The Devil Rearing Its Head: Part II

Image from the New York Times article
To Live and Not Die in L.A.: Fear the Walking Dean in AMC

A week ago, I posted this comment under my article: The Devil Rears His Head:

There's an instinctive awareness of evil these days. That means that people are reacting to evil as though it were some common occurrence. People used to shy away from evil, concocting all kinds of ways to deter it, or keep it away from them. Now, they court it.

I was analyzing a painting in the Art Gallery of Mississauga (posted below).

In the article, I link to other posts I've made where I describe a determined pursuit of evil in the arts, and which is slowly making its way into ordinary life.

Here is Diana West, who normally sticks to current political commentary, observing the same phenomenon in her article The State of the Culture. Here is an excerpt:

Take today's "Arts and Leisure" section. The title promises arts and leisure, but, of course, it showcases fare once relegated to "pulp magazines" or even wrapped in a paper bag.

What we are looking at (above) is (1) Blood and gore lede: "'Fear the Walking Dead,' " a spinoff of 'The Walking Dead' on AMC, goes back to the early days of the zombie plague."

Excerpt: "The two shows fit under the same mythological umbrella created by Mr. Kirkman in his comic-book series, with the same rules governing the type of zombies (the lumbering kind) and how to kill them (stabbing, shooting, or smashing them in the head).

The secular, ungodly world that we have created has allowed for cracks (now gaping holes) through which the ever-lurking devil can enter. God help us.

"Very Bad Consequences"

July 24, 1959: Richard Nixon and Nikita Krushchev tangle on the merits of capitalism vs. communism in the “Kitchen Debate.” Visiting Moscow to open a national exhibition promoting American culture, vice-president Nixon joined Soviet leader Krushchev on a tour of displays of modern American homes. Krushchev dismissed the American wares as no better than their Soviet counterparts, and turned the conversation to politics when he slammed the U.S. Congress’s Captive Nations Resolution condemning Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. By the time they arrived at a model kitchen, the volume of the debate had spiked, with Nixon criticizing Krushchev’s constant threats about his nuclear arsenal, and Krushchev ominously warning of “very bad consequences.” As a rare outburst of genuine animosity in front of the world press, the debate made front-page news back home. [Image Source]

What I find revealing about this photograph is that Nixon is really debating Krushchev, while Krushchev is standing pugnaciously, eventually to warn of "very bad consequences."

It is the West which is always ready to "debate" and "negotiate." The rest of the world, if given the chance, simply wants to dominate.

And Brezhnev is in the background, watching, assessing, figuring out his American adversary.

Here's another:

3. The Aggression of Alien (Alienated) Asian Artists: Kim Lee Kho

Photo By: KPA


I attended the Art Gallery of Mississauga's Walk the Talk series to listen to Kim Lee Kho, the artist who is "walking the talk."

I had visited the gallery's most recent exhibition, Be a Sport and Pan American Photo Exhibition in honor of the Pan AMerican games which are being hosted by Toronto and surrounding region, which includes Mississauga, but I couldn't understand why Kho's chains unlinked was included in this exhibition. I still don't, but my conclusion is that it is a separate work, sponsored by a separate body, as the online program notes inform me:

The XIT-RM is a project space dedicated to showcasing the work of emerging artists in the GTA and Mississauga region.
Six artists are selected annually by the gallery’s curatorial team to exhibit work that honours the mission and mandate
of the AGM, with an emphasis on contemporary art and critical engagement.

Thanks to generous funding provided by the RBC Foundation, each exhibition features its own opening and is
accompanied by a published catalogue with a curatorial essay.

The AGM has to accommodate six artist from the GTA (Greater TOronoto Area) and Mississauga region. Exhibitions which have to be displayed due to special events cannot be moved or rescheduled. And Art Galleries are ecclectic places after all, so concurrent exhibition will only add to the interest.

But, the gods have co-operated, and Lee fits in more than it seems.

Kendra Ainsworth, in the the AGM's program notes describe her thus:

The chain link fence is a ubiquitous structure, found in ares both urban and rural, demarcating property lines, enclosing or separating spaces, people, and objects. In her first solo museum show, Brampton-based multi-disciplinary artist Kim Lee Kho engages with this every day item both physically and symbolically, examining the formal elements of its composition and its semiotic significance, crafting an immersive installation in she not only emerges the varied media of her practice, but one i which the viewer's negotiation of the gallery space echoes the thematic content of the work.

Kho has often taken up the concept of barriers or enclosure, and images of chain link have appeared in previous works. However, with the multiple components of the Chains Unlinked installation, Kho offers a more in-depth and nuanced examination of how we confront and interact with barriers of all kinds - physical, social, psychological. Each of the works in this exhibition can, in a way, be viewed as a discursive strategy i the language of negotiation with the many barriers that we encounter in our lives.

Anchoring the installation is a large-scale wall drawing, Boxed In #21, an extension of Kho's earlier series. The static figure, trapped both within the frame of the image and on the wall, suggests that one possible reaction to encountering the restriction of confinement is that of abject submission. By contrast, the video Can't Ge In/Can't Get Out 2 illustrates a struggle (perhaps futile) against the physical - or metaphorical - impediment; the subject (the artist) throws herself repeatedly against the fence, attempting to either break through or scale it. At the same time, the viewer embodies the role of the captive figure, caught in between and forced to navigate through a series of hanging installations. However in Insubstantiated II and Chains Unlined, the form of the chain link fence is transmuted, becoming mere shadows on sheer panels of fabric, and the individual wire components dismantled, becoming abstracted, minimal forms. Here the seemingly resistant form of the barriers is both adapted and adapted to, as Kho suggests that barriers can be flexible, even beautiful, and rather than only being structures that are imposed upon us, perhaps barriers are sometimes boundaries we need to create for ourselves, for our own well-being.

By leaving the metaphor vague - is the fence a form of physical imprisonment, a barrier to access, an emotional wall built by us or others? - Kho allows the viewer to imbue the struggle to unlink the chains of the fence with personal significance. The fence itself is a universal signifier; our chains and how we unlink them, intensely personal.

I asked her the following questions, right at the beginning of the "walk," afte which I went inthe background, and just watched and listened:

1. Technical Questions:

- Was this a free hand drawing?


Graffitti



Copyright infringement or Copyright violation
If copyright gives the artist certain rights to publish, perform or reproduce a work of art they create, copyright infringement occurs when someone reproduces (copies) or publishes a creative work without the permission of the artist. One important factor is that although copyright gives the artist rights, these are limited. For example,

...anyone is allowed to take a photograph of a copyrighted painting in a public art show and publish it to accompany an article reviewing the show. This is called "editorial use" and it is not a copyright violation. On the other hand, taking the same photo and using it to create and sell posters is "commercial use" and doing this without asking the artist is a copyright violation...


http://www.visualartcopyright.com/terminology.html#legal1


Offence/Defense
Foreground: "Fenced" by Nancy Cuttle
Far left back: "Can't Get In/Can't Get Out video by Kim Lee Kho
Along back wall: "Neighbours", "My-laws: No By-laws" and "Identity: Crisis" by Kal Honey

Binding Agreement HD from Kim Lee Kho on Vimeo.

By Kim Lee Kho, assisted by Kal Honey

Please view in HD by selecting the 'HD' logo in the lower right of the viewer window.

A silent art video that is more like a gently transforming painting that loops for a few cycles. The vertical orientation reduces the apparent quality. I will upload a 1080p version soon. Originally presented on a 37" 1080p LED HDTV display rotated to vertical orientation.

'Binding Agreement' is one of my first two video artworks, though it hardly qualifies as a video at all. I think of it more as a transforming image. It loops a few times through the sequence in the course of its 6ish minutes. Because it is more like a painting than a film, it is best to quiet your mind a little before watching.

In my symbolic world, white picket fences represent domestic life, home ownership and a kind of middle class Canadian dream I grew up with. That dream, while pervasive in Canada anyway, was intensified by the values of my immigrant father for whom home ownership represents security, and security represents the highest value.

My own experience with home ownership has felt complicated, and I am old enough to have grown up in a time of major change in women's roles and expectations. Domestication has played out differently for women than for men, but for either sex there are those who find the situation less than comfortable.

There is more than one kind of "binding agreement" associated with different aspects of our domestication and alluded to in the title. Visually I have also referenced classical and Renaissance sculpture in this piece.

Thank you.

Agit-Prop

Bojagi (Korean traditional wrapping cloth) was a great influence on my work at the beginning of my art practice. Even though my work has changed over the years I still have a desire to revisit the point where I started once in a while: not so much out of nostalgia but for fresh inspiration. And, yes, the familiar Korean textile never fail to encourage my search --- perhaps it is a consolation that I look for unconsciously living so far away from Korea. It may not be an exaggeration to say that Bojagi has been the anchor to hold me secure in times of doubt.



Typically, my approach to surface embellishment is based on a strong response to the character of the material itself. Ramie and hemp were widely used in Korea in earlier times for clothing and bedding in summer because of their natural coolness and subtle paper-like quality. The unusual stiffness of these materials has allowed me to revisit my textile heritage in a more playful, collage-like manner in some cases. (Chung-Im Kim)

These recent works exlpores the chaotic order resulting from many small pieces containing broken images. I tend to see each of these parts as an independent soul containing unique power and energy that then together becomes an entity as cells to a body. I hope to evoke the birthing tension when all are gathered. (Chung-Im Kim)

The abstracted, simplified, silk-printed images of Kim on her "bogagie" which is non-traditional (orignal bogagie were constructed uses strips of cloth, not


I wrote the following email to a group of friends and colleagues which meets regularly for dinner and discussions:

Dear --- and friends,

I thought I had replied to your dinner RSVP, but it looks like I haven't. I will join you next month.

Meanwhile, your discussion topic (topics) struck a chord.

- Anti-liberal agit-prop:

I have been doing a bit of that these days.

The very liberal, very, very multi-culti, and therefore logically anti-West/anti-White Art Gallery of Mississauga has been hosting a series of exhibitions which I am in the process of "deconstructing," to use leftist artists' lingo.

There is a strong group that is taking over (or being given the place in a silver platter) and it is Chinese artists.

Here is my first of a series of posts on recent exhibitions at the AGM:

The Aggression of Alien (Alienated) Asian Artists 1. Tammy Tang: Employing Less Materiality

Asians are a difficult group to analyse. But I have called their contribution to Western society sup-par in posts here, here, here and here (amongst many others).

Politically, this is the group many hope will become staunch conservatives, but instead they almost always end up showing their "true colors" as liberals (liberal conservatives).

In the arts it is the same. I keep thinking I will find the next Asian Raphael, but all that ever happens is that they produce a wonderful collage of appropriated (Western) art, but with the inevitable Eastern direction. And the same in design.

Asians will NOT save the West. Multiculturalism will NOT save the West. Liberals will NOT save the West.

So, even if this is a little off-topic, I think it addresses Jim's point to carry on a general anti-liberal agit-prop, and realize that multicultural really means everyone against the West, Western art, Western philosophy and politics, and Western culture.

Bon Appetit , and I am very glad that you have resumed meeting at the lovely --- .

Kidist

Summer: I

"Walk the Talk

I sent the email below regarding my image in your blog/News posting at the "Walk the Talk" presentation at the AGM.

I missed the last photograph of me, which is in the sixth row of your image postings.

Please remove me from that photograph too.

Thank you.

KPA

--------------------------------------

Please remove me from your photographs that are posted on your blog from your "Walk the Talk" presentation at the AGM.

I am the person wearing the white hat.

Those images are in:
- the top row
- the second row, right - at the XIT-RM
- the fourth row, both images.

Thank you,

Kidist Paulos Asrat







Please remove me from your photographs that are posted on your blog from your "Walk the Talk" presentation at the AGM.

I am the person wearing the white hat.

Those images are in:
- the top row
- the second row, right - at the XIT-RM
- the fourth row, both images.

Thank you,

Kidist Paulos Asrat

The Devil Rearing Its Head

"Pizza Party" By An Dy exhibited at the Living Arts Centre Gallery, Mississauga

The Devil Rearing its Head

There's an instinctive awareness of evil these days. That means that people are reacting to evil as though it were some common occurrence. People used to shy away from evil, concocting all kinds of ways to deter it, or keep it away from them. Now, they court it.

I wrote to a correspondent:

I think the devil is really rearing his head, and it is not only Obama.

Look at this horrendous, ghoulish, un-artistic piece of "pizza" which this useless creature has produced as art. What lows we have reached.

I went to the Living Arts Centre Gallery a little while ago, not that thought I would find anything exceptional, but to see what's "cooking."

And I found the Pizza Party. Unbelievable.

I am working on a series of posts (here is The Aggression of the Alien (Alienated) Asian Artists: 1. Tammy Tang: Employing Less Materiality which I've completed) on Chinese artists in Mississauga, and the now clearly fetishistic admiration of Asians by whites, to the detriment of other whites. I have already noted in posts dating as far back as two years ago the Asian Female/White Male coupling, where white women are abandoned by these hypocritical, liberal, feminist white men (they are equally to blame in pushing the feminist agenda which has been the ruin of white women), but since they need "women" as their mates, not testosterone/estrogen filled monsters, they have found those savvy Asian women who know just how to trap them.

This "Pizza Party" guy, An Dy, from what I can gather, is a homosexual. The gallery curators are a bunch of feminist women. This particular show they curated is on "recent art school graduates," and they have disproportionately curated works by Asian artists. I emailed one of them what their criteria was, and she just sent me a link to the exhibition website. The white artists in the show have superior work, but I should say that the Asians are also good, but at a lower ability than the whites.

The Asians have also used their art to make "Asian" statements.

So, we are slowly being encroached by this aggressive, alienated, anti-white group, as I titled the blog article, which is also subtly inferior, and I also think envious. It is also strong.

The multi-culti rebellion (demonic war, I should call it) has reached a newer, more vicious, evil level.

Lace and Inspiriation

I saw this trio of Queen Anne's lace, which were an inspiration for my work Trillium and QUeen ANne's Lace.

Trillium are those elusive flowers, which, like the Mourning Dove, I must confess I have never actually seen, which are an emblem of Ontario:

Ontario's floral emblem, the white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), was adopted in 1937. It blooms in late April and May. The blooms are very sensitive to light, and the white flowers usually bend toward the sun as it moves across the sky. The white trillium is found in the deciduous forests and woodlands of Ontario.

The adoption of an official flower for Ontario grew out of a movement during the First World War to choose a national floral emblem appropriate for planting on the graves of Canadian servicemen overseas. The trillium was proposed by the Ottawa Horticultural Society. Although it was well received, no national flower was ever chosen.

Here is what I wrote in 2008 about the trillium, and its part in Ontario's symbolic history:

...the provincial logo of a stylized Trillium grandiflorum was transformed in 2006 into what looks like a group of people stringed together by triangular hooks. Probably only those privy to the original trillium logo would be able to recognize the flower in this new design. The trillium was originally proposed as a flower to place on the overseas graves of Canadian servicemen from the First World War. Although that was not adopted, the flower was later taken up as the provincial emblem in 1937. It was later incorporated into the provincial logo in 1964. Unlike the precarious linking of anonymous stick figures, this original logo was a real, recognizable part of the Ontario landscape translated into a ubiquitous, powerful and beloved motif.

This is where the 2008 Olympics symbolism starts to make sense. The designers, two Asian-Canadians, Tu Ly and Vivienne Lu, under the direction of Suzanne Timmins of the Hudson Bay’s Company, claimed that they were fusing cultures and symbols when designing the Olympics uniform. "We are the world, we are the children…" It’s beginning to sound like the hooked stick figures in the new trillium logo. But, it is all even more insidious than that. The lyrics should be: "We aren’t Canadians, so who are we…."

The Ontario trillium logo has gone through three changes between its inaugural in 1964 and 2002 that were almost identical to the original save a slight thickening of the lines, or a minor lengthening of the flower. But, the final revision in 2006 completely changed its form, because its symbolism also changed. The original logo was a visual representation of Ontario, and what better way to do it than through the landscape, picking the perfect flower right in our very own back yard, created for an infallible design. The 2006 version was a superficial attempt to connect disparate Ontarians in a ring of feel-good unity.

And here is the "evolution of design" as I incorporated the Queen Anne's Lace with the trillium:


And my notes:

Design is a slow evolution of ideas, and how to best juxtapose different elements. I think the best reference is nature itself, and later on many motifs and ideas start coming together. It is also easier to work in threes - two flowers, one leaf, etc. I drew both important elements - the trillium and the Queen Anne's lace before I worked on putting them together. I used the structured trillium with the more powdery and whimsical Queen Anne's lace, and brought still more structure into the design by placing flowers in (and around) a spiral.

Queen Ann's lace has another mundane name: Wild carrot. But here is the interesting information about the two names (from the site lined above): "Queen Anne's Lace is the wild progenitor of the domesticated carrot."

And here is the mystery of the purple floret, which I managed to capture in my photograph today:

New Canadians

Citizenship and Immigration Canada calls a certain type of immigrant "New Canadians." It is a strategy to make these groups "accepted" into Canadian society, but the question never arose to those who concocted the term whether these groups wants to be Canadians at all.

This family of Muslims, speaking the guttural Arabic language, were sitting behind me at the C-Cafe's patio. They didn't order anything from the cafe, but used the benches to camp out, and to eat the lunch they brought with them.

The woman is pregnant with a fourth child (a boy, this time?), and later on, she left with one of the children in a stroller, to take her to the daycare centre in front of the cafe.

These "new Canadians" will never be "old Canadians" but will carry with them, eternally, their Middle Eastern identity. They will pay lip service to Multiculturalism, but will have no desire to mingle with other ethnic groups to make that much touted "melting pot."

Such is multiculturalism. Canadians give everything away, each group of "new Canadians" take it all and keep it for themselves.

The Aggression of Alien (Alienated) Asian Artists 2. Shellie Zhang

Shellie Zhang's work is a mixture of "grown up" Japanese Anime, modernized Chinese propaganda posters, graphic novel illustrations and Disney cartoons, all with an undertone of sex. It is curious that she chooses these styles for her work, but not completely unexplanatory. Zhang's artistic education and career evolved in Canada. Her cirriculum vitae omits any information on her native China, but it is clear that she was born in China, and most likely lived most of her childhood and adolescence there, from her Instagram photographs. And this brief biography describes her background as:

Shellie Zhang is a Toronto-based artist who was born in Beijing and raised in various parts of China, the United States, and Canada.

Still, for all this cosmopolitanism, her primary focus is on China.

In 2013, at the University of Toronto, she sealed that perspective with her exhibition: Made in China. Here is how the program describes her work:

This installation examines mass produced Chinese objects and trinkets as an entry point into the evolving nature of how Chinese culture is represented and misrepresented in western countries -particularly as these objects are produced primarily for western consumption- while also navigating the influence and interconnected nature of the artist’s simultaneous Chinese and Canadian identities.

Don't be fooled by the "simultaneous Chinese and Canadian identities." These multicultural "Canadian" artists do try to approach their art through some kind of Canadian lense, but they do this in order to understand, and to be able to better incorporate, their own ethnic backgrounds.


For example, in Zhang's Made in China (from program notes at the The University of Toronto's Munk Center for Global Affairs on July 11 - August 16,2013):

This installation examines mass produced Chinese objects and trinkets as an entry point into the evolving nature of how Chinese culture is represented and misrepresented in western countries - particularly as these objects are produced primarily for western consumption - while also navigating the influence and interconnected nature of the artist's simultaneous Chinese and Canadian identities.

The school describes its program Student Perspectives: Global Aesthetics, thus:

The Munk School of Global Affairs presents Student Perspectives: Global Aesthetics: a Political art exhibition curated by Masters of Museum Studies students. As cultural boundaries stretch, art can act as a powerful mediator in understanding concepts like globalization, war and nationalism. This exhibition examines the enmeshment of art with the local and global through the work of visual studies students at the University of Toronto.

The exhibition is curated by the students of the Masters Program in Museum Studies, University of Toronto:
Danielle Megallin
Caitlin Sutherland
Zhang alos takes this oppourtunity to pose nude (she has been edging towards disrobing in her various "themes"), abut now she does so with a purpose. She posed sitting with her back to the viewer, and has a "bar code" on tatooed on her back. I think this is a real tatoo, and she never says what that thatoo is, but she has the piece in a collection called "Made in China."

Here is her less blatant piece, which she calls "Instant Gratification" which is series of infants' dummies, which are clearly a reference to nipples.

The Mourning Dove: A Call to Action

Below is a dove I saw flying from tree to tree, and then it decided to stop by a small patch of grass, where it pecked at some seeds. I had drawn a portrait of one a couple of years ago, but the photo I used came from Wikipedia!

Confession: I have never seen a real-live mourning dove, although I have heard its lovely sound (in the Philadelphia area, last Spring).

Below is a photograph I managed to catch of this fleeting dove, and below that is my rendition of one perched on a branch.

I thought for a long time that it was "morning dove" but it is perhap apt that it be "mourning." Animal sounds often give us the mood of the times. A mourning dove, reminding us that we should be aware of what we are losing, and as my modest blog attempts to do, to reclaim it once again.




I a

Lady Gaga's Demons, Ann Coulter's Demonic, And The Modern World That Leaves No Room For God

Mozart: Piano concerto No. 21 in C major

I forgot to bring my earphones to the lovely C-Cafe, so that I could drink my coffee without that incessant music "quietly playing" (that's what the guy at the front told me) coming from the speakers at the back of the room. I had Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 saved on my Google drive.

I got into a fight with the guy saying that he put it on as soon as I got into the room because he has it in for me (I've reported his bad service before to the management), and can't he turn it off for a short while, since there's no-one here yet.

"It's policy."

"Oh, it's policy for people like you."

"What do you mean?"

He was implying that I was implying that "people like you" means black people.

"People like you," pointing at him.

"I'm calling security. I don't have to work like this."

"Oh, so you can't even handle one small woman like me, yet you were ready for a fight!"

He called security, a nice officer named Linda.

"Officer Linda," I said, without any sarcasm.

"Yes, Officer Linda. You don't like music?"

"I've performed music. I was a pianist, and I sang in many choirs. I know what music is about. This incessant music that's everywhere produces people like him," pointing at the guy.

"And, this kind of music doesn't let you concentrate. You make mistakes. And he's a short-order cook. Who knows what he does at the grill."

Well, this guy had to report me, because his name is already with the management. And I've noticed that they've cut down his hours. So, this performance was really a fight for his job.

I wonder how long he will last.

And Lady Gaga is performing her "Born This Way" on the radio which is playing as I type this blog.

And here is Ann Coulter's book from 2011: Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America. Although that was still the time when Coulter was writing in terms of revealing liberalism, so most of her language is antagonism towards liberals to make her point, this will be another book on my list which I will ask my nice lady from Chapters/Indigo to order for me. I especially like third part of the book: The Violent Tendencies of Liberals (the Amazon.com link above has parts of the book available to read on-line).

We are now in the perfect Orwellian world, or better yet, Demonic world, where human biology, or natural capacity to see, hear, and feel beauty, is shut off and replaced with noise and ugliness.

Lady Gaga: Born This Way

Trendsetting With Pizza

An on-going exhibition at the Living Arts Centre Gallery in Mississauga is titled More Decent Exposure, which is:

...the culminating exhibition from a call for submissions to students and new graduates of post-secondary arts and design institutions. From over seventy entries by emerging artists, exhibition jurors short listed twelve applicants whose works represent new trends in contemporary practice across a wide range of disciplines. Acting as a window to the near-future of visual arts, the collection is an exciting and challenging application of new materials and ideas. This is the second exhibition of its kind, the first was DECENT EXPOSURE, 2012.

One whose work "represents new trends in contemporary practice" is An Dy (Andy, I suppose) who has a painting selected for the exhibition titiled: Pizza Party.

Here is An Dy in front of his piece, from the Mississauga News article:
LAC [Living Arts Centre] gallery showcases upcoming trendsetters in art:


I took the two images below on my last visit (with clenched teeth, the whole experience was unpleasant, and I only went through it for the photos I was able to get!). They are close-ups of the masterpiece.



Here is An DY's Facebook page, with other ghoulish gems.

"I Will Counsel You With My Loving Eye On You"

(Photo I took at the US Canada Border last April, 2015)

Psalm 32:8

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

New Frontiers

New Horizon Spacecraft Exploration to Pluto

Exploration has been the hallmark of the West.

New close-up images of a region near Pluto’s equator reveal a giant surprise: a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body.

The mountains likely formed no more than 100 million years ago -- mere youngsters relative to the 4.56-billion-year age of the solar system -- and may still be in the process of building, says Geology, Geophysics and Imaging (GGI) team leader Jeff Moore of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.. That suggests the close-up region, which covers less than one percent of Pluto’s surface, may still be geologically active today.

Moore and his colleagues base the youthful age estimate on the lack of craters in this scene. Like the rest of Pluto, this region would presumably have been pummeled by space debris for billions of years and would have once been heavily cratered -- unless recent activity had given the region a facelift, erasing those pockmarks.

“This is one of the youngest surfaces we’ve ever seen in the solar system,” says Moore.

Unlike the icy moons of giant planets, Pluto cannot be heated by gravitational interactions with a much larger planetary body. Some other process must be generating the mountainous landscape.

“This may cause us to rethink what powers geological activity on many other icy worlds,” says GGI deputy team leader John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

The mountains are probably composed of Pluto’s water-ice “bedrock.”

Although methane and nitrogen ice covers much of the surface of Pluto, these materials are not strong enough to build the mountains. Instead, a stiffer material, most likely water-ice, created the peaks. “At Pluto’s temperatures, water-ice behaves more like rock,” said deputy GGI lead Bill McKinnon of Washington University, St. Louis.

The close-up image was taken about 1.5 hours before New Horizons closest approach to Pluto, when the craft was 47,800 miles (77,000 kilometers) from the surface of the planet. The image easily resolves structures smaller than a mile across. [Article from Nasa.gov]

And more here:

On July 14 at approximately 8 a.m. Eastern time, a half-ton NASA spacecraft that has been racing across the solar system for nine and a half years will finally catch up with tiny Pluto, at three billion miles from the Sun the most distant object that anyone or anything from Earth has ever visited. Invisible to the naked eye, Pluto wasn’t even discovered until 1930, and has been regarded as our solar system’s oddball ever since, completely different from the rocky planets close to the Sun, Earth included, and equally unlike the outer gas giants. This quirky and mysterious little world will swing into dramatic view as the New Horizons spacecraft makes its closest approach, just 6,000 miles away, and onboard cameras snap thousands of photographs. Other instruments will gauge Pluto’s topography, surface and atmospheric chemistry, temperature, magnetic field and more. New Horizons will also take a hard look at Pluto’s five known moons, including Charon, the largest. It might even find other moons, and maybe a ring or two. [The restof the article is here at Smithsonian.com]

Mexico in France (and Elsewhere): Email Interaction With Tiberge of Gallia Watch

From Daniela Rossell's 2002 book Ricas y Famosas: Mexico 1994-2001

Tiberge at Gallia Watch replies to my post (I sent her an email asking her what she thought) with these remarks. I've posted my reply below that.

Tiberge: Once a few years ago, I complained about the fact that the Indian Army was marching at the head of the Bastille Day parade. Two French readers disagreed, one saying it didn't bother him, and the other praising the quality of the Indian Army. You can review the post, and the comments:

Bastille Day, 2009 - Honoring India

The practice of a "guest star" is not new, and not always innocuous. Your information from The Telegraph seems adequate. I can't add much, except that when Sarkozy came to power in 2007 he changed the nature of most French patriotic holidays from France-oriented to "multi-culti" or "internationalist". Last year the big issue was having the Algerian Army march in the parade. I seriously objected to that, as did many others. Compared to Algeria, Mexico does not seem to be such a faux pas.

However, there were, according to Le Monde, raised eyebrows when it was learned Mexico would be honored. This was because of the corrupt nature of the Mexican government, its involvement in drugs and its mafia-style tactics.

Le Mexique, hôte problématique de la France pour le 14-Juillet

I find this a bit odd since France, though not corrupt in the same way, is also something of a mafia state when one considers Socialist theft, immoral permissiveness with regard to crime and criminals, and unfettered immigration for the purpose of replacing the French population. Mexico is corrupt, but is France much better? It was surprising to read such a condemnation of Mexico from Le Monde.

My post was done in a light-hearted way. I did not take time to delve into Mexico's presence. If I can find the time, I'll add an update with a more thorough explanation of why Mexico was a bad choice. You did not make too much of Mexico; it was probably I who did not take it seriously enough.

As for the falconers, I was just commenting on the beauty of the image, the discipline, the bird itself. Possibly "formidable" would have been more precise.

My reply:

Mexico is really far more corrupt, at every level, than is France. I lived there as a student for two years. The police would stop you if they felt they could get something, and savvy Mexicans would give them bribe money to be left alone.

Politicians were completely mistrusted by the public. They were extremely wealthy over the monies that they could and would solicit through bribes, phony projects, and extortion.

No-one could really say how wealthy Mexicans became wealthy.

The elite: professors, businessmen, artists, writers, etc. would actually say that they encourage the poor to go to America and to "get their due."

Mexicans believed that the US "stole" their land in southern Texas, Arizona, California and other neighboring states, although they were gained through legitimate wars, often started due to Mexican aggression.

Murders and assassinations were getting frequent by highway robbers. Men in expensive cars were frequently hijacked for money, unless they were also stripped off their clothes(!) and their cars.

The ordinary Mexicans know all this, but they are so involved in their families, trying to make a living, watching American TV, hating America (blaming America, as their leaders would want them to), and inhabiting another "Orwellian" sphere, that they are willing to accept all this.

Quatorze Juillet: France, America, and the Mexican Connection

Mexican falconers Marching Down the Champs Elysées

Tiberge at Gallia Watch has this photo up on her website with this commentary:

Just a quick look back at the July 14 parade. Mexico was honored this year, as 150 Mexican soldiers led the parade down the Champs-Elysées. Below, the Mexican falconers. A great sight.

I think Tiberge means by "A great sight" is "A formidable sight," as in "An incredible sight."

I searched on-line to find any reaction to this incredible incongruity: the president of another country honored at a national festival where the armed forces are in procession, with that president's country's ARMED FORCES joining in the parade!!!!

All the criticism I could find are about Hollande's groping hands, although I find nothing wrong with a man giving special attention to another woman with the woman's husband nearby. There is nothing wrong with admiring feminine beauty, and the "groping" is highly exaggerated.

In any case, for some strange reason (perhaps Tiberge can explain) it is a "tradition" to invite foreign forces to march in the Bastille Day parade. Of course, part of the rationale is to invite armies who assisted France, or fought with France, in the various wars through the decades.

The Telegraph explains through an image caption:

Soldiers carrying the flags of 76 countries marched down the Champs Elysées in Paris, as France's traditional Bastille Day military parade commemorated the centenary of World War I.

That still begs the question: What was the extraordinary contribution of Mexico to World War I battles that garnered them a special invitation for France's foremost national holiday?

Mexico was "neutral" during WWI, and fought in the Philippines during WWII against Japan, which hardly gives Mexico an extraordinary status in the World Wars.

Here is a commentary about inviting foreign dignitaries, and foreign armed forces, to the Bastille Day parades. It has a cautious tone:

Recently, it has become customary to invite units from France's close allies to participate in the parade. For instance, in 2004, to mark the centenary of the Entente Cordiale, British troops (the band of the Royal Marines, the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, Grenadier Guards and King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery) led the Bastille Day parade in Paris, with the Red Arrows flying overhead.[Source: Bastille Day Military Parade

The British participation in 1919 and 1939 are clearly in their capacities as allies due to the two World Wars.
[More from the same source below]

While British troops had participated in the Bastille Day parades of 14 July 1919 and 1939 (see below), this was the first occasion that invited foreign troops had actually led the parade. In 2007, the parade opened with detachments from all member states of the European Union, flying the European flag. The European anthem was played.

In fact, the Nazis did a victory march of sorts down Champs Elysées, on July 14, 1940:

German Troops Marching Down Champs Elysées, June 1940

In the Second World War, the German troops occupying Paris and Northern France paraded along the same route.

And, the importance of the 14th of July as a demonstration of national military strength was apparent when:

A victory parade under General de Gaulle was held upon the restoration in 1945 of Paris to French rule while within the period of occupation by the Germans a company of the commando Kieffer of the Forces Navales Françaises Libres had continued the French National Holiday parade in the streets of London.

De Gaulle Marching Down Champs Elysées

The News reports here that Mexico opened the parade! And adds this:

It is the first time in the history of the parade that the participation of foreign troops coincides with a state visit from the president of the invited country. Mexico is also the first country from Latin America to take part in the event.

What is strange is Hollande allowing this "state visit" to occur during France's national holiday, and "honoring" it with that country's armed forces.

The historical connection of France with Mexico is:

Maximilian (Spanish: Maximiliano; Born Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph; 6 July 1832 – 19 June 1867) was the only monarch of the Second Mexican Empire. He was a younger brother of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I. After a distinguished career in the Austrian Navy, he entered into a scheme with Napoleon III of France to rule Mexico. France had invaded Mexico in 1861, with the implicit support and approval of other European powers, as part of the War of the French Intervention. Seeking to legitimize French rule, Napoleon III invited Maximilian to establish a new Mexican monarchy. With the support of the French army and a group of conservative Mexican monarchists, Maximilian traveled to Mexico where he declared himself Emperor of Mexico on 10 April 1864.[Source: Wikipedia]

Perhaps it is to expiate themselves of the long-forgotten sin that Hollande made this gesture towards the Mexicans.

But I think it is the recurring pattern of contemporary Western leaders who invite foreign elements into their countries, with the insidious intention of weakening the West by strengthening the non-Western world.

This is what Obama is doing.

Mexican Soldiers Marching Down the Champs Elysées this 14th July, 2015

The flag at the very front is the Mexican flag.

The Aggression of Alien (Alienated) Asian Artists 1. Tammy Tang: Employing Less Materiality

1. Tammy Tang


Tammy Tang
In Sum
Mattress, Salt, Vinegar
[Source: Tammy Tang's tumbler page

Tang's title on this on-line version, In Sum, is different from the exhibition version at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, which is Hers Soul (see below for the image in the gallery). Why did Tang change the title? And why is her phrasing grammatically wrong? Is she trying to be one of those postmodern, witty, artists who love to "play with words" to make up for their artistic deficiencies? I tried to figure it out.

"Hers, Soul" with a comma might have made some sense as "Hers is her soul" but "Hers Soul?" I think it is simply a deficiency in language. It is a mistake.

Below is a photograph I took of the object in the Art Gallery of Mississauga, and the label below is also a shot from the show.


Tammy Tang
Hers Soul
Group Show: More Decent Exposure, June 27- August 23
Living Arts Centre Gallery
Mississauga, Ontario



Tang explains her art in a written statement. Again, her writing is clumsy with small grammatical errors. I wonder if this is how Asians are to speak and write English, developing their own idioms? And Tang's writing is also filled with the cliches of postmodern art: "penetrable boundary," "ephemeral," "embrace the chaos."

My practice explores the penetrable boundary between the physical and the psychological, imperceptible nature of memory. Addressing the relationship between individual's internal feelings, struggles, and conflicts within the surroundings. Develop an ephemeral silence for the viewers to bear, reconfigure the role of uncertainty and embrace the chaos.

Yes, dump a mattress in an Art Gallery, and get the hijacked visitor to deal with that!

Tang cites the following three artists as influences on her "mattress" work:

- Jannis Kounellis

- Ann Hamilton

- Kiki Smith

I tried to find the connection between these artists and Tang's mattress, but, her choices are probably arbitrary, and based on some phrase or commentary they made on art, rather than their actual work.

In any case, here is Jannis Kounellis' row of beds:


Jannis Kounellis

Untitled
2000
14 military hospital beds, 14 steel bodies, 21 steel plates, 41 military blankets
Each bed 200 x 80 cm, each steel plate 200 x 180 cm

Tang may have been influenced by Kiki Smith's "domestic" environment installation:


Or she was simply attracted to the fairy tale/horror story imagery that is now in popular media of young girls raped by wild animals. Even savvy commercials are using this imagery.

This might be closer than the others, After all Tang gave us a dishevelled bed, which she tried to purify with vinegar (clean off the "dirt?"). As usual with contemporary, postmodern art, there is a subliminal, hidden sexual theme in the work.

Here is Kiki SMith's Born, where the rape begat the child, so everything is clean and good:


Kiki Smith (American, born Germany, 1954)
Born, 2002.
Lithograph, 68 x 56 in. (172.7 x 142.2 cm)
Brooklyn Museum, Emily Winthrop Miles Fund, 2003

And Ann Hamilton's simple use of ordinary items may have caught her attention. But then, it could just be as simple as Hamilton's photography on the Mekong River, in the Orient (Laos), may have found something sympathetic in her.


Ann Hamilton
From: Meditation Boat
The abadoned walking meditation halls of Luang Praban's monasteries inspired the boat's form and function

It is interesting that Tang mentions no-where the King of the Mattress (or unmade bed): Rauchenberg! After all, he used a cast-off bed (like hers "found" futon) to construct his object.


Robert Rauschenberg
Bed
1955
Oil and pencil on pillow,
quilt,
and sheet on wood supports,
6' 3 1/4" x 31 1/2" x 8"
Museum of Modern Art, New York

But then, art history beyond the contemporary postmodernism, prior to say, 1995, would be too far back in time!

Here is is an article on four of the beds of the post-modern art era (unmade, unaesthetic, suggestive and even lewd, sexualized), with Rauschenberg's bed as the role model, and with the final line: "Here’s to adding to that history!"

I suppose Tang just might become part of that "history."

Or maybe she was thinking of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, that "avant garde artist" who did a Bed In right here in Canada!


Annie Liebovitz
Photograph for Magazine Cover
Rolling Stone
January 22, 1981

“…Later that afternoon, John was murdered… The way these events played out is an excellent example of how circumstances change a picture. It’s like when you think of the picture and suddenly the photograph has a story”.

Annie Liebovitz is the lesbian photographer who bizarrely was "moved" by this multi-racial couple's "kiss" from Lennon's album cover Double Fantasy. What was it that turned her on? Not the kiss by two heterosexuals, but the unconventionality of the couple.

And rather than repeat this kiss, she went further and imagined them with their clothes off. Here she recounts her interaction with the two at the photo shoot.

So here is Tang's subconscious reference: Yoko Ono as a role model. An aggressive Asian to emulate!

But I believe the real reason that Tang creates such unaesthetic, formless art is because she has no images to emulate.

What does she do: Chinese art or Canadian art; Western art or Eastern art?

Chinese artists in the West have resumed their oriental practices and reproduced their Chinese art. But, their works are bland and repetitive. Others (a few) have tried to incorporate Western art and history into their work, but they don't maintain this for long. So, either they resume their Chinese art, or go the "modern" way, where art becomes a negative representation of society, dark, nihilistic, and critical. Their alien, and alienated, situation forces them in this direction.

I believe this is the direction that Tang has taken, where she feels compelled to create art, but has no subject matter, no images, to describe, reproduce and create.

She says as much here in her very brief biography:

Tammy Tang is a sculptress resides in ON(sic). She was born in Hong Kong. Tang studied Art and Art History, Sociology and Women Gender Studies at University of Toronto. Tang often used the found material as a medium in her work. As they carried significant histories and meanings from their past activities, they provided a rich sensation to the work...The majority of Tang's work reflects her critical view to social and environmental issues that derived from her personal experiences and struggles in the West and East. Tang's work now starting to focus on the employing of less materiality in order to give away a dense vision....

Tammy Tang, in front of her installation:
This is Float, 2015,
Salt, Food Colouring, Cheese Cloth, Various Glasses Containers

Exhibited at the student programHabitual at Sheridan College.

She describes the work thus:

I used the decomposition reaction in salt to create salt crystals that would represent a formation of human body. And the process of crystals decaying, when time goes by, symbolized human ashes formation after body being burnt on funeral pyre. The work becomes a model for acknowledging the inevitability of change in human life.

Klimt's Seduction: Part I

I recenlty wrote about a The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs, a book I had just purchased, whereas in fact, I had bought two books.

For some reason, I didn't feel up to commenting on this second one.

It is Anne-Marie O'Connor's The Lady in Gold, the Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.

I started to write about the (beginning) of the book, and here is what I wrote about three days ago. I started by writing the very first line of the book:
----------------------------------------------------------

It was 1898, and the devil himself seemed to dance in Vienna.

This is the first line of the first chapter of: The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.

I stopped reading the book after the first chapter, to do more research on the painting. As I looked closer at what I found online, I realized that the "designs" on Adele Bloch-Bauer's dress (the Woman in Gold) looked like some Egyptian heiroglyphic eyes.

Here is more, just from the first two pages:

For hundreds of years, the great Habsburg dynasty had reigned over this crossroad of East and West. Behind immense battlements, its frilly court united German, Italian, Polish Czech, Hungarian, and Croatian aristocracies into a single royal house whose multicultural capital was as ornate as a Faberge egg.

[...]

Now Vieanna's ancient ramparts had come tumbling down, and a wave of newcomers was crowding in from Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, and Transylvania.

[...]

This new Vienna was a city of contradictions. It was one of Europe's richest cities, yet its immigrants were among the poorest. The construction of opulent new palaces did little to hide a severe housing shortage. Vienna doctors were creating modern medicine - pioneering surgeries; discovering germs, the polio virus, and blood types - yet incurable syphilis spread unchecked. Sigmund Freud was illuminating hidden drives of sex and aggression at a time of xenophobia and anti-Semitism so crude that some believed Jews murdered children to leaven their matzoh with blood.

[...]

The dynasty that had united Europe and the Americas had become the empire's premier dysfunctional family.

[...]

...wrote the appalled director of the Burghtheater. "The devil is loose here...in one single night, the Viennese went with him."

[...]

Yet even in this "Gay Apocalypse" Vienna maintained a deeply old-fashioned charm, with its snow-covered palaces and strolling parks, its aromatic cafes and seductive pastry carts piled with petit fours and chocolate bonbons filled with sweet liqueur. Possessed of a childlike love of adornment, Vienna was a city where gilded iron roses climbed balconies and stone goddesses framed doorways; where gargoyles glared from cornices and Herculean men bared their immense chests from facades.

[...]

In 1989, Vienna was a place where illusions could still be preserved by well-to-do families like the Bauers, who gathered at their elegant apartment above the Ringstrasse on a March afternoon, when the musky sweetness of lilacs filled the damp air.

Adele Bauer was standing before the family in a white Grecian robe, revealing a slender frame as long and delicate as a vase. Her thick hair fell to her waist. At sixteen, Adele was crossing that mysterious line between girl and woman. Dressed as the spirit of Spring, she held a wicker cornucopia filled with Spring blossoms and sheaves. with her poise and regal bearing and her dark, heavily lidded eyes, Adele might have been an actress, like Katharina Schratt, who ruled a few steps down the Ringstrasse, at the Burgtheater.

So begins a book which through the guise of telling us about a painting is also a story about how a country got seduced by beauty, and used it as an idolatory replacement.

It is no surprise that Hitler, the dancing devil, was so easily able to seduce the German people, who marched with him singing their beautiful Germanic songs, as he led the way to his Gottesdammerung.

I returned the book. I couldn't read it. It celebrated Klimt, who with his golden paintings, glorified this devil and left God on the wayside, or so he thought. The devil may dance around God, but God is permanent.

I returned the book, and the nice lady who helped me purchase it patiently listened to why I returned it.

"I got spooked by the "evil eyes" I started to explain.

Infused With Beauty

The last time went to the Fraunces Tavern Museum website (only about a week ago), I didn't notice this new acquisition:

Fraunces Tavern Museum is proud to announce the most recent acquisition, a terra cotta bust of George Washington. This bust is a 19th century draped a l ‘antique unsigned copy of the original bust made by Jean-Antoine Houdon in 1785.

I've written about this bust here and here. And, Larry Auster, whose admiration of the bust I shared, wrote about the bust, and made a post here on my commentary on the sculpture.

I wrote in the commentary Auster/Asrat: Interaction on Beauty:

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

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

So, it is a nice surprise that a museum is bringing this piece into its collections.

Jeb Bush and his Mexican Wife

Jeb Bush and his Mexian Wife.

I thought to put this up a while ago, but it is better coming from here.

The Lure of the Evil Eye

It was 1898, and the devil himself seemed to dance in Vienna.

This is the first line of the first chapter of: The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.

I stopped reading the book to do more research on the painting. As I looked closer at what I found online, I realized that the d
"designs" on Adele Bloch-Bauer's dress (the Woman in Gold) looked like some Egyptian heiroglyphic eyes.

Here is more, just from the first two pages:

For hundreds of years, the great Habsburg dynasty had reigned over this crossroad of East and West. Behind immense battlements, its frilly court united German, Italian, Polish Czech, Hungarian, and Croatian aristocracies into a single royal house whose multicultural capital was as ornate as a Faberge egg.

[...]

Now Vieanna's ancient ramparts had come tumbling down, and a wave of newcomers was crowding in from Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, and Transylvania.

[...]

This new Vienna was a city of contradictions. It was one of Europe's richest cities, yet its immigrants were among the poorest. The construction of opulent new palaces did little to hide a severe housing shortage. Vienna doctors were creating modern medicine - pioneering surgeries; discovering germs, the polio virus, and blood types - yet incurable syphilis spread unchecked. Sigmund Freud was illuminating hidden drives of sex and aggression at a time of xenophobia and anti-Semitism so crude that some believed Jews murdered children to leaven their matzoh with blood.

[...]

The dynasty that had united Europe and the Americas had become the empire's premier dysfunctional family.

[...]

...wrote the appalled director of the Burghtheater. "The devil is loose here...in one single night, the Viennese went with him."

[...]

Yet even in this "Gay Apocalypse" Vienna maintained a deeply old-fashioned charm, with its snow-covered palaces and strolling parks, its aromatic cafes and seductive pastry carts piled with petit fours and chocolate bonbons filled with sweet liqueur. Possessed of a childlike love of adornment, Vienna was a city where gilded iron roses climbed balconies and stone goddesses framed doorways; where gargoyles glared from cornices and Herculean men bared their immense chests from facades.

[...]

In 1989, Vienna was a place where illusions could still be preserved by well-to-do families like the Bauers, who gathered at their elegant apartment above the Ringstrasse on a March afternoon, when the musky sweetness of lilacs filled the damp air.

Adele Bauer was standing before the family in a white Grecian robe, revealing a slender frame as long and delicate as a vase. Her thick hair fell to her waist. At sixteen, Adele was crossing that mysterious line between girl and woman. Dressed as the spirit of Spring, she held a wicker cornucopia filled with Spring blossoms and sheaves. with her poise and regal bearing and her dark, heavily lidded eyes, Adele might have been an actress, like Katharina Schratt, who ruled a few steps down the Ringstrasse, at the Burgtheater.

CONT>>>>

------------------------------------------------------

"Dogs I Am Confident Have Arranged Many, Many Things Better Than We Do"

First, I Do An On-Line Search
Cartoon by Arnie Levin
Published in the New Yorker October 5, 1998
I went to my (second) favorite spot to read - the Whole Foods Market cafe - with my newly acquired (for TEN dollars, down from FORTY EIGHT dollars!) book, The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs.

Here is what the reviewers say about it:

...the amused insouciance, the self-deprecation, the gentle unfolding of a structural irony, the skip and reveal of the final sentence, the knowledge of Not Too Much that seems intrinsic to the New Yorker. And cartoons.”—Edmund De Waal, The Spectator

But, above all, it's funny, in that canine way, where all things are about the dog.

Thurber Dog With Butterfly for Nora, 1937
Illustration by James Thurber

Dogs, I am confident, would have arranged many, many things better than we do. They would have in all probability averted the Depression, for they can go through lots tougher things than we and still think it's boom time. They demand very little of their heyday; a kind word is more to them than fame, a soup bone more than gold; they are perfectly contented with a warm fire and a good book to chew (preferably an autographed first edition lent by a friend).
James Thurber, from "Dogs I Have Scratched"

Sliding Slowly into Sacriledge

A glass box of jewelry which looks innocuous enough, util I looked closer and saw the "evil eye" pendants. I went around the booth, and found these pendants both in gold and silver. I looked for crosses, and found them only in silver.

"Can you show me crosses in gold?"

"We have them only in silver."

"What are these?"

"Oh, they're evil eyes. Do you want to see them?"

"NO! No thanks."

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Hallmark Keepsake: Christmas in July

Hallmark Keepsake Ornament Premier Event: July 11-16

Who cares about the actual Christmas? Let's re-schedule and start Christmas in the summer. It's just another shopping event, after all, and the most important one of the year. Mark your calendars (in July, that is)!

"The premiere event is mainly for ornament collectors..."


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Motherly Muslim Women for Nellie

I recently bought a pair of shoes at a Naturalizer store. A young woman helped me diligently and Knowledgeably, and after several trips to the store (the shoes are too big, they need insoles, how about leather protecting spray?), I am satisfied.

During my interactions with, let's call her Nellie, we got to talking about "reclaiming beauty" and she said she was interested in multicultural beauty, of other countries and cultures.

"Sure," I said. "There is beauty in all cultures."

"I like to read about Islam," she said quietly.

I was in the middle of testing the shoes, getting ready to walk around the store to try them out, so I missed that last part.

But, it had registered. A few days later, I strangely remembered what she said, and the environment in the store.

The woman, who is in her late twenties or early thirties, looks like she's half white and half black, or Hispanic. Her mother came into the store once, and she is very much white. It seems that she is from a family of divorce, or from a single mother, by the way she was reacting to her mother.

But she had other surrogate mothers who filled the store. Motherly Muslim women with Arabic-accented English would sit on the stools, order her around, loudly demanding this shoe and that shoe (one even stretched out to take my shoes, before I quickly pulled them away), and Nellie would calmly oblige.

"She's talking to you" I sad to her about one vociferous older Arab woman.

"They always do" she replied.

I think what is happening is that these Arab women have heard that there is a young woman in the mall, who is sympathetic to Islam, and how needs to be cajoled, influenced, pulled into their world, their Islamic world.

I wonder when Nellie will convert, because now it is just a matter of time.