To my fans II
I’m not gonna say this twice. This is a blog ment to allow you to express yourself. My posts are not relevant in what concerns MY personality, MY lifestyle, and MY beliefs. Do not, under any circumstance, equalise my posts with ME. And stop sending e-mail on my adress, unless you have something to say. Something relevant, I may add.
Thank you for your cooperation. Tschus!
Who is afraid of Frida Kahlo?
More by happy coincidence than design, last Thursday I found myself stumbling into the Frida Kahlo retrospective at the Tate Modern. My colleagues and I were in
London for a work-related awards bash and, having time to kill, we decided to brave the Tate. It is but the briefest hop, skip and jump across the
Thames from
St Paul‘s cathedral and smack-bang next door to Shakespeare’s rebuilt Globe Theatre – a prodigy in itself, with what must be the first and certainly the most interesting-looking thatched roof in central
London for centuries.
Anyway, having got there (the Tate), my colleagues – professing their ignorance of Kahlo and her work – settled for the permanent galleries. But me – sensing the presence of serious art – sailed straight for La Kahlo. Truth is, I’d been itching to stand face to face with her canvasses for years. And I was not about to let this opportunity pass me by. Come hell, high water, the occasional bomb or even – for that matter – a poxy old awards ceremony. And the show was a treat. The art critic of The Sunday Times – probably Waldemar Januszczak – recently did Kahlo the great disservice of stating in print that her canvasses looked no different on the printed page than they do hanging on the walls. That was such an insult. And wholly untrue. As those of you who visit the galleries will know, there is simply no substitute for standing face-to-face with the painted canvas. And books-of-the-pictures-of-the-t-shirt-of-the-film do not provide an adequate alternative to The Real Thing.
I could bang on about Kahlo for ages – the narcissism, the physical agony sublimated into and expressed through her work, the tremendous sense of shared humanity, the (genuine or cultivated?) artistic naivety. To put it into the proverbial nutshell, there is no experience in this world quite like standing in the centre of a room with self-portraits of Frida Kahlo lining all four walls, and having them all stare straight at you. I have never felt quite so looked at, nor quite so looked into, for that matter. At one point, I chose to take my attention away from her and look instead at the other gallery visitors. But there was no escape. Whether peeking around the back of someone else’s head, or staring straight through the gap between two peoples’ heads, Frida Kahlo’s gaze would not leave me alone. She looks at you, and she demands that you look back. It really is that simple. Her gaze is challenging; proud in a proletarian sort of way – bordering upon the surly; it is also humorous, honest, direct and very knowing. The self-portraits are the thing. And Ms Kahlo never tired of painting herself. In fact it was precisely because the printed images are no substitute for the painted canvasses that I did not buy the exhibition catalogue. Paintings live on best in the eye of the mind. And I could not, with a book of printed pictures, repeat the experience of standing in the centre of that aforementioned room.
Incidentally, one of the highlights of this exhibition is not actually in the exhibition at all. It is a giant photo-montage of Frida, at different ages and at different stages of her life and career, which covers the whole of one wall of the cafeteria on Level 4 of the Tate. It was there that I found myself staring at the large black and white photograph of a raven-haired and strikingly handsome young man. Was this her brother, I wondered? But no. It was in fact a photograph of Frida herself. Taken in 1926, she had dressed herself from head to foot as a man, for a family portrait. What a rare soul.
Sadly, and probably also because I did not buy the exhibition catalogue, I am largely ignorant of the substance of her life. Although I do have a brief sketch of the outlines. Marxist politics (not my cup of tea); married Diego Rivera, another artist and political activist; suffered, when young, an horrendous accident which left her in constant physical pain for the rest of her days; numerous operations to repair damage done by same; lower right leg removed towards the end of her life; death possibly by suicide.
If anyone who knows more can add more or, indeed, correct my errors – then please do so.
Those of you who can get down to the show, do. And for those of you who cannot, I hope the above has at least given you a flavour of it.
A Clockwork Orange
“It may not be nice to be good, 6655321. It may be horrible to be good. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him? You are passing now to a region where you will be beyond the power of prayer. A terrible, terrible thing to consider. And yet, in a sense, in choosing to be deprived of the ability to make an ethical choice, you have in a sense really chosen the good. So I shall like to think. So, God help us all, 6655321, I shall like to think”.
Famous as being a cult classic from Stanley Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange is set in a dystopian future, with teenagers causing all sorts of problems, violence and rape being common activities. The movie is based upon a novel, of the same name, which, of course, explains the ideas behind the story much better, and I happily recommend it (and the movie).
A Clockwork Orange raises some philosophical issues, the main issue, in my opinion being the confrontation between Free Will and Predestination, and this literature obviously supports free will. The main character of the story, Alex, an ultraviolent young boy is caught by the (fascist?) police and to get out of custody sooner, volunteers himself for the Ludavico Technique.
The Ludavico Technique, also mentioned in the poll, was a process whereby, through conditioning, whenever someone thought about violence, rape or other actions generally considered harmful to society, they would begin to feel extremely ill, stopping them from going through with such things. In effect, they could not be violent nor abusive, instead, to avoid the extreme illness, they were forced to do ‘good’ things. This technique, if applied to criminals could result in a society free of crime, but also a society not free to choose. I guess the poll is really asking if you prefer freedom or security.
To my fans
As you can see, i am a very, very, very understanding and patient laddie. I am not banning your comments although what you are posting is neither interesting, nor well written, not even original. however, if you will continue to write in this manner, i will delete every comment that doesn’t rise to my expectations. After all, this is not a “my sexual fantasy” forum.
Thank you, Sonia Rott.
Philosophy is music to me
Plato informs me that philosophy means a Jazz solo. I am no musician but I think I comprehend a little about jazz because I understand Plato’s message.
To do philosophy is to create meaning. To learn philosophy is to study the great minds of history as they create meaning while in an attitude of critical self-consciousness of a radical nature.
To do philosophy is to liberate the individual just as I imagine that jazz liberates the musician; s/he liberates the self by arousing the emotions and extending by analysis the knowledge and the understanding of our self and the world.
Knowledge is an achievement instigated by a search for truth; truth is our comprehension of reality and it has a universal quality. Understanding is the creation of meaning; it is a leap beyond knowledge. Understanding is a rare confluence of intellect and emotion; meaning is subjective, it is meaning for me. Understanding is the resulting synthesis of fragmentary knowledge into a form that has meaning for me.
soul magazine-anthems 