Art, music, wisdom, humor and commentary
The expansive and unblemished prison wall was a daring and perfect spot for a Banksy piece. It’s best known for its most famous inmate: Oscar Wilde served two years in the prison from 1895-1897 for the charge of “gross indecency” for being gay. The work is clearly a tribute to the poet, as the escape mechanism appears to be a long strand of paper emerging from a typewriter in place of the usual bed sheets. Wilde recounted aspects of his imprisonment in the poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” which centers largely on the execution of Charles Thomas Wooldridge.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/category/art/
Still looking for folks from the community to step up and host an occasional
Thursday open thread. Easy to do. Thanks to randtntx, snoopydawg, EL and others
for helping to fill in. We can make it work. Missing magi, but she still appears!
One of the benefits of having an open thread, it is a place to publish those diverse ideas
as a potential form of commentary about our present condition in this world and otherwise.
Don't be shy, post away!
Comments
Thanks for the Banksy, Van Gogh, and Wilde connection.
The street traffic sounds in the background of ’the joy of painting’ makes whatever Bob is suggesting a bit more bizarre.
I do wonder about the authenticity of the recently unveiled Van Gogh? I’ll have to do some investigating.
Morning folks --
Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Open Thread.
Hat tip to can't stop for inspiring this escape from the
asylum. A bit of a mish mash to stretch the imagination.
Enjoy the day!
good morning...
Loved the Bob Ross sound overlay of the "happy little escape" painting.
Here's a few good quotes from Oscar...
1. “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.”
2. “The world is divided into two classes, those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable.”
3. “I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”
4. “A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.”
5. “When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.”
6. “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
7. “Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.”
8. “There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”
9. “There is no sin except stupidity.”
10. “I have nothing to declare except my genius.”
11. “The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
12. “It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But… it is better to be good than to be ugly.”
13. “No man is rich enough to buy back his past.”
14. “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
15. “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”
16. “There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.”
17. “Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.”
18. “Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.”
19. “Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.”
20. “Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”
Y'all have a good one!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all
Great quotes Lookout!
another
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
This too ..
Oscar Wilde
who is that masked man? The Lone Ranger perhaps ..
As generally depicted, the Lone Ranger conducts himself by a strict moral code based on that put in place by Striker at the inception of the character. It read:
I believe that to have a friend,
a man must be one.
That all men are created equal
and that everyone has within himself
the power to make this a better world.
... it goes on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Ranger
The local lone ranger thinks differently...
https://chattooga1180.com/the-lone-ranger-speaks-again-at-walker-county-...
You can't make it up...
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Another wanna be hero
lost in some illusion
constipated mind
diarrhea mouth
sheesh
takes all kinds
N-word
Anyone defending the N-word should be prepared for all the ethnic slurs launched against anyone non-WASP. I'm told that white Southerners are predominantly Scotch-Irish. Anglo-Protestant Englishmen have slur words for them too.
Then there is ofay, honky, et cetera. Every group has a slur word for all the others. A bad habit that all should cease.
From memory of the Defiant Ones" I may have some errors in dialog.
Tony Curtis: "Why do you object to being called a N------? It's what you are."
Sidney Poitier: " Do you object to being called a honky?'
Tony Curtis: "No, because that's what I am."
Sidney Poitier: "Even a Bohunk?"
Tony Curtis;" (Silence)"
The slur in the fourth line is low pitched. That's the word I heard. My companions couldn't make it out.
It does seem a strange epithet to apply to a Southern white, but one I had heard used.
In my youth we referred to Irish-Americans, Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, German-Americans, Swedish-Americans and "Real Americans". The later being what others called WASP's, although that was not a term used in my location and social group. They were the real Americans and we were the Micks, Pollaks,Dagoes, Heinies, and Squareheads. The Jewish kids, of which there were quite a few, were mostly called Jews, although some used the familiar slurs, but not many. It was too close to the revelation of the Holocaust. Oh, yes, then there were the kids of the Armenian grocer. They were only ones so there were no slurs.
Is that the pattern? A very few minority people are a curiosity. A sizeable percentage are a threat. A dominant number is "us". ??? What about Blacks and Latinos? Why did we have slurs for them? None lived in our town or nearby. I suppose just cultural ignorance. When I read about Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans, I though their cultures were very similar to we Italians. That thought was greeted with great vehemence but zero logic. A black friend and co-worker in the Postal service grew up in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Chicago, 90% or more black. He told me that he might have grown up hating white people like most, except he had a white friend, the only white boy in his class. They would, in his words, go stealing together and chasing 'crude term women'. Boon companions. "Otherwise, I probably would have grown up hating everyone white too."
So let's amend the sequence.
1. None at all. = mindless epithets and derision the unknown
2. Very very few (like that lone white boy and my Armenian classmate) = an accepted oddity
3. A sizeable minority = derided outcasts.
4. A majority = us, the perfect master race.
Multiple Edits. Apparently placing text between less than and greater than signs makes it disappear. Edited to replace with '(' and ')'
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Text between < and > in a comment body looks like an HTML tag,
such as the various text-style and content-link buttons insert into the text to do their respective formatting magic.
To get a < sign, you have to type < (including the semicolon). Ditto for a > sign, you have to type > …
Thank you, lotlizard!
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Good morning, QMS ~~
We are all lone rangers in the end.
Enjoy the day!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
And How!
Good luck with your new residence!
Many thanks,
! It's been a long time coming - I've felt homeless for months now - renting a room from an unstable person is no fun! I appreciate your positive support!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Good morning QMS et al. Thanks for the whole
Banksky Escape thing and for the link to the thiscolossal site. Thanks for the OT too. We finally got some rain yesterday evening, and quite heavy aroung 2 am this moring, with a light drizzle still this morning. Much needed. The birds and plants seem happy.
~~ sodo
Finally past second coffee with a busy day ahead which will require dodging some raindrops - it is one of my arbitrarily self-imposed work days and there is plenty to do, but the fun stuff is all blockaded off by the not so much, damn. Lists aplenty too; I;ve been doing a lot of listing lately. Have to stop lest I capsize.
And here I find my comment in process, commentus interruptus brought about by said lists and busyness (no time to ponder busyness versus business, good thing too.
Someone once said that: Art is what you can get away with, and Duchamp and Jarry proved it. That said, I think I hear some as yet unmade polenta with shrooms art crying out to be made in the kitchen, so off to breakfast I go .
Be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
good luck fueling the beast
getting the suet (angry birds here w/o their suet)
and all the fun prep for your trip to new pastures.
Just finished the poached eggs on English muffies
so heading out to the shop in the ever elusive attempt
to do battle with unlisted boat parts.
bien suerte
Unforgettable “volunteer from audience” duet — Kristin Chenoweth
[video:https://youtu.be/qxKjiJ2qwtU]
Also, the world could use a lot more wise, far-sighted leaders like the late Fudai village mayor Kotoku Wamura.
https://www.animeherald.com/2016/08/30/mushi-pro-produces-earthquake-rea...
https://www.ctvnews.ca/giant-wall-protected-japanese-village-from-tsunam...
Unfortunately, Wamura’s given name is often misspelled “Kotaku” in many Western news accounts, probably because of confusion with the video game industry blog with that name.
Emergency: Heavy rainfall / flash flooding hits Hawaiian Islands
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2021/03/09/photo-gallery/heavy-rain-cause...
If only we could guide the rains
Seems when it comes down it's extreme.
Many spots on the globe really need those showers.
Inventing an air tug to tow the heavy clouds
to where it's dry.
Low tech -- dirigibles and such with ionized mesh
drawing the low pressure cloud thru the higher ridge.
Low energy, bulk movement.
Sorry your homeland is being hit.
Pōmaikaʻi! Maikaʻi pōmaikaʻi!