Three exciting writers from the drab Forties & Fifties

"He was an erudite and an elegant writer and none of the artifices of rhetoric was unfamiliar to him. His style was rich in simile and metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and catachresis. He never let a noun go by without an escort of two stalwart adjectives. Images sprang to his mind as profuse and fat as mushrooms after rain, and being well read in the Scriptures, the works of the Fathers and the Latin moralists, he was never at a loss for recondite allusion. He was learned in sentence structure, simple, compound and compound-complex, and could not only compose a period, with clauses and subclauses, of the most choice elaboration, but bring it to a conclusion with a triumphant clang that had all the effect of a door slammed in your face. This manner of writing, to which an ingenious critic had given the name of Mandarin, is much admired by those who affect it, but it has the the trifling disadvantage of taking a long time to say what can be said in brief; and in any case it would be discordant with the plain, blunt style in which this narrative is written; and so, instead of making a vain attempt to reproduce the good father's grandiloquence, the author of these pages has thought it better to give the gist of the matter [Inquisition 'auto de fe'] in his own simple way."
W. Somerset Maugham: 'Catalina', Doubleday, 1948, pp.89-90

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Somerset_Maugham

Maugham and Michener and Han Suyin are the writer of the postWW2 period that I most enjoy reading. Suyin's autobiographical works are quite excellent history.

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

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

Man's Rage for Chaos: Biology, Behavior & the Arts

Man's Rage for Chaos by Morse Peckham, Professor of English at Univ. of Pennsylvania,
later Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of
South Carolina, is his much neglected 1967 breakthrough analysis of behavior and the arts.
Cultural criticism has been too obsessed with the rage for order to be able to grasp
the import of Peckham's search for "some human activity, which serves to break up orientations,
to weaken and frustrate the tyrannous drive to order, to prepare the individual to observe
what the orientation tells him is irrelevant, but what may be very relevant."
This book is destined to force a sharp turn in critical cultural studies, because it addresses
the rage for chaos in traditional "high culture," not just in popular culture.

4th Cent. B.C. Mosaic from Pella, Makedonia

Dionysos is riding Acimonyx jubatus (a cheetah).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus

Human Blood Sacrifice in Qinghai, P.R.C.

Mountain Gods continue to receive human blood sacrifices (Bon tradition) in Qinghai Province, P.R.C. as seen in this news report video: http://tinyurl.com/n893q6

About Qinghai Province: http://tinyurl.com/4xdt2l

Immanuel Velikovsky & Cultural Amnesia

Papers of the 1974 international symposium at the University of Lethbridge regarding Immamuel Velikovsky's works:
http://www.grazian-archive.com/quantavolution/vol_14/rfs_fw.htm

Especially interesting for me is the fifth paper, by Irving Wolfe, proposing that catastrophic experiences are metamorphosed in the Collective Consciousness of the artists' Unconscious, providing inspiration for works of narrative art:
http://www.grazian-archive.com/quantavolution/vol_14/rfs_05.htm

Review: The Riverrun Trilogy by S.P. Somtow

The Riverrun Trilogy' by S.P. Somtow is one of the most enthralling novels I've read. The story is told in the first person, by several of the characters; each character relating individual perspective on events. Literary quotes, often poetic, occur in the beginnings of each long chapter, thus setting the mood for coming events. Characters are well developed and the story enrapturing, making one care how it may unfold.
This book makes me look into my own sociological workings, as well as the characters'. There are some memorable quotables to be found therein: for a little taste, "You've spent your entire life mythologizing the mundane. . . . Is that not the function of poetry?"p. 148; "Sometimes when I dream of Katastrofa she is like a dragon and she sucks me into herself and folds her wings around me---"p. 21; "Every man IS an island. The universe splits off a million million times each millisecond, and each of us carries a private universe around with him wherever he goes. Where the universes intersect, that's when we think we encounter other people and we think they are our friends and our parents and the other people we love. But we never really know them because we never cross from our little bubble of reality into theirs."p. 82.
I recommend this book to anyone (who can tolerate a little sexual content and explicit language).
Would that it were better known, so more could enjoy it!

S.P. Somtow: The Riverrun Trilogy

I'm finding the reading of Somtow Papinian Sucharitkul (surname is first) a strong tonic to my imagination. I had been reading only the Greek and Latin classics for the past few years. The text is The Riverrun Trilogy, 1996 edition, in English.
ISBN 1-56865-194-5

William Blake Tarot of CreatIve Imagination

This tarot (for my Self at this time anyway) is the ultimate object of contemplation.

Check the links at the Yahoo group for more info:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/William_Blake_Tarot/

EUPHORIA

Euphoria is medically recognized as an affect (emotional and mental state) defined as a series of great elation and well-being. The term is is often used colloquially to define an emotion of intense transcendental happiness combined with an overwhelming sense of well-being. In Greek the word ἘΥΦΟΡΊΑ [frequentative from εὖ + φερεῖν] means "power of easily bearing or carrying, contentment, sense of well-being, grace of movement, fertility".
Euphoria is generally considered to be an exaggerated state resulting from psychological or pharmacological stressors and not typically achieved during the course of human experience, although some natural behaviors, such as acivities resulting in orgasm or the triumph of an athlete, can induce brief states of euphoria. Euphoria has also been cited during certain religious or spiritual rituals and meditation.
Kakaphoria, if such a were word used by the Ancient Greeks, would mean the opposite to euphoria.

Oregon sk8board parkrats & the Portland Paradise

All about the Portland Paradise
http://tinyurl.com/kknetb

Oregon sk8boardparks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5uKJHwTkek

Pilgrims:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofP7lD5HdYI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roPfmW9U_nY

August 21 Update: But digg this new skatepark in Shanghai, China:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vntRpNbxc_g

RadioHead's 'Harry Patch (in memory of)'

Harry Patch, recently dying at 111 years of age, was the last survivor of UK's World War I military forces. He had, and is himself, a message for us.

One may enjoy this eerily beautiful song through the player in the article.

http://tinyurl.com/lemt34

'Cult of Personality'

'Cult of personality', a concept which appears to have been coined by Karl Marx, seems to be the dynamic underlying the creation of mythic heroes down through the ages. This can be seen with clearest objectivity in reading the Greek Classics, especially the Iliad, Xenophon, Thucydides and Herodotus. Among the Ancient Greeks there were temples and even worship, including prayer and sacrifices, of demigods and heroes.

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

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

DAVID BOWIE, 'subter personas'

Who or what is behind the artistic personas of David Bowie? (Quisquis est subter David Bowie personas?
Nonne leoninam pellem induere solet?) Isn't he used to wearing the skin [or playing the role] of the lion?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6en0mExSrw Romy Haag & David Bowie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2p-Jdkd7zs human side of Bowie?


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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JGMbSrJzaI "V-2 Schneider"

Progressive Governance

Progressive Governance if well-intentioned, powerful, and efficient should be able to make a better life for its citizens. Is that not so? Walter Williams shows, on You-Tube, actual results of Progressive Governance as experienced in Philadelphia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1r-r6iLBEI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DS0XXFdyfI


Do you think 'Global Governance', for which Progressives long, would do any better?

"...what it once was like in America when men were free"

It seems we need to be reminded,

as President Ronald Reagan pointed out in 1961,

how important living free is for individual citizens and the entire Nation.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs

Could US Liberals be turning Fascist?

Fascism does indeed favor the social intervention so beloved of US Liberals, also the ultimate governmental control of industry, production, finance, etc.

The fascist governments of the past, however, while actually resulting in national destruction, were seemingly very nationalistic.

Our US Liberals however decry Nationalism and Colonialism, seemingly ready to give up our US sovereignty to a global government, perhaps by bankruptcy, to achieve peace at any price. 'Parafascist' seems a more correct term for them.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryr4o90odww

http://tinyurl.com/nc7vw8

Michael Jackson, C.S. Lewis, & 'the face of God'

"When I look at a child I see the face of God" said Michael Jackson in an interview in which he recommended his 'Childhood' music video for understanding his Weltanschauung:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVJscGa5vbc

A Psalm attributed to King David (Septuagint #23, Masoretic #24) says, "This is the generation seeking him, seeking the face of the God of Jacob." (my 'nekkid' translation)

C.S. Lewis wrote in 'The Weight of Glory': "if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object,... In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you --- the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and we cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that settled the matter.... The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not IN them, it only came THROUGH them, and what came through them was longing. These things ... are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited." C.S. Lewis speaks more to this mystique in his autobiographical book 'Surprised By Joy' and in various published letters. "We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence [that is, 'the face'] of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito." as Lewis wrote in his 'Letters to Malcolm'.

http://planetnarnia.wordpress.com/about/

Hesychasm and the 'Jesus Prayer'

Isn't the 'Light' the same in both the Quaker and Hesychastic traditions?


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

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


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


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

Chronological Snobbery

So what's the good word,you say? Well,'chronological snobbery' is

a mighty fine one to consider.

It was a fine gift to our generation of novelty and change seekers

from the astute creator of the world of Narnia; viz., C.S. Lewis.

Can those who are blinded by their chronological snobbery produce

a sound fiscal policy? Or a better world?

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

ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣΑΥΤΟN

Abenteuer im Wunderland

Hearkening to political gobsheen?

Plato : σωφρόνως γε οἰκοῦσα πόλις εὖ ἂν οἰκοῖτο : A state with habits of self-control would be well governed.