointing one, is broken in London by the latter’s omission; it is earthed instead by the long diagonal of the Christ-child’s cross. Something important is being left out and the resulting void is a central darkness that engulfs the raised hand of Saint John. Similarly, the beautiful iris and fern at lower left in Paris are replaced by less complicated flora not based, as Leonardo’s are, on drawn observation.

Top row - simplified plants featured in London painting; Centre - Leonardo’s studies of plants; Either side - more accurately observed plants featured in Paris painting

In London the rocks seem heavier and more depressive on the figures because they continue to the top and omit the arching of rock against sky which in Paris reinforces the Virgin’s ‘misericordia’ gesture as she puts her right arm round the head of her Son. The highlight in the gold mantle under her blue robe has a more complicated and spirited calligraphy in Paris and is omitted altogether where it appears in the Paris angel’s shoulder-wrap.

Leonardo’s eye for capturing the highlights and shadows of draped fabrics, clockwise from top left: Three drapery studies; Angel’s robe in Paris ‘Rocks’; Virgin’s hem in Paris ‘Rocks’; Madonna of the Carnation (Alte Pinakothek); detail from Mona Lisa (Musée du Louvre)

A theme in these Studies, and one of the insights that connoisseurship constantly throws up, is that how an artist draws will often if not always be reflected in how that artist paints; pencil and brush are used in similar ways. If, as I suggested earlier, Leonardo drew every day, it is very likely that when he painted, especially when he used a fine brush for more detailed final delineations, of plant stems or the highlights on sleeve-folds for example, we will see a resemblance between his mark-making with a brush and his mark-making with pen or pencil, chalk or silverpoint. And so it is, as these examples show.

Material details - fabric folds in Paris (left) and London (right) paintings

In the London version these final touches are absent because Ambrogio did not have Leonardo’s curiosity about natural forms, and his representations of them are inevitably more generalised and emblematic. Were I a supporter of the Leonardo attribution for the London picture, this omission would worry me greatly. Turn to drawings by Ambrogio, on the other hand, and one sees at once the coarser grain that is evident in the London Rocks.

Facial types in works by Ambrogio show wide eyes like those in London 'Rocks’

One begins to think that some of the challenges of making a replica of the Paris picture were just too demanding for the copyist, hence his omissions and the substitution of linear props like the cruciform staff, the haloes, and the vertical hemline of Mary’s robe. The major difference, however, remains the chromatic one: doing away with the angel’s red robe, combined with the loss of a quintessentially Leonardesque relationship between that red and the green, blue and yellow-gold in Paris, seems the surest sign of all that we are not looking at Leonardo’s work in London but at that of an artist who is happiest working with a palette of cold blues and browns.

2 : WASHINGTON

Cold blues and browns: that is what we find, among other signs, in the Ginevra de’ Benci at Washington (above) - the brown in the bodice, the blue-brown landscape beyond a sallow moon-face. particularly noticeable in that face are the high temple above eyes far apart, and cheekbones even farther apart with shadow under them level with nostrils, making mouth and chin seem disproportionately small. This is not a Leonardo construction of a face, but if one turns back to the London Virgin among the Rocks, it is there in the angel’s face and the Christchild’s though to a less exaggerated degree.

Noticeable, too, are the heavy upper and lower lids to rather long eyes. Here are some drawings, plausibly by Ambrogio de Predis, which reinforce these features as typical of his style.

Recurrent in them is a certain heaviness, an overemphatic modelling and lighting, the strange eyes, the long, broad nose, and a scale that seems to enlarge as one ascends from the chin.

There is a further feature to remark on in the Ginevra and that is the treatment of hair strands and hair curls: they look metallic, as if made from fine picture wire, and the curls are tightly coiled as we see in several drawings. This is Leonardesque in general - it reminds one of his deluge drawings and water studies - but Leonardo the painter does not apply the curling tongs in such a steely manner, there is more poetic sfumato blending the ringlets into shadow, exposing here, losing there. They should not assume more importance than the facial features.

Ginevra de Benci’s tight curls as compared with those from works by Ambrogio - there is a further connection between the painting (bottom left) of St John the Baptist and the inscription on the reverse of Ginevra’s portrait

If I seem to denigrate Ambrogio de Predis vis-a-vis Leonardo it is because the distinction to be made is not just of style but of quality. His way of painting, as of drawing, is heavier, colder, cruder and far less poetically evocative. To make a version of a Leonardo on the scale of the London Virgin among the Rocks is undoubtedly impressive and Ambrogio is a very accomplished artist, but when attribution is at stake it should be recognised, after due consideration and comparison, that his painting in London is nothing like as good as the Paris original. On every measure the Louvre picture is superior. As for the Ginevra, just put it beside La Belle Ferroniere or Mona Lisa, (below) and see how it fails on both connoisseurship counts, likeness and quality.

3 :MILAN

There is another ‘Leonardo’ that fits well with these attributions, and that is the unfinished Portrait of a Musician at the Ambrosiana in Milan (above), a painting which Giovanni Morelli long ago assigned to Ambrogio, I think correctly. We are presented here with a memorable face and a convincing portrait of an individual, but once again the exaggerated lighting, the shape of the eyes and lids, the mouth, the wire-like curls and the low-slung cheekbone that is level with the nostril and far from the eye, betray, when taken together, the style of Ambrogio, not Leonardo.

The Portrait of a Musician and three works by Ambrogio all displaying similarly wide eyes and facial types - Head of Francesco Melzi; Portrait of a Young Man; Head of Bacchus

It is a style that produces an impression of forceful character, but just because it errs on the side of being over-determined it lacks the subtler sfumato, the more reticent but mysterious presence that is the ‘poesia’ of Leonardo. This is more assertively a portrait, but Leonardo, who was no more interested than Michelangelo was in the individual - and therefore not at heart a portraitist at all -aspires to a more universal and depersonalised image, the sublimated type of Mona Lisa. The contrast between the two men is admittedly disguised somewhat by the assimilation to Leonardo’s manner - Ambrogio was, after all, his close associate and admirer and his work is more nearly Leonardesque than most of the master’s followers - but the differences are there to be discerned and if we do not discern them I fear that our conception of Leonardo the painter will remain blurred by inconsistencies that distort our proper understanding of his development. He did develop, but credibly, not by suddenly adopting a new palette or a new way of constructing a face.

4 : KRAKOW

The focus of this Study being on what is, and is not, by Leonardo, I can leave Ambrogio now and turn to a work not by him but not, I believe, by Leonardo either, accepted though it usually is as an important example of his art: the Lady with the Ermine portrait of Cecilia Gallerani at Krakow. Whatever one’s theory about its authorship, few would disagree that it is a work of high quality, beauty and sophistication, almost certainly from the best years of its maker.

With that tribute to the work I shall cut to the quick of the connoisseurship argument by setting it between three other items (clockwise from top right): a painted Portrait of a Lady from the Musée Jacquemard André in Paris, a very impressive portrait drawing of a Woman, from the Uffizi Gabinetto and a profile Portrait of a Woman from the Kress Collection at Washington.

The salient features linking them are the smooth Bronzino-ish modelling, the profiles, the flesh colour, the treatment of folds in sleeves, and the form of the long-fingered hands. That curious pose of Cecilia’s right hand with its long and separated digits is not to be found, I think, in genuine Leonardo, but we shall see that it recurs in this master’s work.

With these initial comparisons in mind one can go on to other drawings and paintings bearing similar characteristics. The very soft muzzy shading within fine linear contours and hairline comes again in a drawing from the Pembroke collection at Wilton House; the woman’s profile repeats that of the Lady in the Kress painting.

Profile of a Woman - Wilton House

At Windsor, in the Leonardo corpus, are three studies of feet, one a child’s, that are clearly in the style of the drawing of the Lady in the Uffizi and the Pembroke drawing. A further drawing, from the Ambrosiana in Milan, not only belongs with it in drawing style but also makes a link with the Krakow painting of Cecilia Gallerani.

One sees the fastidiously neat, centrally-parted coiffure, relatively slight eyebrows, long nose, similar mouth, pointed chin. Some of these items might even be of the same woman; however, it is similarity of type and style, not identity of sitter, that is relevant for attribution, and as a group these drawings and paintings already suggest a common style and a common authorship that is distinct from what we recognise as ‘Leonardo’, and distinct also from Ambrogio de Predis. An artistic personality begins to emerge that makes the attribution of the Krakow picture to Leonardo seem increasingly unsafe and improbable.

The improbability is only confirmed when one moves to a painting of the Virgin and Child with an Angel and Saint John at a museum in Budapest. Here is the Krakow hand; here the marmoreal smoothness and delicate blush to the cheek; here a deep wine-red under blue mantle (and over a black-striped white silk undergarment); here the brown colour (in Cecilia’s right forearm; the wooden border of the angel’s lute); here the precise coiffure, pointy chins, delicately defined finger and toe nails.

Painting of the Virgin and Child with St John shows near identical hand posture to Lady with the Ermine, as well as similarities to unattributed studies of a child’s head (Musée des Beaux Arts Caen) and an engraving of an Old Man (Metropolitan Museum New York)

Relevant to this work in Budapest is a drawing in the British Museum (below) where the Child’s hand raised in benediction is much the same, and the Virgin’s hands around Him similarly arthritic but almost claw-like.

Enhanced close-up of the hand from the drawing showing a similarly “double-jointed” hand to that of the Lady with the Ermine

A much annotated drawing in the Uffizi, purporting to be of Beatrice d’Este, shows the Krakow Master’s refined line, but adding eyelashes which Cecilia Gallerani lacks. There are similarities between this Uffizi drawing and a supposed self-portrait drawing of Melzi at Bayonne: the same smooth modelling and combed hairlines (below).

Mention should be made at this point of an earlier, very charming work, a reliquary from the Sanctuary at Crea which has a portrait on one side of the Marchese di Monferrato and on the other his wife, Anna d’Alencon.

The portrait of the Marchesa is particularly close to the Krakow portrait, not in date but in profile, shape of face and facial features, treatment of hair, black necklace, juxtaposition of brown and slate blue.

More paintings and drawings, some in pen and ink, could be introduced to flesh out the career of this artist and take it back to its beginnings or forwards, to the Sforza Altarpiece; but for present purposes enough, I hope, has been garnered to make the case that the picture, fine though it is, is not by Leonardo but by another artist working at or near the height of his powers.

5 : CANON

Between the subtractions from the current Leonardo canon that I have proposed above and some additions to it that I would like to put forward for consideration, we can usefully mention what remains that is generally undisputed. With regard to early work there is room for dispute. I would argue, pace Vasari, against his having painted an angel in Verrocchio’s Baptism, on the ground that I see no difference between the two angels in the way they are painted, and that that way was Verrocchio’s way, as a drawing by him makes clear.

Verrocchio’s Baptism of the Christ and drawings of the Head of an Angel (Uffizi) and the Head of a Woman (Christchurch)

On another occasion I would at least cast doubt on Leonardo’s hand in the painting of the Virgin’s and angel’s heads in the Uffizi Annunciation while not denying that he contributed to other parts of both that picture and the Verrocchio Baptism. There is also an argument to be made about the authenticity of the much repainted Benois Madonna in the Hermitage.

The Benois Madonna (left, attributed to Leonardo) bears similarities in style with the Virgin from Verrocchio’s Annunciation (right)

Apart from numerous drawings, the London Cartoon among them, we are left with the five pictures in the Louvre (Madonna of the Rocks,Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, Mona Lisa, La Belle Ferroniere, and Saint John the Baptist); the Madonna with the Carnation at Munich; the Last Supper fresco at Milan, the unfinished Adoration of the Kings in the Uffizi; and the unfinished Saint Jerome in the Vatican. What, if anything, can be added?

Leonardos at the Louvre

Leonardos around the world

5 : ADDENDA

I have not seen, nor do I know the location of, this probably small painting - perhaps a fragment, perhaps of the head of the Virgin (below). It was once in a private collection in Lugano, but is known to me only from a small but fortunately colour reproduction in an obscure catalogue of an exhibition of ‘Masterpieces of European art’ compiled by Amadore and Tony Porcella, at Tally Ho, Las Vegas, in 1963.

The book is a curious miscellany with some questionable attributions, but this one image has stuck in my mind and I remain as strangely confident now as I was when I first saw it that the original, if one knew where it was, would turn out to be a genuine early work by Leonardo, as the Porcellas claimed.

Place this image next to the renowned drawing at Turin of a woman’s head, and it is fairly easy to turn that head around a little and down a little to get the same or a very similar physiognomic type that is classic Leonardo. Place it against the Angel’s head in the Louvre Virgin among the Rocks and much the same match is achieved, with also, significantly, the same combination of red and green from a palette that is decidedly warm - the necessary warmth of an umber ground for anything to be by Leonardo.

Faces in drawings by Leonardo compared with Porcella image

Colours in both Porcella image and Louvre Virgin of the Rocks

My other proposal on the credit side is a painting at Wilton House near Salisbury, one of a number of extant pictures on the theme of Leda and the Swan, a subject known from his drawings to have occupied Leonardo’s attention. This Wilton Leda is ascribed to Cesare da Sesto.

Leda and the Swan attrib. Cesare da Sesto - Wilton House

When I saw this Leda in the National Gallery’s 2011 Leonardo exhibition I remarked to my companion ‘Isn’t this good enough to be Leonardo’s?’ and added, to myself, ‘but I suppose the experts know something we don’t’. Now, after further consideration - seeing how faithful all aspects of the picture are to the pictorial language and practice of Leonardo, and finding in the language and practice of Cesare da Sesto nothing that convinces me that he could mimic Leonardo’s so perfectly - I simply ask of those experts: if I am missing something on the visible surface of that picture that clearly demonstrates that it must be by Cesare da Sesto and cannot be by Leonardo, please provide an equally visual argument to explain that case. To my eye the head of Leda is nowhere near the characteristic female head in Cesare’s work, but is extremely close to well-known drawings by Leonardo.

Examples of Faces in works by Cesare da Sesto - details from Madonna and Child with the Lamb; Study of a Man’s Head; detail from Madonna and Child with Sts John and George

Studies for Leda and the Swan by Leonardo at Chatsworth (Top Left) and the Royal Collection at Windsor

The warm palette and all the background and foreground of the composition are likewise relatable to Leonardo and to studies by him of mountains, children and plants.

The children in the painting are reminiscent of sketches by Leonardo

Landscape details can also be compared to studies by Leonardo, like those at the Royal Collection

Of course artists make copies of work by other artists, but in doing so they cannot help unconsciously introducing traces of their own habitual styles of figuration, physiognomy and palette. We know that even an artist with a conscious desire to deceive people (who therefore studies what he copies very carefully) betrays these personal idiosyncrasies. The Wilton picture, I suggest, merits consideration as authentic Leonardo. It is a work of remarkable quality, better, surely, than anything Cesare da Sesto ever achieved, and I would be quite happy to see it slipped into the oeuvre of Leonardo pittore, somewhere, at a guess, before Mona Lisa, because of the less veiled and mysterious landscape. I would add that what could be an autograph study for, rather than after, the head of the Wilton Leda is a beautiful grisaille (11 by 8in) sold by Christie in New York on 7 Dec 1977.

6 : CONCLUDING

I hope that this Study and its predecessors helps to demonstrate to anyone sceptical of the value of connoisseurship that, in common with any form of criticism, it is not a science but definitely a discipline, and one moreover that, properly practised, with plenty of close visual comparison can lead to a reappraisal, sometimes, as here, quite radical, of some of the leading lights in our pictorial heritage.The word ‘close’, however, is to be emphasised. There is no point in having a juxtaposition like this one (below) from a recent National Gallery exhibition catalogue, where the drawing is insufficiently similar to the detail in the painting and bears no resemblance to any drawing by Leonardo. Comparison must be accurate enough to advance an argument rather than spread confusion.

There is no lack of attention paid to Leonardo, but it is too often of a kind that produces claims of authenticity such as the Salvator Mundi of current fame, which connoisseurship, if applied, could show to be misplaced.

Alternatively, attention is of the kind that is not radical enough and tends to re-present the same items from one monograph or exhibition to the next, simply because it would look strange to omit them. The accumulated weight of past opinion confirms the rightful place of, say, the Ginevra de’ Benci in any presentation of Leonardo the artist. If it becomes unthinkable to leave her out, it becomes ever more eccentric to question her inclusion; so she is re-displayed or re-produced ‘on the nod’, with no questions asked.

There are, sad to say, vested interests at work here. The Ginevra, like so many famous images, belongs in, and to, a famous museum. Its curators, and curators everywhere, develop a quasi-proprietorial relationship with ‘their’ collections that is not so very different from that of private collectors. Naturally they do not want to risk asking, or inviting, questions that could undermine the prestigious status of a work in their care, lest doubts should lead to a less prestigious one. The reputation of connoisseurship itself has unfortunately been tainted by practitioners having these or other sorts of vested interest. Unattached to any institution I am powerless but lucky in this respect at least: being a private researcher I have no vested interest at all. Whether a picture is by Leonardo da Vinci or by Ambrogio de Predis is of no concern to me beyond my desire to ascribe it correctly, no matter who owns it or what its market value may be.

For all sorts of unquantifiable reasons I value Leonardo. I hope that the questions I raise here may lead to a more coherent, less inconsistent picture of his enduringly beautiful art.

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celestialholz · 4 years

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So, let’s talk about The Folly of Jephthah...

Spoiler-y review ahead, friends! Under a cut accordingly. (Spoiler, but not one you need to be saved from: bloody LOVED IT. <3)

Okay, so unpopular opinion: last year’s Flambeau ep did nothing for me. As much as I love Felicia and am always happy to see her return (although this is the first thing I’ve seen from this year’s series, I’m sure she’s a joy this time round too), I felt balancing the episode between her and Flambeau just didn’t work, which is a shame because the actual episode plot was great. He got half the screentime, very little of his normally electric chemistry with FB, and it felt like an absolute waste of the brilliance that is John Light. So beyond anything else, I was desperately hoping that series eight would bring back all of the above; that he’d grow, both as a character and in his acquaintance with the good Father, which is what I want from a Flambeau episode, and that we’d get to see Felicia shine in her own right in a different tale. Now, probably worth mentioning that I ship Flambeau and the Father to the moon and back (#geniushusbands), but that really wasn’t why the episode didn’t work. It didn’t work because neither of them got the time they deserved, and instead became one another’s plot, which is doing a severe disservice to both - they’re strong characters who can more than carry an episode alone. You’ll find no slander from me, Felicia/Flambeau pals - you’re all super valid. Personal preference alone. :)

... But I think perhaps the BBC felt the same way, at least about the time balance, because what we got was an incredible return to form for my favourite Frenchman that isn’t Jean-Luc Picard. We managed to firmly reestablish the wonderful friendship/fairly profound gay overtones of him and FB, at the same time as watching him actually become something of a dad. Allow me to elaborate on why this was so damn amazing...

a) Instant exposition. We’re immediately in on Flambeau, all the reasons why we love him condensed in two or three minutes - flirting, charm, manipulation, theft. Let’s go. THIS is what we were missing last year already.

b) THE CHEMISTRY. IT’S RETURNED. I LOVE IT. I’m obviously a touch biased here, but I’ve never met a Father Brown fan who doesn’t love the dynamic between these two, whether it’s seen platonically, in a familial sense, or romantically. We only get to see this glory once a year, and it came back in all its fully-fledged chaos. Mark and John are absolutely fantastic together, truly. <3 We start with this lovely confessional scene (the GROWTH from The Blue Cross conversation in the same place is just moving, honestly - we need a proper side-by-side comparative, really. I can’t do graphics, please help lol), and we just have this delicious banter; neither is particularly harsh, again showing the growth of friendship over time, but it’s to the point and snappy. Kit Lambert understands that we need to go places but also be instantly grabbed, and it’s managed so well.

c) The fakeout! The fact it was his daughter, and then it wasn’t, but no, hang on, IT BLOODY IS. That’s just a microcosm of how Marianne’s learned from Flambeau that we see more in-depth throughout, and it’s so clever.

d) Flambeau trusts FB. With his daughter’s entire life choices. “There is no man I trust more” indeed... I cherish that this is a spiritual sequel to series four’s episode - Marianne was a whole waste of a single episode character, and she’s absolutely brilliant here too. You see everything she was then, all the potential, all the heart beneath the lack of morality... eurgh. I love her. Gill does an epic job here of balancing these different aspects and still making her so convincing as Flambeau’s daughter.

e) Dad vibes. Seriously, so many dad vibes, from both of them. This is literally what happens when you plot something with one of your parents as a kid, and the other disapproves, and there’s a mini battle in your house but you know it’s all fine because they each love you and you love them. It’s so stupidly sweet that they have this dynamic, that’s been built on from The Cat of Mastigus’s family vibe. Where’s the crime family AU where they bring her up? I’ll write it one day, probably...

f) The general family vibe of the whole thing. My god. Just... Bunty fully believing he won’t hurt anyone? That little Mrs M kiss? Brown just permanently knowing that he won’t go too far, that he’ll have that innate knowledge of where to stop; that he’d never just abandon her to her fate? Brown absolutely trusting Mrs M to be the bag carrier, again knowing that she won’t be hurt? That Flambeau looks so damn offended when Marianne’s eating scones with them? Kill me. Just murder me. It’s precious, without ever being too saccharine. It feels so damn in character for everyone and I adore it - it shows how far they’ve all come, and we didn’t get a damn shred of that last year. It was still very much Flambeau and Brown against the gang, and we see that develop amazingly this time around from past series. <3

g) ... FB is just having far too much fun with all of this, bless him. It’s like “Make us a plan, dear priest”, and suddenly you’ve got chess pieces and elaborate riddles and the man who doesn’t judge as the awkward judge, and it’s fantastic. I really enjoy these moments when you see how bored FB is of his quaint life, that he needs these nuances and intellectual challenges because as much as he loves his vocation, his family and his congregation, they aren’t quite enough to keep him fully happy. I love the role they gave him in this, more as an overseer; the formula of him and Flambeau racing off and being naughty is great and I’ll never tire of it, but this was a different take and it worked so damn well.

h) The dynamic between Marianne and Flambeau is exceptional. It builds so well from what we saw of them before, what we often see of Flambeau; that we’ve always had this guy who is supremely immoral but actually cares far too much, is very afraid of being damaged even more, and so hides behind this intellectual shield until he can’t anymore. We’ve got that constant oneupsman/womanship that we’re so used to with this delightful new spin, with a truly worthy adversary, and we learn so much more of the fact that Marianne really is a chip off the old block - a villain with far too much heart, whilst also being fully her own character. The interplay between them and FB is even better here than it was in series four and it’s a damn delight to watch. The different ways they approached their acquisition of the pieces, too, was just engaging, and again spelled out both the similarities and the differences between them as characters.

i) That whole heel turn/constant twist thing that Flambeau brings is always amazing, but it’s just awesome here. Handcuffs into book stealing into Flambeau putting himself deliberately in danger, on the back foot, to save her, to her saving him... it’s just great. The best thing about Flambeau eps is that we never quite know where we’re going - he’ll win, but we never know how, or to what degree. I think we all know he was never going to shoot that poor guy, but hell, it still had me endlessly intrigued about how it was all going to go down, whether we’re be in fake death central again, whether he’d be properly injured in the process... gah. Just gah. The family reunion thing felt so very earned by the end, because not only had they been through the emotional wringer, but they’d gained one another’s respect... and in the kitchen, of all places. The family, watching the family reunite. Perfection. And it isn’t all sunshine and roses, which I appreciated immensely - you can’t fix abandonment so quickly, and it never felt like a full redemption, just a wonderful beginning. And he won, because of course he did. Beautiful, truly. <3

j) Chess. I don’t care how you wish to take that, that’s just... that’s peak gay, friends. Charged conversations over a chess board, full intellectual prowess on display, smiles all around, and Father Brown finally winning a confrontation between them? Look, I’m just saying, Father - asexuality is super valid. Just marry the man, good lord... but however you all viewed it, the point is, the single best part of Flambeau episodes is always the electricity between these two, and this whole chess thing just brings it front and centre. This is why I felt bereft last season, because we just didn’t get any of this absolute magic, and that was the true crime of the episode. My personal thanks to Kit Lambert for bringing this wonder back. <3

Tl;dr: Flambeau’s back, folks, and he’s better than ever. Found family, actual family, duplicity, scheming, and a very, very bored priest to tie it all magnificently together. God, I hope the rest of the series is this good... <3

#father brown #father brown spoilers #flambeau #marianne

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tshepiso-reads-books · 4 years

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Prepare For a Rant | Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

Started: February 10th, 2020

Finished: February 14th, 2020

I have a lot of thoughts about Lair of Dreams [Goodreads] and most of them are negative. It took me what felt like several lightyears to finish this book and the reading experience sapped the joy of reading out of me for a while. This is going to be a long one folks, so buckle in. Before we jump into things I’d like to warn that this is going to be a spoilerific review so heed my warning before you jump in.

Lair of Dreams takes place shortly after the events of the first book in this series The Diviners. The city is on the cusp of an all-out outbreak as more and more cases of Sleeping Sickness, a mysterious illness that causes the afflicted to fall asleep and never wake up again, are cropping up in Chinatown. While the gang goes on wildly different adventures in this book they all ultimately come together to solve the mystery of the sleeping sickness.

On Character

My biggest problem with this book is the characters. They’re selfish, self-centered, naïve and don’t understand that actions hurt others. This is most evident in Evie, but every character in the book has moments of this scattered throughout the novel. However, I feel uncomfortable throwing this fact as a criticism of the book because all of these characteristics are fundamental character traits of teenagers and I find it obtuse to criticize a young adult novel for accurately writing teenaged protagonists. But I can’t divorce this understanding from how absolutely infuriating I found so many moments in this book.

I will say just because our protagonists, and especially Evie, were annoying doesn’t mean they didn’t have depth. Libba Bray is a good writer and fully fleshed out every character in this book mellowing some of my frustrations with them. The perfect example of this is Sam Lloyd. The bad boy character archetype has been done to death in YA, but Sam stands apart from the crowd of tousled haired edge-lords by having a tragic backstory with legitimate weight to it. His search for his mother never felt like an afterthought or quirk. I genuinely felt his deep desire to find the truth and it made him well rounded. The same could be said about all the other characters in the story.

Evie was the only character I truly hated while reading this book. I understand the reason why Evie is the way she is and how her past influenced her bad behavior. But understanding that her PTSD and trauma are the cause of her actions was never enough to get me to sympathize with her. Every single character in this book has been through just as much if not more than she has and they never went as far as to abandon and betray their friends as consistently as Evie did. I could never get behind Evie, her selfishness went above and beyond teenaged immaturity and her inability to own up to her mistakes and change angered me.

Now on to Jericho Jones, my second least favorite character in this book. I genuinely liked Jericho in The Diviners, but his behavior in this book was appalling. I will admit he had the misfortune of falling into one of my least favorite tropes out there: “The Monster Inside Me“ [TV Tropes]. However, his particular brand of self-loathing went further than that. At the end of The Diviners Jericho was rejected by Evie causing a cycle of self-pity that verged on incel behavior. His constant monologuing about how “girls just don’t like guys him” was eye-roll inducing and his hurry to lash out at others because a girl he liked rejected him was gross. His actions depict a man who sees Evie as a prize rather than a human being.

Another problem I had with this book is how central protagonists from The Diviners were sidelined in the novel. It’s almost impossible in a reasonably sized book to follow eight different characters and give them all their due. The characters I feel most negatively effected by Bray’s shift in focus to new POVs were Memphis, Theta and Mabel. It would take over 500 more words to deep dive into my specific thoughts on each of their character arcs so in summation: these three were barely given anything to do and their character arcs didn’t move forward in any significant way. Mabel was given the harshest treatment of all because she had literally nothing to do in this book but pine after a guy who didn’t like her. No other character conflict she had from the previous book in this series was even mentioned or explored.

On Romance

Possibly my least favorite element in this book was its romantic subplot. So much page time was dedicated to it that it could reasonably be dubbed the main plot So here’s the rundown:

Mabel likes Jericho, but Jericho likes Evie.

Evie thinks she likes Jericho but doesn’t want to date him because of girl code.

Evie fake dates Sam and they both start catching feelings.

Jericho goes out with Mabel even though he knows that Mabel likes him and he still has feelings for Evie.

This is the kind of conflict I hate in books. This love triangle was so convoluted and contrived. It did nothing but make me hate Evie and Jericho, and I found none of the romantic tension exciting because the dynamics explored were built on a foundation of miscommunication and lies of omission.

On Representation

While I was pleasantly surprised by the anti-racism in The Diviners I was uncomfortable by the way some of the themes of diversity were explored in this book. In Lair of Dreams, we are introduced to Ling Chang a half Chinese girl with a recent case of infantile paralysis causing her to wear leg braces. She has a lot of self-hatred in regard to her disability. This trope while cliche wasn’t my problem, my problem was how this internal conflict is resolved. Another one of our protagonists, Henry, finds out about her disability and all her self loathing is resolved by him telling her she should love herself. This interaction is that it places Ling’s self-worth in the hands of an able-bodied person rather than focusing this her arc on self-acceptance. As an able-bodied person, I don’t want to cry ableism without shouting out actual disabled people’s voices on the matter so I would highly encourage you to seek out these voices. I’ve yet to encounter an ownvoices reviewer’s thought on Ling’s arc (believe me I looked) and this observation should in no way take away anything from disabled people who appreciated Bray’s writing.

There is so much that Bray does right when it comes to diversity and representation. I find her honest depictions of America’s ugly history timely and relevant and I admire her willingness to starkly show anti-semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, police brutality of the time. She clearly parallels America’s history with America’s present reminding you not so subtly that these toxic ideas still exist. I will warn readers that Bray graphically depicts racist imagery and I found the descriptive scenes of lynch mobs and the like very upsetting so be prepared for that.

One aspect of Bray’s depiction of American society I really liked was her pointed observation of the link between Evangelical Christianity and racism and xenophobia. I also liked how she depicted the ways people use American Exceptionalism (the idea that Americans are inherently superior to all others and that their position as a dominant world power is a God-given right rather than luck and historic subjugation) as a justification for bigotry and all detractors of this ideology is consistently labeled as anti-American by the people who benefit from bigotry.

On Everything Else

I will say Lair of Dreams was fairly well-plotted. Though the mystery element of this book very much felt like a subplot with the character conflicts taking center stage. While I didn’t find the sleeping sickness as outright terrifying as Naughty John in the first book Bray is good at building tension and suspense and the final climactic scene did get my heart racing. Bray’s ability to capture a creepy gothic atmosphere shines in this book and I loved her interlude chapters that showed brief snippets of our characters and the city itself.

Stars 🌟🌟🌟

I don’t know where I stand with this series. I found so much of the reading experience frustrating, but I am still invested in so many of the characters in the series and I would like to see how the final mystery unfolds. We’ll see if I continue on with the series because right now I don’t know.

#So... I had feelings #Libba Bray #The Diviners #Lair of Dreams #long post #remember when I reviewed the DIviners and I said Jericho was my favourite #things change

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thesublemon · 5 years

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songs of impotence and experience

In the last couple years, I’ve revisited a lot of the things that were meaningful to me when I was younger. I’m not exactly sure why I did that. Some nostalgia. Some curiosity about whether they held up. Some sense that maybe I could get some insight into myself. Why did I love the things I loved at a time when my id was more unfiltered? What did the younger version of myself need art about that maybe the adult version doesn’t?

A lot of the works are superficially goofy genre shit, but space ships, aliens and made-up words never really felt like it was what I loved about them. My taste was just as indiscriminate as a kid as it is now, which meant I read and watched and liked a wide variety of things. Proper literary things, even. I don’t think it’s an accident that I often connect(ed) with superficially goofy genre shit. Just like I don’t think it’s an accident that a different person might connect with musicals or period movies. But that’s an aspect of my personality to analyze another time.

No, what I realized was that all of these space-and-aliens-stories…on some level, were impotence stories. They’re stories about being manipulated by outside forces, or having shit stuck in you against your will. Stories about parasites. Stories about going insane. And while those might sound like “intense” themes for a child or teenager to be preoccupied with (as if children and teenagers don’t feel things intensely), I realized that it actually made complete and utter sense. When you’re young it feels like things are constantly just happening to you. Adults make decisions for you. Society makes demands of you. It’s hard to know what power you even have, let alone how to use it. Of course I’d relate to impotence.

I remember being obsessed with Ender’s Game. I don’t even know how many times I read it between the ages of 8 and 12. There was something in me that identified with being a pawn in an adult’s world, where your intelligence or your allegiance could be used to fight their wars and you’d have no control over it, no understanding of it. This sense that you were hurting others by proxy, fighting the wrong fights, because you didn’t understand how your power was being used. But that you had power. The feeling that if you were smart and special enough to be wanted, or to know that something was up, then you should have been smart enough to change the game.

Of course there’s arrogance in believing that you, a child, are so important that all of these adults want things from you. Arrogance in looking at a 6 year old military genius and going that speaks to me. But the truth is, adults do want things from children, even “unremarkable” children. They might want a child’s validation, obedience, affection, loyalty or even something as simple and benign as happiness. Being an unhappy child when you know your parents just want you to be all right? What a feeling of failure.

There was a sense that all of these adults—including but not limited to my parents—were invested in religion, or politics, or personal narratives, or some view of the world, and I had the power to reinforce it. I could grow up to be a good exemplar of their ideological beliefs, I could give them the feeling that I admired or needed them, I could pay them attention, I could tell them I believed them. But I couldn’t know whether doing those things was what I actually wanted. I couldn’t know if twenty years down the line I’d be yearning for an enemy’s forgiveness, and speaking for the dead.

Fast-forward to Farscape. Farscape is about a character who looks like he should be the hero. A character who knows the same hero stories we know, and thinks he should live up to them. But then the narrative makes him alien, and incompetent, and strips him of his every bit of cultural context and familiarity. In a narrative sense, it “feminizes” him. People want things from John Crichton, and it never has anything to do with him as a person (“Don’t be jealous Frau Blücher. He only loves me for my mind.”). Everyone is always hijacking his body and putting things into it. Microbes, needles, knowledge, chips. He spends most of the show with the villain literally living inside his head. An inescapable, macabre companion that aggressively dresses himself in the drag of Crichton’s psyche.

Language is a constant motif in Farscape, because language is how you communicate yourself. If you lack language, you’re impotent. You’re alien. It’s no coincidence that Crichton’s first moment of alien-ation is that he’s injected with translator microbes. It’s no coincidence that A Human Reaction flips repeatedly between how the alien characters sound to humans, and how they sound to Crichton. It’s no coincidence that the final horror of Die Me Dichotomy is that Crichton loses his power of speech. It’s no coincidence that Aeryn starts learning English, and Crichton starts quipping in Spanish. It’s no coincidence that Crichton starts the show speaking in incomprehensible human cultural references to aliens and ends up speaking in incomprehensible alien references to humans (“Fred Scarran. From the Gainesville Scarrans.”).

And not to be unbearably personal, but as a teenage girl who was going deaf, I responded to all of that. On a basic, physical level I felt like I was losing my ability to understand people, and by virtue of not understanding, becoming unable to make myself understood. A feeling of standing outside myself and watching myself become an alien. A feeling of invasion because I could no longer exist without technological augmentation. But there was also a gendered level. Being a girl and feeling like the world’s reaction to my physical form suddenly had consequences that it was up to me to either mitigate or capitalize upon. That sexuality was suddenly something I was supposed to be able to wield, and I had no idea how. This feeling that my body was betraying me both functionally and as my means of mediating between my Self and the world. In other words, a feeling that biology and social narratives were conspiring, like the universe in Farscape, to “feminize” me.

There was a cultural level too. I was aware of being in this American social moment that seemed grotesquely material and political. So are all moments in their own way, but I didn’t know that then. All I knew was that all these people cared about PT Cruisers and Super Size Me and Idiocracy and The Simple Life and Fahrenheit 911 and freedom fries and cartoons of Bush as a monkey. All these adults were begging for me to take a side about these things that felt stupid and ugly and profane. And none their interest in my side-taking had anything to do with me, anyway.

So at that time I wanted a hero’s journey that wasn’t a hero’s journey. I wanted a story about saying “fuck you” to the forces of the universe that were clutching at my hems and driving me insane, and going off to live as an alien and eking what joy I could from it. A story about saying “no” to the two equally evil sides of any evil, pointless war. I wanted a story about how maybe that made you a monster, or maybe that was a heroic thing to do. Maybe there was something horrible about it, but maybe there was something wonderful in it too.

Rewind to Animorphs. The whole concept of a Yeerk in your head using your body and speaking out your mouth. If my attraction to Ender’s Game was in part about the fear that adults and institutions were hijacking my abilities, then Animorphs was about the fear that the adults themselves were hijacked. There’s real horror in the idea that your mom isn’t your mom and your friends aren’t your friends, but prisoners trapped in their own minds, being piloted by an outside force. The fear that you’d have to re-interpret your every interaction with the people you admired or cared about, looking for ulterior motives. The feeling that say, your parent isn’t speaking their own beliefs, but rather acting as a mouthpiece for their country or their neuroses or an ad on TV.

One might rightfully observe, well isn’t that just They Live or Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Rhinoceros for kids? Yes, in part. But there’s the additional, crucial fact that these Yeerks only steal people’s bodies because they’re planet-bound slugs otherwise. The Yeerks aren’t an impersonal disease, and Controllers aren’t mindless zombies. The Yeerks are Pilots, just wanting to see the stars. Pilots that didn’t wait meekly for a Leviathan to take them or a PK to tempt them, but went and conquered an empire’s worth of sentient creatures themselves. Pilots we’re primed to see as disgusting instead of pitiable or majestic because they’re just slimy little slugs, right? The Yeerks are the antagonists because they’re the idea that powerlessness begets powerlessness. They’re the idea that you may feel impotent, but growing up to control others just makes you the villain.

It makes sense that the Animorphs are shapeshifters, and young, not just because whatever, these are technically books for children and turning into animals sounds cool. I like to imagine there’s some symbolism about flexibility there. It reminds me of His Dark Materials and the way that a child’s daemon has no settled form. An impossible circumstance? You morph. You don’t take and conquer; you change.

(I’m not reading too much into things when I say that. The books draw parallels between the Yeerks and the Animorphs from the very beginning. Marco pointing out in #1 The Invasion that Tobias wants to escape his life as badly as a voluntary Controller does. Cassie worrying in #4 The Message that they dominate the animals they morph the way the Yeerks dominate their hosts. Later in #16 The Warning they’ll debate the morality of morphing people. “Controlling” versus “morphing” is one of the most central dichotomies of Animorphs, one the Animorphs themselves do not always land on the right side of.)

Disability themes are rampant. Everyone is trapped: Tobias as a hawk, Ax on Earth, hosts in their heads, Yeerks in their pools, the Animorphs in their war. To say nothing of the times the books get explicit about it, like the Andalite taboos around vecols or that final arc when they give the ward of disabled kids the morphing power. And the question every time is, which of two non-ideal options for dealing with some limitation are you going to take? Do you live as a hawk, or do you give up? When the Animorphs give the Auxiliaries the morphing power, it isn’t a triumphant moment. They do it so the kids can fight, like the Animorphs themselves had to. They do it knowing that the kids will die.

That sort of thing was the appeal of Animorphs. They were exciting, funny, imaginative page-turners, sure. But half of the reason they were page-turners was because they centered these terrible ethical quandaries, and devastating emotional choices. That’s the kind of thing that makes you pay attention in fiction: situations where you don’t know the way out, so you don’t know what will happen. The same way you don’t know what will happen once you realize that the adults can’t be trusted, or your life isn’t entirely your own.

Here are some things I think are interesting.

I think it’s interesting that both the morphing power in Animorphs and Leviathans in Farscape are the things those works treat as something that can be profaned. Morphing may be described in gruesome, body horrific detail, but nonetheless an animal’s power is treated as something to be respected and used to fight. So David abusing morphing is profane. Visser Three morphing is profane. Similarly, forcing Moya to give birth to a gunship is profane. Cutting Pilot’s arms off is profane. The clones eating the walls of the ship in Eat Me is profane. And both of those, morphing and Moya, are symbols of transformation. Morphing in the obvious sense, and Moya in the sense of a guardian or shepherd or mother. The sacred instrument of your journey.

I think it’s interesting that the protagonists of all three stories change, but not necessarily for the better.

I think it’s interesting that all three stories involve loving and understanding the Other. Both Farscape and Animorphs are full of important interspecies relationships: Tobias and Rachel, Elfangor and Loren, Dak and Aldrea (it’s potentially relevant that Jake and Cassie are an interracial relationship too), or John and Aeryn, D’argo and Chiana (and Lolaan), Zhaan and Stark, Scorpius and Sikozu. Both Animorphs and Ender’s Game involve the protagonists—and the audience, by extension—learning “humanizing” things about the aliens that they’re fighting against. Aliens that have forms that they are not inclined to empathize with.

I think it’s interesting that Animorphs has a lot of the same parasitism versus symbiosis themes that Farscape does, but takes them in a direction that has less to do with sex and breeding (because as unbelievably dark as Animorphs gets they’re still books for kids) and more to do with authority. Where Farscape is full of half-breeds and genetic atrocities, Animorphs is full of gods and Galateas. In Farscape, parasitism versus symbiosis is about becoming alien in a positive way, or a self-directed way, versus being forced into alienation. Loving the Other versus being made Other. Birth imagery versus rape imagery. Whereas in Animorphs parasitism versus symbiosis is about control versus autonomy. How are people supposed to satisfy their competing desires without taking away other people’s agency? How much power should authorities have over the people they’re responsible for (and responsible to)?

#26 The Attack was always one of my favorite Animorphs books because of the way it drew parallels between all of these pseudo-children and their creators. The Pemalites made the Chee, Crayak made the Howlers, and Elfangor “made” the Animorphs. Then those children duke it out for the souls of the Iskoorts and the Yeerks. A literal war of symbiosis versus parasitism. The existence of the Pemalites and the Chee might lead one to think that creating children in your desired image is reasonable and ethical, because we all love dogs don’t we? And then you meet the Howlers, who are simultaneously pure innocents and terrifying killers. Creatures that think of killing as play, as a game of fetch, because that’s what they were made to be. The Howlers are dogs too. You realize that the Animorphs are their own kind of created beings. They were given powers to fight a war for someone else.

In other words, if you look at it a certain way, all of these children have been co-opted and controlled as much as Yeerks co-opt and control their hosts. Animorphs is deeply anti-war. And one of the main ways it’s anti-war is by painting war as something essentially parasitic. Something that chews people up. Something that traumatizes its protagonists from the word go. Something that forces you to make awful moral choices. Something that only happens when competing forces can’t resolve their needs in any other way. War is parasitic and parasitism leads to war.

I think it’s interesting that all of these stories involve war, and none of them are fond of it. They each question and deconstruct the genre of war story that they seem to belong to. Instead of telling a militaristic scifi story about crushing alien Others, and being led by nigh-mythological generals, Ender’s Game tells a militaristic scifi story about child soldiers, bureaucracy, misunderstanding the Other, and how although true genius and leadership exists, it can rarely outsmart the military apparatus that controls it. Instead of telling a campy Power Rangers tale about the wonders of friendship, Animorphs was intended, by the author’s own admission, to be a “grunts-eyed view” of combat that showed the “honest cost” of war. A group of guerrilla soldiers may form bonds and accomplish remarkable things, but their story will not end with medals or Ewok revelry. Instead of telling a utopic Star Trek story where humans are powerful and advanced and have near-imperial influence, Farscape tells a story about how humans are weak and clannish, and advanced imperial powers wage wars based on nothing better than conquest or mercenary interest. Crichton becomes a kind of warrior to defend himself, but he never becomes a soldier. He leads no armies or rebellions. He is nothing more than a bargaining chip in other people’s conflicts. The protagonists of all three stories wrestle with the guilt of having had to kill their enemies on a massive scale, and innocents along with them.

I think it’s interesting how embodied these stories are. There was something novel and arresting to my young brain, reading Peter’s jokes about pubic hair, or the descriptions of Ender smashing a boy’s nose. The feeling of a monitor in your neck, gravity and anti-gravity, the grappling shower fight. It feels uncomfortable and deliberate that these children are described in the “gross”, physical way that adults in boot-camp war stories normally are. There was something mesmerizing about all those descriptions of morphing. Every book there’d be paragraphs on paragraphs about teeth rearranging, legs sprouting, eyes popping, bones liquefying. Descriptions of the hunger and fear (and sometimes delight) of animals. Descriptions of horrifying battle wounds. Limbs removed, intestines spilling out, being eaten alive by ants. There was something affirming in how sexual, and how disgusting Farscape was. That even the puppets got horny, and John and Aeryn kissed like they meant it. That people ate and farted and were full of goo.

Change, symbiosis, bodies, war. I’m not going to overreach and claim that those themes necessarily go hand-in-hand with impotence, or that these three stories I happened to love indicate anything other than that they’re kind of story I happened to love. I recognize that I’ve glossed over potential interpretations or criticisms of these stories in order to draw the parallels that interest me. But I do think that war, i.e. super-personal conflict, and bodies are two of the most fundamental ways that power and selfhood get taken away. You lose yourself when you sign your will over to forces bigger than you, and you lose yourself when you die. Bodies are inextricable from mortality, and are a kind of shorthand for every natural circumstance you can’t control. Whereas change and symbiosis are the hopeful alternatives. Symbiosis means merging with something other, even bigger, than you, but in an inherently mutually beneficial way. You don’t get lost, because it wouldn’t be symbiosis if your needs weren’t being met, but you do become “more.” Change, in turn, implies agency. Nature and circumstance may transform you—transform you to the point of death—but you can also transform yourself. Change is a neutral force that anyone can potentially wield.

I don’t know that I need those stories anymore. I still love them, still find them meaningful (in fact I re-read some Animorphs to write this and I was taken aback by just how much I still honestly loved it). But I don’t recognize myself in them in quite the same way. Precisely, I think, because I do have power now. Not a lot. But I have a sense of what I’m good at, and what I can control. I dress how I like, think about what I like, talk to who I like. Having a body is a still a crock of shit, but that isn’t new information anymore. None of the ways I lack control over my life are new information anymore. And so there is less of a need to process the horror of it via fiction.

It was interesting rewatching Buffy, because Buffy was never something that I identified with when I was younger, despite the fact that it was a show about a teenage girl. Possibly because fundamentally, Buffy is a story about empowerment. Buffy has power. That’s the key thing about her. It’s true that like the characters in the other stories, she has been conscripted into a supernatural war against her will. She struggles with her agency, and is increasingly traumatized by the choices she has to make. But she wins. That is the point of her. She’s a classical hero. Her heroism is moving and satisfying because it’s never emotionally easy. It’s earned. But it’s still heroism.

So I was surprised that as an adult, I found myself relating to it. You might look at a season like season six, and think that that’s an impotence story, because a lot of it is about depression and when one is depressed one certainly feels impotent. But I see it more as a story about having agency and not knowing what the hell to do with it. The terror of “you have to make your own decisions now.” And most of the seasons are like that. They involve Buffy accepting some aspect of her power and growing up about it.

I notice a number of the stories I’ve been drawn to in my 20’s have had themes like that. I’ve found myself lingering on stories about women, and stories about confronting one’s agency. As a teenager, I loved Slings and Arrows, because Geoffrey Tennant was yet another character buffeted by outside forces (Art and Social Constraints On Art), with his own, art-related Harvey. But as an adult I was excited by Cayce Pollard instead. Someone who on the one hand is practically crippled by her responses to aesthetic stimuli, but on the other hand (a) uses this to practical effect, and (b) actually spends time examining to what extent her responses are disordered. I was similarly excited by Clarice Starling learning to pursue her taste in Hannibal.

It’s a weird shift, to realize you’re not powerless. It’s not necessarily a pleasant shift. It’s why I’ve never been compelled by empowerment stories that treat it as a triumphant, unambiguously positive thing. Stories that conflate having power with having the judgement or moral authority to use that power well. With great power comes great responsibility, but how do you know what the responsible thing to do even is? If you’re empowered by a story, all it really means is that it made you feel confident enough to make your own mistakes (or not-mistakes, of course) instead of someone else’s. Which can be quite a good and exciting thing. But it also means that if things go badly, it’s no-one’s fault but your own.

So I find that the stories about power that are most satisfying to me are actually stories about things like truth, judgment, and perseverance. Stories about solving problems. Stories about making decisions. Stories about fucking up and carrying on afterwards. Stories that treat self-possession as the hard work that it is.

I’m curious about what comes afterwards. Already I find myself itching for a new kind of story, but I’m not sure what. Maybe I’ll go back to needing the horror of powerlessness. Maybe I’ll find religion (the wonder of powerlessness). Maybe I’ll go full nihilism, or full hedonism. When I look at the next fifteen years of my life, I see work, but what stories does one need for that? Stories that explore the ideas that you want to explore yourself? It feels open-ended, in a way. For all that I’ve done all this talk about relating to stories, I’ve never actually explicitly gone looking for stories to relate to and identify with. That’s why I wrote this, really. It’s easy to see why I (or anyone) would be drawn to stories about people who looked me, or had the same experiences as me; less easy to see the deeper, more abstract concerns that speak to what one is preoccupied with. But even given that I’ve never had a very identitarian approach to art, I find myself caring less about relatability than ever. And maybe that’s a phase of development too. The phase at which you don’t so much need to process yourself as focus yourself. The phase at which your ego is secure enough that you can let your ego go, and be curious about other things.

#posts: art #posts: not-art #books: ender's game #books: animorphs #tv: farscape

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loved-purposed-blessed · 4 years

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Devotion: Ephesians

The Gospel Story (Ch. 1 - 3)

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

v. 1 - 2

Paul begins with a formal introduction before emphasising his authority under the living God. He doesn’t elaborate on himself, but shifts the reader’s focus to Christ and the Father almost instantly. Within the first sentence, Jesus is mentioned three times, while God is spoken of twice.

Paul clearly wants us to fix our eyes on the Most High and His beloved Son

In the following verses, special emphasis is given to the wording “in Christ” and ”in him”. Paul highlights the spiritual union and connection we share with our Saviour Jesus a total of ten times in today’s text. Only in relationship with Christ can we look forward to a meaningful and fulfilled future.

Keep that in mind as you read on. Christ and God’s sovereign will are central throughout Ephesians.

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

v. 3 - 4

After Paul’s initial greetings, he praises God for His goodness and mercy in sending His Son to die for us. The passage from verse 3 onwards (a doxology) serves as an expression of worship to the Lord.

Paul first clarifies the relationship between God and Jesus. Christ’s position to the Father is unique and ultimately the key to understanding God’s immeasurable love for us:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

John 3 : 16

Any parent can, on a small scale, understand the gravity of Jesus being God’s dearly loved Son. Yet, in order for us to find redemption, He didn’t spare Him. It is such a blessing to know, that the God and Father of Jesus is also our Father and God.

What’s even more amazing though, is that Christ died for us willingly. He was in on the plan! Jesus loves us just as much as the Father does:

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

John 15 : 13

Thank God for His unfathomable work on the cross through Christ Jesus! By accepting Christ’s sacrifice, God is able to give believers every blessing imaginable. He chose us before the beginning of time and is sanctifying us day by day. Through Christ’s death we have been made holy and blameless before God.

Is our relationship to the Father and our sanctification process a priority in our lives?

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In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

v. 5 - 10

In the next couple of verses we find four sections beginning with “in ...”. Paul dives deeper into some of the many blessings we are able to receive.

1. Adoption through Christ

As Christians, we are God’s children, adopted into a heavenly family. This has been God’s plan from the get-go: a blessed and forgiven covenant family; Jews and Gentiles ultimately unified under the promised Messiah. The same God, who is Christ’s Father, is also our Father. What a blessing!

We are accepted by God, we can experience His love and His care as a part of His family. How does that make you feel?

2. The redemption plan

Jesus has payed the ransom for us by the shedding of His blood. If we have accepted Him as our Lord and Saviour, we are no longer slaves to sin; Jesus is at the wheel of our lives.

God has “made known to us the mystery of his will”: the redemption plan itself. He set out to pave a way which allows us to live in union with Him. We may come to Him, pray to Him and grow in His knowledge each day, until we are called to be with Him for all eternity.

As we wait for that wonderful promise, God is at work in our lives, leading us in accordance to His will.

Are we thankful for God’s amazing redemption plan?

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In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

v. 11 - 14

3. Divine election and inheritance

Point 3 goes hand in hand with point 1: Those who accept Christ into their lives have been chosen before the foundation of the world and, through our adoption, we have also received an eternal inheritance.

For that reason, all praise and glory belongs to God. We should live and behave in such a manner that His grace to us is magnified and we bear witness to our Saviour’s love. Everything comes from God and therefore all worship belongs to Him; He must be the centre of our praise.

Are we living a life of constant praise to the Most High?

Do we remember to glorify Him in the mundane?

4. A Helper

In addition to our redemption from sin, God has gifted us with the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit living in us is (as His name indicates) holy and therefore He strives to make us holy too. He grants us wisdom, makes God’s will clear, helps us to understand the Word and apply it to our lives. Jesus did not leave us alone, but has blessed us with this wonderful helper: a third of the trinity, God Himself.

Are we allowing the Spirit to speak to us and change us?

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Reading today’s passage, I found myself challenged by Paul’s obvious priority: the adoration of the Most High. His praise precedes any elaborations on the letter’s purpose and he continues to glorify God for His amazing gift of redemption through Christ Jesus.

God’s will revolves completely around Christ’s sacrifice for us and so should every single aspect of our lives. We aren’t able to submit to Christ completely in our own strength. So, thank God, for giving us the Holy Spirit to help us along the way.

Reflection:

How has this passage spoken to you today?

Do we prioritise worshipping God in our day to day life?

Do we make ourselves aware of how many blessings God has so freely given to us?

Is Christ truly the centre of our existence?

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I look forward to carrying on through Ephesians with you. :) Until Wednesday!

#devotions #devotion #ephesians #bible study #bible truth #biblequotes #bible study with me #bswm #devotional

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thinkveganworld · 5 years

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Lefty journalist Eric Alterman wrote a comprehensive book concerning the frequency of presidential lies, When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences. Presidential lying is unfortunately the norm. This is an article I wrote a few years ago about George W. Bush’s many lies, and his most egregious one was lying the country into the Iraq War. The links are old and no longer work, but some people might find the article worth checking out.

In a May 2003 article for The American Prospect, Drake Bennett and Heidi Pauken write "it is no exaggeration to say that lying has become Bush's signature as president . . . More distressing even than the president's lies, though, is the public's apparent passivity. Bush just seems to get away with it."

The Bush administration lied and deceived its way into the Iraq war. (See below list of links to articles that detail the Bush administration's lies.)

Bush has also misled the public with fallacy and deceptive rhetoric. In The Progressive, April 2003, editor Matthew Rothschild talks about Bush's manipulation of language. Rothschild quotes a line from Bush's February 10 speech to a conference of religious broadcasters: "Before September the 11th, 2001, we thought oceans would protect us forever."

Later that day at an informal press conference, Bush repeated the "ocean" catchword, saying: "The world changed on September 11 . . . In our country, it used to be that oceans could protect us -- at least we thought so." He used the "oceans" example again in his March 6 press conference.

Rothschild asked Mark Crispin Miller, author of The Bush Dyslexicon, what he makes of Bush's rhetoric. Miller replied: "This notion of unprecedented vulnerability is absolutely crucial to the Bush team's anti-constitutional program. The true meaning of anything Bush says is connotative. What that statement really means is, 'We were safe, now we're in danger, and the danger is so severe that you must give me all possible power. What the oceans once did now only I can do."

Rothschild notes the Bush description is irrational, because oceans haven't really served as a buffer since Pearl Harbor. In fact, says Rothschild, the Soviet Union's intercontinental ballistic missiles were aimed at the U.S. for years despite the oceans' barrier.

However, when words are used in ways that manipulate public fear, facts and rationality are beside the point. The aim of the corruption of language -- whether conscious or unconscious -- is to confuse rather than clarify, and to cause the listener to believe an illusion rather than the truth.

In his article, "Fallacies and War," Dave Koehler points out misleading public arguments the administration uses to justify war. For example, the Bush team often presents the false dilemma -- claiming there are only two possible options when, in fact, more choices are available.

Kohler refers to the statement Bush issued right after 9/11: "You're either with us or with the terrorists." As Kohler says "Countries can be both against terrorism and not an ally of the U.S . . . Many countries are showing they are both against a preemptive war and against the current Iraqi regime." Bush said the U.N. must vote for war or face irrelevance. As Kohler points out, the U.N. can simultaneously survive and disagree with Bush.

The Bush team also repeatedly uses the fallacy of exclusion, meaning they leave out important aspects of any given argument. For example, Colin Powell and George Bush spoke about aluminum tubes being used for uranium enrichment for nuclear weapons use. Kohler notes they failed to take into account the essential fact that U.N. inspectors said the tubes were conventional rocket artillery casings.

Kohler points to another fallacy, argument from ignorance -- the claim that what hasn't been disproved must be true. The Bush administration implies Iraq must have weapons of mass destruction because of Iraq's failure to prove it doesn't. As Kohler says, the burden of proof is on the party making the claim, therefore the U.S. "must prove that Iraq has WMD. It is impossible for Iraq to prove they don't."

In his article, "An Orwellian Pitch," John R. McArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, writes about the Bush team's manipulation of public opinion. He says, "Effective propaganda relies on half-truths and the conflation of disparate 'facts' (like Saddam's genuine human rights violations)." McArthur says the Bush team has managed to get away with this deceptive fact twisting because they use a tactic George Orwell described as "slovenliness" in the language.

Both Orwell and Aldous Huxley have written about dictatorial leaders and their methods of managing public opinion. In Brave New World Revisited, Huxley wrote that tyrants often use propaganda techniques that rely on the following. (1) Repetition of catchwords, (2) Suppression of facts the propagandist wants the public to ignore. (3) Inflaming mass fear or other strong emotional reaction for the purpose of controlling public opinion and behavior.

Huxley talks about Adolf Hitler's propaganda efforts to appeal to the emotions of the masses instead of reason. He notes that Hitler systematically exploited the German people's hidden fears and anxieties. The Bush administration has clearly exploited the American people's fears of terrorism since September 11.

According to Huxley, Hitler said the masses run on instinct and emotion rather than facts and are easy to manipulate, while society's intellectuals and independent thinkers insist on factual evidence and logic and easily see through fallacies. Huxley says Hitler encouraged the masses to attack or shout down intellectual dissenters rather than engage them in logical debate, because the rational dissenters would likely win any argument on the basis of fact.

Bush supporters have tried to silence dissent. Media bulldogs such as Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage often use Hitler's suggested technique of attacking and shouting down antiwar voices.

Huxley quotes Hitler's statement that "all propaganda must be confined to a few bare necessities and then must be expressed in a few stereotyped formulas . . . Only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea upon the memory of a crowd." Bush has delivered the stereotyped formulas "You're either with us or with the terrorists;" "the oceans can't protect us;" and Saddam is connected with "al Qaeda," using constant repetition.

There can be little doubt the Bush administration has worked to coerce Congress, the public and the media into supporting Bush's Iraq policy. On MSNBC, reporter Jeff Greenfield discussed the administration's war propaganda with news anchor Paula Zahn. Greenfield said propaganda isn't necessarily a negative thing, because it can influence an enemy regime to behave in ways that help U.S. troops and government officials.

The problem is, Bush's propaganda has targeted average American citizens and Congress, using tactics that were once reserved to influence enemy governments abroad. Propaganda is negative when it promotes lies and encourages people to act against their own best interests, as the Bush administration's spin has done.

In the months before Congress gave Bush the authority to wage war on Iraq, Bush administration officials tried to influence members of Congress by briefing them with reports that alleged Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger, a central African country. Later it was revealed the Niger documents had been forged.

Congressman Henry Waxman said the Bush administration likely hoodwinked members of Congress. According to a March 25 Mother Jones article, Waxman said he voted to give Bush authority to invade Iraq in large part because he believed the administration's claims about Iraq's effort to purchase nuclear weapons.

The Mother Jones article includes an excerpt from a reproachful letter Waxman sent to George W. Bush. Waxman wrote: "It appears that at the same time that you, Secretary Rumsfeld, and State Department officials were citing Iraq's efforts to obtain uranium from Africa as a crucial part of the case against Iraq, U.S. intelligence officials regarded this very same evidence as unreliable. If true, this is deeply disturbing: it would mean that your Administration asked the U.N. Security Council, the Congress, and the American people to rely on information that your own experts knew was not credible."

When Congress gave Bush virtually unlimited power to wage war, many legislators were unaware Bush officials had essentially planned the invasion of Iraq and "regime change" years before September 11. For more on this, see:

The Plan - Were Neo-Conservatives' 1998 Memos a Blueprint for Iraq War? Nightline, 3/5/03

Practice to Deceive - Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan, by Joshua Marshall, The Washington Monthly, April 2003

Just the Beginning - Is Iraq the opening salvo in a war to remake the world? by Robert Dreyfuss, The American Prospect, 4/1/03

Bush sold the Iraq war by repeatedly (and falsely) linking September 11 with Saddam Hussein.

In a March 14 article for The Christian Science Monitor, Linda Feldmann writes, "In his prime-time press conference last week, which focused almost solely on Iraq, President Bush mentioned Sept. 11 eight times. He referred to Saddam Hussein many more times than that, often in the same breath with Sept. 11. Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president. Still, the overall effect was to reinforce an impression that persists among much of the American public: that the Iraqi dictator did play a direct role in the attacks. A New York Times/CBS poll this week shows that 45 percent of Americans believe Mr. Hussein was 'personally involved' in Sept. 11."

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of former CIA officers, argues that the Bush administration's evidence on Iraq's alleged threat to the U.S. and purported ties to Al Qaeda are not credible. According to a March 14 Associated Press article, members of VIPS accused Bush administration officials of "cooking" the intelligence books and promoting "information that does not meet an intelligence professional's standards of proof."

In a speech in early February, Colin Powell told the nation he had a transcript of a new Osama bin Laden tape -- one that proved a "partnership" between Al Qaeda and Iraq. However, in a February 12 article for Salon, "War, lies and audiotape," reporter Joe Conason points out Powell misrepresented the transcript. The actual document, says Conason, "clearly contradicted the headlines [Powell] was trying to make."

The Bush administration also lied about Iraq's weapons capabilities. According to a March 10 ABC news website report: "Before Congress, and in public, President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have repeatedly pointed to aluminum tubes imported by Iraq which they say are for use in making nuclear weapons. But on Friday, head United Nations nuclear inspector Mohammad ElBaradei told the Security Council that it wasn't likely that the tubes were for that use."

According to another article on the subject of Iraq's weapons capabilities: "On February 5, Colin Powell told the U.N. Security Council that the Iraqis possessed a drone plane that could fly 500 kilometers, violating U.N. rules that limit the range of Iraqi weapons to 150k." According to the article, Jane's Defence Weekly, one of the most respected publications on defense matters, reported it was "doubtful" the drone could have flown the distance claimed by Powell. Drones expert Ken Munson said on the Jane's web site there was no possibility the drone could fly "anywhere near 500 kilometers." Munson added, "The design looks very primitive, and the engines -- which have their pistons exposed -- appear to be low-powered."

Since September 11, the Bush administration and its various media mouthpieces have tried to intensify the public's fear of terrorism, using lies to build a case for war and other questionable policies. Members of Congress, with few exceptions, have abdicated their responsibility to the American people by giving Bush unprecedented freedom to make war at will with virtually no congressional oversight.

Fortunately, Representatives Henry Waxman, Dennis Kucinich and a handful of others in the House, and Senator Robert Byrd, Senator Edward Kennedy and a few others in the Senate have challenged some of the Bush policies. However, too many in Congress have acquiesced to Bush on almost every important legislative issue and failed to fully investigate the Bush administration's most egregious misdeeds.

U.S. diplomat John Brady Kiesling resigned from the State Department on February 27. In his letter of resignation, Kiesling said: "We have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq . . . The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests."

The American people should urge Congress to exercise its oversight role and check the Bush administration's power. The U.S. Constitution requires such checks and balances, and American democracy won't thrive without them. If high crimes and misdemeanors can be established, Congress shouldn't rule out impeachment.

The following are links to articles that describe the Bush administration's many lies:

Articles detailing a long list of Bush lies on a variety of issues.

Articles showing the Bush administration planned to invade Iraq and reshape the Middle East long before September 11 -- though they have portrayed the invasion as a response to the World Trade Center attacks.

Articles showing Bush administration used forged evidence to convince the public and U.N. that Iraq tried to obtain WMD from Niger.

Articles showing U.S. spied on friendly governments and/or doctored evidence to promote war with Iraq.

Articles on Bush's lying and/or using fallacious "reasoning" to gain support for war.

Article showing Bush administration has exaggerated "smart bombs"' ability to avoid targeting civilians.

Articles showing the Bush effort to show an alliance between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein was misleading.

Articles related to Bush/Powell deception about Saddam's ability to deliver weapons of mass destruction.

Article on Bush administration's choice of a convicted embezzler to oversee Iraq.

Article detailing reasons Bush could be criminal in attacking Iraq.

"All the President's Lies - Bush's rhetoric bears no resemblence to his policies. How does he get away with it?" by Drake Bennett and Heidi Pauken, The American Prospect, 5/1/03 http://www.prospect.org/print/V14/5/bennett-d.html

[Start with] "Reap What You Sow", by Dwight Meredith, P.L.A. - A Journal of Politics, Law and Autism, 2/27/03 http://www.pla.blogspot.com/2003_02_23_pla_archive.html

"The Plan - Were Neo-Conservatives' 1998 Memos a Blueprint for Iraq War?" Nightline, 3/5/03 http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/DailyNews/pnac_030310.html

"Practice to Deceive - Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan," by Joshua Marshall, The Washington Monthly, April 2003 http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0304.marshall.html

"Just the Beginning - Is Iraq the opening salvo in a war to remake the world?" by Robert Dreyfuss, The American Prospect, 4/1/03 http://www.prospect.org/print/V14/4/dreyfuss-r.html

"Who Lied to Whom? Why did the Administration endorse a forgery about Iraq's nuclear program?" by Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker, 3/31/03 http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030331fa_fact1

"A Spurious 'Smoking Gun'," by Chris Smith, Mother Jones, 3/25/03 http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2003/13/we_338_01.html

"The Blame Game Between Bush and the Brits," by Richard Wolffe, Mark Hosenball and Tamara Lipper, Newsweek, 3/17/03 http://www.msnbc.com/news/883164.asp?cp1=1

"Fake Iraq documents `embarrasing' for U.S.," from David Ensor, CNN.com, 3/14/03 http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/14/sprj.irq.documents/index.html

"Google Search: africa uranium forged documents" http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=africa+uranium+forged+documents

"Spies Like Us," by Joel Bleifuss, In These Times, 3/14/03 http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=118_0_3_0_C

"Ex-CIA Officers Questioning Iraq Data," by John Lumpkin, Associated Press, 3/14/03 http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/IraqDataQ.html

"The impact of Bush linking 9/11 and Iraq - American attitudes about a connection have changed, firming up the case for war," by Linda Feldmann The Christian Science Monitor, 3/14/03 http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.htm

"An unproven case, a spurious war - Sans evidence, polls show Americans rallying around the White House," by Joe Conason, Working For Change, 3/24/03 http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=14705&CFID=6125472&CFTOKEN=92732152

"Fallacies and War - Misleading a nervous America to the wrong conclusion," by Dave Koehler, phillyburbs.com, 2/27/03 http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/50401.html

"An Orwellian Pitch - The inner workings of the war-propaganda machine," by John R. McArthur, LA Weekly, 3/21/03 http://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=42761

"Military Precision versus Moral Precision," by Robert Higgs, The Independent Institute, 3/24/03 http://www.independent.org/tii/news/030323Higgs.html

"Bin There Before - But New Tape May Be Iraq Link U.S. Seeks," by William Bunch, Philadelphia Daily News, 2/12/03 http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/5157847.htm

"War, lies and audiotape - What Colin Powell failed to mention about the bin Laden tape," by Joe Conason, salon, 2/12/03 http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2003/02/12/osama/index_np.html

"Iraqi drone `very primitive': expert," from correspondents in London, News.com.au, 3/15/03 http://www.news.com.au/common/printpage/0,6093,6130936,00.html

"Questionable Evidence - Is Weapons Case Against Iraq Disintegrating?" Martha Raddatz, ABCNEWS.com, 3/10/03 http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/2020/GMA030310Iraq_weap ons_evidence.html

"Who will trust our man in Iraq? - White House prepares to install convicted embezzler to oversee Iraqi 'freedom'," by Joe Conason, Working For Change, 4/16/03 http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=14845&CFID=6668624&CFTOKEN=43382939

"Attack on Iraq Could Turn Bush into Criminal," by Thomas Walkom, Toronto Star, 3/18/03 http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0318-02.htm

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thesinglesjukebox · 5 years

Video

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DUA LIPA - DON'T START NOW

[7.89]

Rejected Daphne du Maurier titles/approved Dua Lipa singles...

Thomas Inskeep: A full-on disco fantasia done contemporarily: quite fitting for a song that gets its "I Will Survive" post-breakup bona fides easily and naturally. Dua Lipa was clearly paying attention when she worked with Silk City last year, and it serves her more than well here. [9]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: In theory, this should be a lay-up for Dua Lipa -- take the subject matter of your breakthrough hits (breakup kiss-offs) and the aesthetic of your cred-building follow-up collabs (dance music pastiche 1978-1992), collage them together with the help of trusted studio hands (Emily Warren and Ian Kirkpatrick), create hit. And "Don't Start Now" works, obviously -- it'd be a disaster if it didn't. But despite its charms, which are mostly crammed into a gorgeous chorus (that cowbell!! those strings!! the way she says "walk away"!!), the whole work feels hollow. It's maybe that the track has too little of its star -- Dua's charming when she can get a word in, but she's overpowered by a very 2017 vocal chop and an arrangement that's slightly too fussy. "Don't Start Now" falters at the edge of distinction, too well-constructed to be great. [7]

Kylo Nocom: Calvin Harris and Charlie Puth should not be aspirational models of funkiness. The former softens the verses; the latter kills the chorus. Dua's vocal anonymity is strenuous when placed over production so determined to have swagger. The last minute saves this, but barely. [5]

Jackie Powell: Dua Lipa's diction and pacing sells this single. There's a pause in between "did the heartbreak change me" and "maybe" that accurately depicts how painful it is to navigate any falling out. This track is the bitterness that is subsequent to betrayal. She's reassuring herself of her decision while reflecting and also imposing conditions -- or, rather, rules. Sounds familiar, right? While the team behind "New Rules" are back for a sequel, "Don't Start Now" is what Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight was to the initial Batman Begins. Like Christian Bale, Lipa has gotten comfortable and shines because of it. Her influences in this new era are namely a No Doubt-style bassline, and a Prince rhythm guitar loop in verse two. Like Lipa, they operate in isolation. In 2019, she doesn't need the protection of her posse in the "New Rules" visual. While the robotic sleepover choreography has become iconic, she tells her audience that this time she has more of a command of her narrative as well as her vocal. Dua Lipa was never innocent, but she wasn't always as natural in administering her panache as an individual. During her live debut of this at the EMAs, she wore an all-black bodysuit and swirled her hips and arms with majestic grace. She stood out in a sea of yellow backup dancers and didn't need a pink flamingo to get the job done. She calls her upcoming LP "more mature" and visually, I see it. Her call and response in the last chorus took me on a high. It's almost if we are screaming at the top of our lungs: "REJECTION SUCKS, REJECTION SUCKS," but with a disco ball nearby. We've both come to terms with a new reality. But will it stick? [10]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: If "Good as Hell" is the bottle of tequila you drink at your best friend's house right before dumping your man, "Don't Start Now" is the gin and tonic you sip in the club afterwards. Dressed so hot and having so much fun, it's all but certain you've won the break-up. "So moved on it's scary," indeed. [8]

Ian Mathers: "So moved on it's scary" is never convincing, and neither is this song, but I can't be too mad at anything with a bassline like that and disco strings flitting in the background. [6]

Alfred Soto: Solid neo-disco: the cowbell and bass slaps are stuck in the right places, and the vocal's sultry enough. But this act of necromancy will satisfy revanchists who recoil from modern dance. [6]

Kayla Beardslee: A lot of hyped-up "event" singles this year have been disappointments. "ME!," "Small Talk," "Don't Call Me Angel," etc -- pop music fans looked forward to these high-profile songs because of the promising names attached to them, but once the actual music was released, hype quickly fell apart. The reason is obvious -- embarrassingly so, for the artists and labels who decide to create and promote boring-ass songs -- celebrity is not a replacement for quality. In fact, more than anything else, over-hype consistently kills my appreciation for good-not-great or just average singles. Pop stars need to promote to live up to their status, but I don't love being told that I should worship a song before I've even heard it, and being pleasantly surprised is far better to me than being underwhelmed. Dua Lipa -- now in the thick of her second album cycle, which carries the threat of both the Best New Artist curse and a sophomore slump -- began counting down to this single on Instagram an entire week before its release. With all that said, I hope it's understandable that the first thing I felt upon listening to "Don't Start Now" was relief -- because it fucking slaps. Holy shit. I don't know Dua Lipa personally, and I'm not responsible for her career, but I'm still so happy for how perfectly this comeback suits her. The lyrics, as a kiss-off to a discarded ex, let Dua shine at what she does best, i.e. sounding confident, sassy, and effortlessly cool (shoutout to the "New Rules" team of Warren, Ailin, and Kirkpatrick reunited here). Disco works perfectly against the too-cool-for-this-shit impulse of her vocals: I did not anticipate that Dua would be the pop girl to commit to the genre, but I'm here for it, because high-energy dance-pop buoys the song and fills in potential low-key aspects of her performance so much more than a chill "One Kiss" instrumental would have. The production feels dizzyingly fast, yet despite its constant bouncing and pulsing, the track's adherence to classic pop song structure keeps the listener grounded. For the ending, producer Ian Kirkpatrick pulls out the exact same trick he used on Gomez's "Look At Her Now," but who cares about the similarity? That layered, amped-up final chorus is one of the most euphoric things I've heard all year. I truly cannot overstate how much joy those last 30 seconds bring me, and, judging by the laughter mixed into the ending, Dua feels it too. After all, you shouldn't let the glitzy production distract you too much from the woman at its heart. By immersing ourselves in the pop fantasy of "Don't Start Now," we're shown an all-too-short glimpse of its central truth: this is Dua Lipa's world, and we're all just living in it. [10]

William John: What's immediately striking about "Don't Start Now" is its structural precision. Each new idea is sutured to its antecedent with an expert proficiency. The hopscotching piano chords that arrive at the first pre-chorus trick the listener into thinking the song is going to completely succumb to a furore of disco strings and euphoria (that comes later, it turns out). But then, just in time, breathing room and rattling cowbell arrive to provide sweet relief. It's designed within an inch of its life to keep the dopamine at an optimum level: plenty, but only shooting its shot when the bullseye comes into focus. Critics of Dua Lipa have cited her blankness and lack of discernible personality as a reason for divestment. (That and her rigidity on stage -- recently rectified, to electrifying effect, in Seville.) But there's something quite enigmatic to me about her alleged vacancy. Her performance here is possessed of an air of majesty, as though she's acquired a will to take control of her own destiny. I, for one, am ready to genuflect. [10]

[Read and comment on The Singles Jukebox]

#Dua Lipa #pop #music #music review #writing

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jacereviews · 5 years

Text

Review: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse

Theatrical Showing

Spider-Man has had a good year. While I can’t speak from a comic perspective, as a multimedia star he’s had quite the run. Many people are in love with Tom Holland’s portrayal of him in the MCU and his starring role in Avengers: Infinity War. Marvel’s Spider-Man for the PS4 is (allegedly) fantastic and even got a game of the year nomination. So here we are, last month of 2018 with one more Spider-Man. I’ve heard many people complain about Spider-Man movie fatigue, so is yet another new Spider-Man worth it? Let’s Rock. STORY: Peter Parker’s career as Spider-Man is at its peak. You know the stories, we all do. This isn’t Peter Parker’s story however. Miles Morales is moving to a new elite high school, the son of a cop and a nurse, he lives in a New York where Spider-Man is swinging up and down the roads. However an incident with a mysterious spider bite pulls him into the world of heroes, a world shaken up by the Kingpin trying to break down the walls between dimensions. Thrown into chaos, Miles must work with those brought in from other dimensions to try to restore order and figure out what it means to be Spider-Man. This shouldn’t and probably won’t be your first Spider-Man movie. It references a lot of Spider-Man culture and is a fanservice romp for long time fans, yet is still a refreshing tale. The plot isn’t particularly deep or complex, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s simple, yet effective. Going through the logical order of a superhero story, yet packing some surprises along the way. I want to give bonus points for the story being told in a way that’s aware of the trailers and intentionally tries to subvert some preconceptions established by the trailers. While I may not be able to give this much credit on originality or freshness, I can compliment the ability of the story to deliver the emotional payoffs it needs. Some of the harder hitting moments are done fantastically and work within the simplicity of the tale. Story-wise I think my only real complaint was the climax being a bit too straightforward. The way the story is told shines brightly though, especially in its use of spider-man tropes and parallels. Since my format doesn’t have a spot for it, I’ll go ahead and discuss the humor and comedy here. The movie can be damn funny when it wants to be, not only in simple jokes, but in twisting expectations, pop culture comedy, and a lot of inside jokes for spider-man fans. The gag character of Spider-Ham manages to stay amusing throughout the whole film and never gets grating.

8/10. Simple yet effectively told. Also funi movie make me laugh.

CHARACTERS: Let’s start with Miles himself. He’s discontent with his new high school, trying to flunk out so he can move back in with the people. He’s got some issues with his family, mostly looking up to his Uncle Aaron, who’s not always on the good side of the law. While like Peter Parker he’s got a good brain and some social troubles, he’s less of a nerd wish fulfillment type. His dynamic with his Dad and Uncle is unique from Parker and is a strong point throughout the movie. While not shockingly new or interesting, Miles is a strong central character. The other spiders are also strong. Peter B. Parker is a late career Spider-Man, one movies never show us. He’s arguably washed up and the constant life toll of Spider-Man has clearly gotten to him. I found this take to be rather unique, and also relatable as we see the youths around him reminding him of what he once was. While some people may not like his negativity, I found him to be rather engaging as the group senior. Gwen Stacy brings the main cast into an effective trio. Being slightly older than Miles, she’s got a good dynamic of banter with him despite her claim to not keeping friends. She’s pretty prominent in action scenes and in general has a strong energy that puts her in the movie spotlight. While I can’t claim she has too much interesting going on, I think in large part that’s simply because it isn’t her movie. As for the other 3 spiders, they feel like a lower tier in prominence. While there, they don’t have much individual bits outside of their backstories (which get told together.) Peni and Noir were quite interesting, and I honestly felt like we really just didn’t get enough of them. If I can claim any problem here, it’s a utilization issue, but that’s something to be expected out of a one off movie. You can’t give every character the full spotlight they could use. As far as villains go the only one I can really discuss is the Kingpin. While maybe not needed, the movie did go the extra mile to give him a borderline sympathetic backstory. I was a fan of how his story kind of paralleled miles with his downfall being his inability to learn from his mistakes. All in all a pretty strong cape movie villain even if he’s not my favorite Kingpin. I also want to give a shout-out to this movie’s Aunt May. Being a spider-veteran she’s just freaking awesome in this film.

7/10. Some nice ideas and strong characters. Any real complaints are kinda inherent to the medium.

VISUALS: Oh boy is this a treat. I feel like the real appeal of the movie is the frankly amazing art direction. Pretty much every aspect is spot-on. The framing, design, movement, colors, etc. I can just keep singing the praises of this film. Miles’ street art is taken full advantage of. The use of the dimension clashing is rendered in some gorgeous design. The City at Night is rendered in some gorgeous neon colors and the costumes pop. I love how some of the characters from other timelines come in their own distinct art styles. The visual storytelling here is also amazingly done. The scene where Miles leaps from the skyscraper as a full Spider-Man, yet glass sticking to his fingers is an amazing scene. The comic book aesthetic of displaying internal thoughts and backstories is also super nice. I could keep going on but basically it all boils down to YES! YES! YES! The only real complaint I can muster is I noticed when the frame rate would change and that was kind of jarring.

10/10, Why would you do something in animation when live action is more accessible? Because you can get art design like this!

SOUND: I went in expecting the movie to look as good as it did, I didn’t expect it to sound this good. The music track is full of bops, and not just the non-diegetic tracks but the diegetic ones too. This movie makes near perfect use of both diegetic and non-diegetic music for some absolutely amazing effect. I want this soundtrack! The voice acting was also on point. Everyone sounded great and it all came together nicely. Specific shout-out to John Mulaney as Spider-Ham for sounding the Loony Tunes part. The sound effects flowed perfectly, this isn’t a movie to just see, but to listen to.

9/10, the only faults I could really come up with are things that I’d have to set aside for an album review of the OST, and that’s one hell of a compliment.

FINAL SCORE: 9/10

This isn’t just another Spider-Man movie. It’s a Spider-Man movie for those who’ve seen too many Spider-Man movies. It’s one of the best comic book movies in a world too full of them. Not only that it’s a case study in aesthetic utilization, the art and sound design are beyond on point. It takes full advantage of the animated medium to be as visually unique as it can be in the best of ways. It’s a full recommendation not only for superhero and animation fans, but for any fan of film. While this could be your first spider-man film, I’d definitely recommend watching it with more familiarity of the character and his lore. All in all one of the best animated films in the west, and one hell of an entry in the repertoire of a character dominating the media world. PS: This movie wishes you a Merry Christmas!

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#spiderman #spiderverse #movie #animation #spidergwen #spider-man #spider-man: into the spider-verse #review #marvel #comic movies #capeshit #super hero #superhero #spider-parker

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4n0th3rm3 · 5 years

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Who has control over a story? Or: presidency as a metaphor for authorship

So… I have read the meat part of the Homestuck epilogues and I have to say, I am impressed. I have to admit that I was initially wary of the experience because the first opinions I’ve read on tumblr have been controversial, to say the least. But before I talk about the epilogue itself, I have to make some things clear. I haven’t read Homestuck in my formative teenage years. I started reading it when I was 18, so I had a lot more distance to the main characters and their experiences than I would have had if I was younger. This was also an age when my English could have been considered „good“ enough to even understand what was going on since it’s not my mother tongue. Additionally, I was just starting my degree in literary studies, so the interest in narrative structure has always been on the forefront of my reading experience, so that’s what I’ll focus on in my analysis. And hoo boy does Homestuck deliver in that regard.

First of all we have to ask: in what situation are the epilogues written? Homestuck is „officially over“, the fans are more or less satisfied, the „canon“ is supposed to be finished and can now be looked at in its entirety. This is not only important for the creators of fanworks, but also for Hussie himself. In a lot of ways, when a work is canonically finished, the author has distanced themselves from the story and the writing process. So how to write epilogues, when you have given up control over the narrative? It’s at this point that Hussie decides to make the problem explicit in the work itself: he changes the medium. What has been a narrative element in Homestuck before now becomes once again necessary for understanding the story. By changing the webcomic format to an Ao3 fanfiction format he shows the reader that these are indeed „tales of dubious authenticity“.

Now, finding the tone for the continuation of a finished work can be difficult (and we have to keep in mind that Homestuck has been over for three years). When we take a look at the Harry Potter series, where lots of fans were disappointed by a seemingly overly saccharine epilogue, we see how much can go wrong in the fans’ opinion. Actually, Harry Potter is also a good example of the consequences it has for a work of art and its fanbase when the author tries to uphold their control over the narrative after the work is finished — it can be disastrous (case in point: jkrowlings borderline surreal twitter presence). The expectations readers have are repeatedly mirrored in the epilogue itself:

And all of us are definitely the „devoted fans“ who show up to any new content, even if it’s bad. But is it bad? Whether there is too much meat (brutality, tragedy) or too much candy in it, both will be unsatisfactory. This is a thing that Rose, in the process of becoming a aware of the whole canon herself, comments on:

Even before the epilogues, Homestuck has always had lots of both, it varied in tone and regularly switched between tragedy and comedy, most often depicting tragedy through the lens of comedy. That was one go the things that made it unique. The way that Karkat reacts to the fact that Jade didn’t know that Obama was a real person shows how important the framing of events can be:

How comedy and tragedy are received respectively is very subjective to the reading experience. The reactions of the characters to canon and post-canon events mirror different fan behavior. Take for example Calliope, who seems to obsess over overly saccharine fantasies, mixed with gore and pornographic content:

The way it is framed here, it seems to sum up the fanfiction side of the Homestuck fandom pretty well. It frankly reminded me of the times when a lot of the fandom was pretty obsessed with the dark and horny parts of Homestuck - and unapologetically so. I mean, remember the 4chan „raids“ on Tumblr? That’s what they had to say about the Homestuck tag:

Now, please keep in mind that I haven’t read the candy part yet, so if Calliopes behavior is directly referring to it, it partly goes over my head at this moment. That the different perspectives and reading experiences can clash with each other and even canonical events itself is shown in John's own discomfort at the reunion with his friends:

It reflects on the way that the whole of Homestuck has been perceived by the readers not only while it was running but also after it has ended. Looking at a story after it’s been finished and at the sum of all its parts leads to some problems - for the author and the creators of fan works alike. From a distance and after three years, everyone is „stuck somewhere in the harrowing nexus between canon, post-canon, non-canon, outside canon, and fanon.“ Or as Rose puts it:

Rose realizes at this point that, much as we, the reader, the characters (especially Rose and Dirk) have also become readers of their own, their whole story. This forces them, much as us, to confront every aspect of every character that has been written in the Homestuck canon, what Dirk then calls the Ultimate Self. How do you for example characterize a person like Dirk when you know how different aspects of his personality play out in different scenarios? I mean, Bro is very much a character that exists in the Homestuck canon and — shitty as he is — shares Dirk’s genetic information. Dirk on the other hand is a person who has always tried to overcome the negative aspects of his personality that are realized in other versions of him. The convergence of personalities that happens when the characters become readers of canon themselves is in Dirk’s case as much a tragedy as it is for us, who have also seen the positive potential of his character. ultimate!Dirk then goes — in the manner of an overly sarcastic megalomaniac — from reader to narrator:

So it’s not surprising that looking at the whole of canon itself, different characters show different reading behaviors. This is as much true for Dirk as it is for every single reader, especially every creator of fan works. We take the elements that are given to us and try to create something from it. In one way or the other, by interpreting a story, everyone tries to take hold of the narrative. This is especially true for a story like Homestuck, where the interaction with fans and fan culture have been a central element of storytelling and has lead to the inclusion of multiple contributors to the work itself.

In ultimate!Dirk’s case, it is made very explicit how his particular perspective influences the narrative structure. The lines between reader and author blur even further than before:

But not only ultimate!Dirk and muse!Calliope, who tries to take the narrative away from him, have conflicting views and agencies, other characters also start framing actions and people in a certain way. It’s no coincidence that Hussie decided to make an election the setting for the epilogues. In meat, Jane runs for presidency and is then rivaled by Karkat, who decides to take a stand against her „xenophobic“ views. While Karkat says:

It quickly becomes clear, that a lot of what we think about Jane in the meat epilogue is framed on the one hand by ultimate!Dirk’s manipulative narrative that influences the behavior and events, and on the other hand by Dave and Karkat’s political campaign. (Both of whom don’t leave their house very often and have probably not spoken to Jane in a long time.)

We think that Jane is xenophobic because ultimate!Dirk and Karkat tell us she is. Not to say that Jane doesn’t have some problematic views, but she seems to be far from a fascist dictator.

It mostly shows how politics is very much about presenting a certain narrative to your potential voters. And whoever controls the political narrative has a hegemonial perspective on cultural narratives as well. This is an idea that has probably been best presented in the texts of the philosopher Walter Benjamin. In his essay „On the concept of history“ he remarks on the way a ruling class presents history and historical events as a legitimization of their power, and ultimately concludes that historical methodology is also a question of politics and questioning narratives that are presented to us. In 1940, when the essay was written, it was the conflict between fascism and socialism that influenced Benjamin’s work, but today his ideas are just as relevant.

By presenting the election and conflicting narratives (ultimate!Dirk vs. muse!Calliope, Jane vs. Karkat and Dave) side by side, Hussie builds a bridge between those two. It is not only that the text is a metaphor for the current political climate, it is a metaphor for the way that current behavior in general is shaped by controlling narratives. We live in a time when fake news and callout culture are two sides of the same coin: especially in America, these two intersect more and more, in political campaigns and online. Not to say that this kind of discourse isn’t developing in Europe as well, it��s just that the American one seems to be central for the discourse and views that shape sites like tumblr. On Earth C, in the „post canon victory state“, we can see these methods of political strategy developing from the very beginning.

This becomes especially clear as Vriska comments on Hussie’s behavior (as in: Homestuck-character Hussie): „not to mention your flawless defeat of an obstructionist, hectoring, orange man, who for reasons you cannot begin to comprehend seemed to be obsessed with you.“ While the whole world sees itself confronted with the weird views of a megalomaniac orange man (Trump), so does the readership of Homestuck: Hussie and Dirk’s text are both orange and are a constant obstacle for the fans who try to take hold of the narrative, to make their perspective the right one.

Actually, ultimate!Dirk’s perspective is skewed by numerous biases, mostly concerning women and gender issues. Jade is repeatedly called „bitch“ in a derogatory way and Kanayas behavior is framed as being „hysterical“. Roxy’s transition goes straight over his head, he can’t read her intentions because he is blind to gender issues that don’t fit his limited understanding of the concept of gender. He reminds me of a member of the alt-right, shutting women out of conversations and disregarding their opinions. This quote especially:

This sounds like it’s ripped straight from an alt-righter defending his free speech while at the same time trying to shoehorn his dubious political intentions in. In contrast to that, muse!Calliopes way of telling the story seems to be fairly neutral.

So it’s no surprise that the people he tried to shut out before (women and trans people) are realizing that his narrative behavior is trying to manipulate them and they take action. Especially Terezi seems to be immune to his narrative manipulation:

The moment that they break the hold ultimate!Dirk has over the narrative, they are beginning to feel like the old „canon“ characters.

Up to this point, we had to look at genuine character moments through the lens of an unreliable narrator. Homestuck has always been a parody that got unintentionally serious, so I think we have to look at the epilogues the same way: genuine character moments under the layers of parody, commentary on fan behavior and politics.

Ultimate!Dirk ultimately fails to create a cohesive narrative, one that favors only one perspective. This is reflective of the way Homestuck has been written and perceived these last ten years. He has to fail, because the author has lost control and interpretative hegemony over Homestuck canon — no one has it.

That is why it’s so important that the voice of the epilogues is not only Hussie’s voice, but was written in part by Cephied_Variable and ctset. While Hussie was responsible for writing the dialogue, the surrounding prose is entirely in the hands of fans. It’s a decentralized narrative that refuses to acknowledge one perspective, one reception as the right one.

And much like the kids in the juju, we are now stuck in a place outside of canon, after Homestuck ended. And it just happens that everyone is starved for new content: We all wish we had brought something to read. Be it the epilogues or fanfiction, we are all stuck in a place that no longer really affects the narrative:

And look at me, how I desperately try to take hold of the narrative in this long ass meta post. This is what Homestuck means to me and this is my perspective, my narrative.

#homestuck #upd8 #homestuck epilogue #homestuck meta #andrew hussie #long post #sorry this got like reeeeaaaaaally long #but if you want to read my hot takes on politics and authorship be my guest #(please be my guest)

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madamlaydebug · 5 years

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SEVEN RAYS AND SEVEN SPHERES

"The 7 rays are the prismatic break down of White Light. Each has its own vibratory characteristics. Light (the 7 Rays) and Sound (the 7 notes of the musical scale) are synergistic, and this is cymatics at work on a Universal scale. With the Music of the Spheres, each note (with it's range of sub-harmonics) 'sings' the Sphere into Being. Each has its respective Masculine Color Ray and Feminine Harmonic, and together they form the set of Natural Laws for that dimensional Sphere, and therefore each has specific characteristic influence in our everyday lives. Each person has 7 Bodies (the upper ones very subtle). Each of the 7 Bodies is emanating from one of the 7 Chakras and occupying its respective dimensional space or Sphere. In this way, Humans are multi-dimensional, occupying all of the 7 Spheres/Rays/Dimensions/Harmonic Universes at once. The only thing interfering with full conscious awareness of this are emotional blocks held in one or more of the Chakras which obstructs the Kundalini flow and severs the connection to the other Selves. These blocks translate as shadowed areas within the Auric Field around the Physical Body." -- Scott Maurer

"The Great Wheel of the Zodiac is the seven-skinned Egg of the universe. These skins are the seven great planes of manifestation commencing with Adi on the Spiritual level and descending to the physical plane. The fields interpenetrate, thus demonstrating the truth of the Eternal Presence in man. The consciousness of man interpenetrates all planes because it is derived from the Monadic level of the Adic plane."

-- Dr. John Kirk Robertson, MAAT Texts

"In the Mysteries the seven Logi, Elohim or Creative Lords, are shown as streams of force issuing from the mouth of the Eternal One. This signifies the spectrum being extracted from the white light of the Supreme Deity. The seven Creators, or Fabricators, of the inferior spheres were called by the rabbis the Elohim. By the Egyptians they were referred to as the Builders sometimes as the Governors and are depicted with great knives in their hands with which they carved the universe from its primordial substance. Worship of the planets is based upon their acceptation as the cosmic embodiments of the seven creative attributes of God. The Lords of the planets were described as dwelling within the body of the sun, for the true nature of the sun, being analogous to the white light, contains the seeds of all the tone and colour potencies which it manifests."

-- Manly P. Hall. 1901-1990. Secret teachings of all ages.

"The seven rays is an occult concept that has appeared in several religions and esoteric philosophies, since at least the 6th century BCE, of the Aryan peoples in both Western culture and in India. In the west, it can be seen in early western mystery traditions such as Gnosticism and the Roman Mithraic Mysteries; and in texts and iconic art of the Catholic Church as early as the Byzantine era. In India, the concept has been part of Hindu religious philosophy and scripture since at least the Vishnu Purana, dating from the post-Vedic era. -- Wikipedia

The Seven Bodies of Man--a brief exploration

http://theosophywales.com/seven_bodies_of_man__a_brie.htm

“Just as there are 7 Divisions on the Physical Plane and the Rainbow has 7 Colors, the Energy known as Sound has 7 notes in Music and the same note recurs on the eighth key, only it has a higher or lower Pitch according to which side of the Scale is reckoned. Each complete Scale of Notes is called “Saptaka” or Septave, meaning the Scale of Seven. Actual measurement shows that going from the low to the high, each eighth note has a vibration rate of double the number; thus, each Octave from low to high has double the vibration frequency in the high as in its neighboring low and to find the Octave Frequencies means a question of simple arithmetic." -- Dinshah Ghadiali, Spectro-Chrome Metry Encyclopaedia

"Not unlike our physical sun (the source of all visible light that can be broken up into its seven component colors), the Solar Logos of our system too is a source of seven great cosmic Rays of spiritual light that can help accelerate our spiritual growth. These Rays build up the causal body of man, and to each of them there are various spiritual and physical qualities assigned. In this case we can say that the term "Ray" is used in a sense of one special type of force or energetic quality. These seven great streams of energy represent each and every vibration in nature, space and form, and they permeate all objects, all beings and all events in manifestation. They interpenetrate each other and combine themselves in order to produce more complex systems which we refer to as "reality". The seven Rays surpass the possible description by words, or even by thoughts or feelings. They are too essential and all-encompassing to be limited within our own narrow inner space of perception of the great spectrum of reality." -- Gail Miller

"The seven streams of energy, it is said, are the very vibrations within matter, space and form which define and infuse all objects, all beings, and all events in manifestation. They combine and interweave to create all the complex systems known as reality. They strike a chord in our consciousness and are, quite literally, closer to us than breath. The Seven Stars (Rishis) of the Great Bear (Ursa Major) are the originating Sources of the Seven Rays of our Solar System. These Seven Rishis (Spirits) of the Great Bear express Themselves through the medium of the Seven Planetary Logoi in the Solar System as the Atmic Wills of the Monadic Ray, Who are Their Representatives and to Whom They stand in relation of the prototype. In a manner inconceivable to us the First Logos, the Solar Logoic Spirit, brings in the influence of other Constellations from the Monadic Great Bear via the Little Bear (Ursa Minor), Pleiades and Sirius. The Seven Stars of the Great Bear are involved in an intricate relation with Ursa Minor and the Pleiades, (as with Monad and Atma-Buddhi). This major triplicity of Constellations has a peculiar relation to that Great Being to Whom I have at times referred as the One About Whom Naught May Be Said. All that can be hinted at is that these three Galaxies of Stars are the three aspects of the Ineffable Cause of the Seven Solar Systems, via Sirius, of which ours is one. Each of these Seven Rays, coming from the Great Bear, are transmitted into our Solar System through the medium of three Zodiacal Constellations and their Ruling Planets. The Seven Planetary Spirits (Logoi, Cosmic Atma) manifest through the medium of the Seven Sacred Planets to cooperate in the Soul aspect of the Heavenly Man (Cosmic Buddhic), and also the Personality aspect (Cosmic Mental) of Humanity. The Little Bear, like its Universal Prototype, the Great Bear of which it is a lesser reflection and a corollary, is not a Constellation itself, but an Asterism, which is a distinctive group of Stars. The Seven Stars of the Great Bear are the Seven Head Centers of the One About Whom Naught May Be Said, the Great Being that is greater than our Logos and of the Pleiades, the Seven Stars that are His Spinal Chakras. When the Grand Heavenly Man (or Logos) first assumed the form of the Crown (Kether) and identified Himself with Sephira, He caused Seven Splendid Lights to emanate from the Crown. These are the Progenitors, the Givers of Life to All. They are Seven and then Ten, corresponding to the Seven and Ten Sephiroth, when manifest in Physical System. Cosmically, they are the Seven Rishis of the Great Bear; systemically they are the Seven Planetary Logoi; and from the standpoint of our planet, they are the Seven Kumaras. --The Seven Ray Institute.

"Thinking of God as a Sun, there are surrounding and enfolding this Central Focus of Intelligence Seven Mighty Spheres of Consciousness, each one separated from the other by its own periphery line which forms the natural boundary of that particular sphere. These Seven Spheres are called the Aura of God, each inhabited by Great God Intelligences, all intent on doing the Father's Will to expand His Kingdom. The development and unfoldment of His Kingdom is accomplished by the release of pulsating waves of His Own Divine Consciousness, within which are the spiritual patterns of all form and manifestation, from the smallest blade of grass to the most brilliant star in space. As these God ideas pass from Sphere to Sphere, they are absorbed by the Beings and Intelligences within each one. They then move outward to the next Sphere, and the next, ever journeying onward toward manifestation into the world of form. A constant modification of the God Light, a constant clothing of the God Consciousness is achieved in each Sphere so that God's Ideas become embodied in the substance of each Sphere in orderly sequence and, eventually, reach the Seventh Sphere, or Etheric Realm, where they await precipitation into the physical world of form."

-- Tellis Papastavro, The Gnosis and the Law

"No form can be given to anything, either by nature or by man, whose ideal type does not already exist on the subjective plane. More than this; that no such form or shape can possibly enter man's consciousness, or evolve in his imagination, which does not exist in prototype, at least as an approximation." -- H.P.Blavatsky.

"In the newborn Spirit Spark, from the Heart of God, the Causal Body is pure white. Many of the Individualized White Fire Beings and "I Am" Presences, using their freedom of will, never leave the First Sphere. They are the Holy Innocents whose aura is like White Flame and They embody the Divine Ideas of the Universal which they project downward, but Themselves choosing not to know even the glory of the Second Realm. These individuals forfeit the right to become, in some future era, Sun and Creator, preferring to live in Holy Innocence in that happy estate. The braver Spirits venture forth from the First Sphere and build the Blue Flame of Faith into Their Causal Body in the Second Sphere. Some Spirits go forth into the Third Sphere and learn the activity of the Holy Spirit and breathe into Their thought-forms Light, and these thought-forms become living Entities. Many live within this Pink Sphere of blazing Light and go no further, embodied representatives of the Holy Spirit Intelligences that people this Sphere. Some, however, go further, into Realm of the Bridge Builders, the Realm of Serapis Bey--the Fourth Sphere--where They can be summoned then into form; here they identify themselves with all the various kinds of endeavors that serve mankind. The more adventurous Spirits proceed into the Fifth Sphere and add the Green Band of Light to their Causal Bodies. Some continue on to the Sixth Realm and They add the Ruby Color to Their Causal Bodies. Some continue on into the Seventh Sphere of the Ascended Master Saint Germain and experiment with Divine Alchemy and the Powers of the Violet Fire of Mercy and Compassion, and direct the Angels of Mercy into the world of form. Only Those Who have proceeded through the Seven Spheres and have consciously created a Causal Body with Seven Bands of Color within it can apply for embodiment on Earth. Then if They are accepted, They become a candidate for one of the Seven Root Races and one of its Sub-Races."

-- Tellis Papastavro, The Gnosis and The Law

SOUND AND LIGHT 7X7

“And God said, Let there be Light and there was Light. And God saw the Light, that it was good: and God divided the Light from the darkness.” God spoke to make Light; thus, Sound preceded Light. On the Oscillatory Frequency principle, this is very correct, because, Sound is an Energy acting on a lower Scale. The fact of Light appearing on the Forty-Ninth Octave, explains its Divine origin and relation; God is represented symbolically by the Circle and only 7 Circles can produce the Cosmos; the Number 49 is made by 7 X 7 and stands for each Circle having been traversed 7 times in Cosmogenesis, before Light came into being, with its Seven Spectral Colors. This beauteous Energy was preceded by Sound with its Seven Musical Notes, the Number 7 keeping pace with the Scales of Evolution."

-- http://www.cocreatorsworld.com/…/the-forty-nine-octaves-of…/

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