Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Something/Someone Old
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Here is a magnificent 1962 poem by Tomas Transtromer, the 2011 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. I knew nothing about him or his work until I encountered this poem, recited by Kenneth Branagh at the beginning of the last episode of the English version of Wallander. I'm remarkably ignorant of poets writing in languages other than English, Irish, or Spanish.

The translation was done by Robert Bly, and hats off to him as well. I have no idea what the poem was like in Swedish, because I don't read Swedish, so I can't say how close to the original the translation is; I can, however, say the translation makes for a mighty fine poem.

Bly and Transtromer were friends, so the translation is likely to be more than usually scrupulous. I was sad to see I have only encountered this poet posthumously. He died in 2015.

The Half-Finished Heaven

Despondency breaks off its course.
Anguish breaks off its course.
The vulture breaks off its flight.

The eager light streams out,
even the ghosts take a draught.

And our paintings see daylight,
our red beasts of the ice-age studios.

Everything begins to look around.
We walk in the sun in hundreds.

Each man is a half-open door
leading to a room for everyone.


The endless ground under us.

The water is shining among the trees.

The lake is a window into the earth.

Wow.

Something New
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The belated discovery of this poem suggested to me that maybe I should stick my head up and examine what new things are happening in the arts. I do that too little, probably because I stand in constant rebellion against what has happened to American culture and the cultures of many other countries since the 1980s, and especially since this current awful century dawned. That doesn't mean there aren't good or even exceptional artists, writers, and musicians who have been working in these years. It's more like a seeping poison in the culture, that, when it reached a certain number of parts per million (sometime between 2005 and 2010), convinced me to assemble the things I liked around me like a fortress, and stick my head up only occasionally.

One thing I found when I was rummaging around who the art journalism world believed were the up-and-comers in 2016 and 2017 is that the art is heavily politicized. Obviously, I like political art, and also obviously, art, like everything else, is influenced by power relations (politics writ large) and the behavior of politicians and governments (politics writ small). However, it really seemed that whoever was choosing the up-and-comers was choosing with a particular narrative in mind. Every blurb about every artist read like it had been written by a grad student in the 90s (and as someone who was a grad student in the 90s, I should know). Thankfully, the word "problematize" did not occur in the blurbs. Maybe it has died a merciful death.

Zohra Opoku is a an artist of German and Ghanian descent based in Accra, whose work spans installation, performance and lens-based media....Through her exploration of African cultural memory, Opoku creates visual observations of consumer culture that question the meaning of national identity. In her exhibition at Gallery 1957 she explored the Ashanti concept of “SASSA”, which can refer both to a ‘universal energy’ or a ‘vengeful spirit’, using a rich combination of installation and photographic work. In this series, Opoku ventured to Southern Ghana to capture the Ahemaa, queen Mothers of Ashanti (women with influential roles in local government), and also took self-portraits. In her evolving practice, the artist continues to explore versions of what constitutes the self through various time-frames and social spaces. In dialogue with her surroundings, Opoku merges a multitude of landscapes in search of a trans-historical self, inventing her own rituals and traditions in the process.

This young woman, Zohra Opoku, was the most intriguing artist I found. She does a lot of work with layered textiles. Of Ghanan and German heritage, she does a lot of exploration of the relationship of Europe to West Africa, the influence of consumerism and capitalism on West African arts and fashion, and the formation of identity under all these influences. She also does photography, which apparently has really gained in credibility in the art world since I last looked--I remember when photography was considered something of a bastard child of the fine arts.

Man, I'm old!

This is one of her works Rhododendron:

griot-mag-zohra-opoku-installation-view-we-were-queens-and-kings-at-ano-gallery.jpg

This is one of her textile works, Cyperus Papyrus:

Zohra-Opoku-Cyperus-Papyrus-2015-Screen-print-79-x-105-cm-courtesy-the-artist-and-Gallery-1957-Accra-865x577.jpg

I'd love to see more of her art.

Something Borrowed
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Looks like Cyndi Lauper made an album of covers back in 2003. I'm very fond of Cyndi Lauper, and have been since I was an adolescent in the early 80s. She was actually rather important to my development, given that decent or inspiring female role models were sparse.

But anyhoo, she put made an album covering mainly jazz songs called At Last.

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This is the best cover of "Unchained Melody" I've ever heard, though of course nothing can touch the original.

Here's her cover of "Makin Whoopee," a duet with Tony Bennett:

And here's her cover of Burt Bacharach's "Walk on By," which I loved mightily as a little girl in the Dionne Warwick version.

Something Blue
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At this particular moment, Numa Falls in Canada looked a most spectacular blue:

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Wow. I guess it wasn't just a trick of the photography. It looks rather blue in this video too!

Numa Falls is a waterfall of the Vermilion River. It resides in Kootenay Park, British Columbia. Apparently it emerges from spring runoff in east Alberta and empties into the North Saskatchewan River.

It would be lovely to see it in person one day.

How are you all today?

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Spring is teasing us in Michigan. We hit 60 degrees yesterday and are told to expect a rerun today. Hope everyone is well.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

I love that photo.

Something old - the government's never ending war on free speech. And now, the government is getting private businesses, like facebook and google, to do what the First Amendment forbids government itself to do. I believe that is exactly how you spell F A S C I S M.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace There's a difference between the public and the private sector?

In funding, perhaps. In terms of who is responsible for doing what--not so much. So many of the public sector functions have been privatized that it's not funny. In terms of who makes decisions...well, it's obvious that the elected officials are employees and the wealthy in the private sector are their employers, so one might see a difference there, but then there's the role of the CIA and the multitudes of other intelligence and security agencies, who are publicly funded, and definitely have a role in decision-making.

So aside from the fact that I'm not required to hand money annually to private corporations so that they can do with it what they please without reference to my opinion, or, indeed, the opinion of any of the hundreds of millions of people who hand over this money annually, I don't really see much distinction between the public and private sectors lately.

Actually, insurance companies even bust that boundary. Those intrepid pioneers of finance.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

namely, that the First Amendment binds government, but not facebook, twitter, google, etc.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace But to respond more directly to your point, that is indeed how you spell F A S C I S M. It has been in the works, though, since the Drug War began. One thing about piss tests that is not sufficiently discussed is that it's private corporations, people's employers, investigating and enforcing anti-drug laws. Which really should be the job of the government, most particularly law enforcement, shouldn't it? Not sure why it's the job of corporate boards to enforce the law. Reminiscent of McCarthyism in some ways, when private industry enforced the Senator's assertions that certain people were Communist spies by making sure they couldn't get a job. Was it their business to investigate espionage, treason, or punish such?

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

a private employer to have a heroin or coke addict able to access company money-- the most obvious example-quite apart from what the government would like. However, facebook has no business incentive to cut down on posts or ads. In fact, as a private business, its interests lie in striving to increase posts and ads, not in censoring them, which both cuts down on clicks and causes the opposite of business goodwill.

McCarthyism, however, is more like the current situation with facebook. Hollywood answered to government censors and therefore would not want to tick off government. However, there was also a reason why the studios would want to root out Communists. The US had recently emerged victorious (or what passes for victory in a war) from World War II--with Hitler, the guys who had bombed Pearl Harbor and fascist Mussolini. Nationalism, jingoism and patriotism were all probably at record highs.

If you were,for example, a member of a gold star family, would you go to see a Warner Brothers film if that studio were a "hotbed" of Communist actors, writers, camera operators, etc., when the US government (or so it appeared) decided Communists were a threat to the US way of life? Remember, this was a nation who thought internment was a good idea.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace If we're talking about work performance, it should be perfectly easy to fire someone for showing up to work intoxicated.

If the person does not show up to work intoxicated, it's no business of the employer what they ingest.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

access to company funds. A user might show up to work sober, but steal to buy drugs anyway.

The problem I always have with comparisons is that comparables are never exact. So, then the details of where they differ overtake the discussion. For example, I'm not aware that all employers who test urine test it only because the government prodded them to test. Or that they give government the test results, which would give government the benefit of random drug testing, even though the government can't itself require random drug testing of people in the private sector. And, so it goes, even though drug testing is only an example and not the actual subject.

On the other hand, it seems obvious to me that Zuckerberg didn't care where Facebook's ad revenues or posters were coming from and had no desire to censor--a government function typically--until government leaned on him. And when facebook censors, government gets the benefit of the censoring.

The real issue is whether there is a possible business reason, even a dumb one, to do something or whether you do something only because government leaned on you, even though it hurts your business. That, in my mind, anyway, is where it becomes most obvious that government is using a private enterprise to do something government wants done, but government is legally prohibited from doing itself.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace Yes, but a lot of scripts that McCarthy deemed "Communist" were in no way overtly Communist; some weren't even, to my eye, overtly left.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

My point is making a distinction between a business owner doing something that at least arguably may be good for the business or doing something that can only hurt the business.

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gulfgal98's picture

@HenryAWallace being waged by these private organizations such as Twitter and Youtube. I know that the first amendment pertains only to the government, but that did not stop them from shutting down the Occupy movement.

There are very few places left for the open exchange of ideas, including those that may be unpopular ones. What Youtube did at first was de-monitize videos by by people such as Tim Black who not only does political commentary, but also did videos on sports events. Later some content providers, particularly those in the political area began to get what is known as community strikes and even had their Youtube stations shut down permanently, causing all previously posted content to be erased forever. Lately the people who have been targeted are on the right side of the political spectrum.

It appears that the single most egregious error in the most recent wave of bannings has been sparked by the posting of content challenging the government narrative concerning the recent high school shooting in Parkland Florida. While I may not agree with some of these content producers, I fully support their right to be able to post their opinions. What we are now seeing is the censorship of unpopular opinions. Sound familiar?

And yes, Twitter and Youtube are private companies, but I believe that they should be regulated as utilities and be required to keep their channels open to everyone regardless of their political opinions. It is one thing to prohibit obscene or violent content, but everyone should be able to express his or her opinion freely.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

@gulfgal98 ag

And, yes, you are absolutely correct that the First Amendment does bind government, not facebook, et al. However, it does not seem to me that it was facebook's bright idea to censor. It seems to me that government got facebook to censor. At that point, you have an argument that facebook is acting as an instrumentality or agent of the government.

To bring it closer to home, if JtC wants to boot me from his board in an instant, clearly, I cannot claim he violated my First Amendment rights without due process. On the other hand, if government leans on JtC to ban me on the spot, maybe I do have a Constitutional claim against both JtC and the government.

But, then I am an American, not a Russian. In my view of how the Constitution reads, that does not matter. However, a large group of people think only American citizens have rights under the First Amendment. Under Supreme Court cases, there are, however, rights of citizens to know that are cut off by censoring foreigners. Nowever, I can't see a facebook user suing over a right to read about pizzagate. So, this may all be theoretical.

But back to the original point, absolutely, a war on the First Amendment is ongoing. It has a long history in the US, too.

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gulfgal98's picture

@HenryAWallace You got exactly what I have been trying to say. My frustration level lately has been very high and I find that I have been self censoring as a result.

What I truly believe is that we are caught in the midst of the merger of corporations and government, thus allowing the government (which is corporate controlled) to censor us under the guise of the censorship being protected because it is a private entity doing the censorship.

Thank you so very much for your response and understanding of what I believe we are facing.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

@gulfgal98

In face, the same character of the same line on the same page.

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Shahryar's picture

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szpGVAGcysw]

then there was the first hit version...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC7obNtXLYU]

but the most famous one is "The Righteous Brothers" (which is really just one of them, Bobby Hatfield), shown here live!

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYj2hex99gY]

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Shahryar Thank you! I thought the Righteous Brothers' version was the original.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Shahryar's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

that's true of lots of songs. The Isley Brothers did NOT do the original Twist and Shout! The Rolling Stones didn't do the original It's All Over Now.

I'm still finding songs like that. Even remakes are often not original arrangements but are based on somebody else's remake!

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@Shahryar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_Sleeps_Tonight

I love finding original versions.

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@Shahryar

Todd Duncan. (And it ain't easy to sing like that lying down, either!) His version is almost operatic.

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mimi's picture

"Wrist Management", when what that is is "Slave Management".
Amazon System to Track Workers Raises Surveillance Concerns.
[video:https://youtu.be/WTt5PGl25l0]
I had a very hard time to listen to Cenk Uygur for more than a minute, but I forced myself through the video. They wasted a lot of words on one simple fact. Abuse and enslavement.

Welcome to Amazon.com, the biggest slave owner, who chains his slaves with wrist bands.

Wow, when I think of having seen this guy in 1996 shortly before he launched his online bookstore, I just can't believe what has evolved out of it in the last 20 years.

Horrifying.

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