Sexuality in the Arts

I miss the learning.

I didn’t realize it then.

She was so smart, and she taught me so much.

Our conflicts, and the issues we could not agree on, led me to explore ideas most people considered absurd and inherently wrong.

Since her, I’ve had trouble focusing on any one thing because I have such an incredible appetite for learning about so many things.

I once wrote to her that she taught me things “they weren’t teaching in school back then.”  She just knew so many things from outside of the mainstream.

Like many people, she could sit down and read a book in a day, something I’ve rarely, if ever, been able to do.

If you’ve read this blog much, you may have noticed I don’t throw around the term “genius” undeservedly.  I try not to overstate adjectives. If you do a search in the search cell for the term “genius,” you’ll find that in the over 500 posts written so far, the word “genius” only appears in 9 posts (10 if you count this one).  In 6 of those posts, the word appears as part of a song lyric or a quote written by someone else. 

I have used the word “genius” only 3 times so far:

a)  To describe what Sheryl Crow saw in Guns n’ Roses “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” and
b)  To describe Vincent van Gogh, and
c)  To describe Willa Cather.

I try to use words correctly.  For example, I don’t write that something is “very unique” or “very sincere” because the words “unique” and “sincere” generally don’t have degree modifiers.  A person is either unique or they are not.  A person is either sincere or they are not.

She was unique.

She was a genius.

I met many very smart people at university and post graduate studies, and few rivaled her capacity to reason, her capacity to question what most people refused to question, and her innate and self-developed gifted intelligence. 

And, of course, as a teen, I had very little to compare her with.  I grew up in a bright family, so I probably expected there would be many people as bright as her (well, maybe not as bright, but close).

But it turned out there were very few people as smart as her.

I didn’t realize this until many years later.

I miss the constant learning that went on in the environment she created for us.  She wasn’t a “teacher personality type,” as far as I recall, but she taught me so many things so often.

And I think that is a main reason I create the types of posts I create.  I try to teach others the types of things she taught me, things that are not commonly taught in schools or textbooks.  I try at create a similar learning environment for others.

When I knew her, I think I focused on her beauty, kindness, and care for others.  I still miss those things beyond reasonable measures.  But I can’t return to those things on my own.  So, I do the best I can do apart from her.  I try to create a similar learning environment to what she created for us, and I make that environment available as an option for anyone.

I wrote to her a few years ago, confessing that in college and post-graduate school, I probably spent more time in the university libraries reading every book on every question that arose in my head than I did doing the school work that was assigned to me.

Most people don’t have the luxury of spending hours traveling to and abiding in libraries and book stores.  So, with this blog, I try to bring some parts of a library or book store learning experience to anyone with a few minutes to spare and an internet connection.

Because I miss the consistency and frequency of learning, I try to at least share what I’ve seen with the few others out there who may have similar appetites.

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Pascal Möhlmann’s “Mittags in Hamburg”:

(Click on images if you wish to view them individually.)

Édouard Manet’s 1863 “Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe”:

Artworks by Pascal Möhlmann:

“Self-Portrait”:

“A Good Book”:

“Maria 2″ or “Nude on Orange”:

“Girls Fighting”:

“Maria” or “Nude on Yellow”:

“Sonntag”:

“Maria W’:

Möhlmann’s most famous and notorious artwork is probably his extraordinary painting “Bang Bang” which can be viewed on his webiste here.

http://www.pascalmoehlmann.com/

I was unable to find an English or German Wikipedia article on Pascal Möhlmann.

© All rights reserved by Pascal Möhlmann.

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“Maybe That’s Something” lyrics by Sheryl Crow from her The Globe Sessions album:

We lay around just like gurus
In borrowed robes
And talk about nothing
Well maybe that’s something
Maybe that’s something

You stretch out across a long long table
Without hesitation
You say, “I’m willing and able.”

Maybe that’s something
Maybe that’s one thing more than I’ve seen
Maybe that’s something more than nothing.

You say good, I say you should, will you be there?
Making miracles is hard work,
Most people give up before they happen.

Maybe that’s something
Maybe that’s one thing more than I’ve seen
Maybe that’s something more than nothing,
More than nothing, more than nothing.

Maybe that’s something
Maybe that’s one thing more than I’ve seen
Maybe that’s something more than nothing
More than nothing, more than nothing, more than nothing.

© All rights reserved by Sheryl Crow.

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Can’t sleep

It’s late at night here.

Feel I should get some things out of cycling through my head.

So, here goes:

Why was it important for everyone that I let her know I had one more love that would not fade?

I believed on some levels she had made incorrect inferences and conclusions about the nature of love.

I believed she would benefit from knowing the people who had known her well never stopped loving her.

I couldn’t convey that honest information and play by the rules everyone tries to follow, the rules everyone thinks are ideal.

Many years ago, I may have damaged her at a key formative time in her life.

She likely interpreted my actions incorrectly, feeding into her worst fears.

I was wrong.

And I believed she would benefit from knowing I believed I had acted wrong at several significant times.

There was no way to give her better peace of mind and understanding without being remarkably candid.

It wasn’t that I thought I had better love for her than she already had.

I had little information on those topics and that was not my intent or my assertions.

While more people tend to know more things, and different people tend to know different things,

I never advocated a course of choosing one person over another, or choosing some people to the exclusion of others.

Sometimes love isn’t only about “better than,” sometimes it’s about “also exists.”

She deserved to know she had my love, respect, and admiration . . . and she had not lost it.

She needed to know that true love doesn’t disappear.  It survives amidst incredible hardships.

True love doesn’t diminish over time, and it doesn’t go out of mind.

True love isn’t crazy, but it is resilient beyond most people’s expectations and understandings.

And I wasn’t the only person from her past who still admired her and cared about her.

I believed she would benefit from having confirming feedback from others who had known her well and loved her.

Their caring had not disappeared either.

There are some truths about love that don’t fit into neat groups of two.

But those truths shouldn’t always be silenced.

Sometimes uncommonly spoken truths about love can tell us more about the nature of relationships and bonds.

I couldn’t live with her living the rest of her life without more accurate data from the people who had known her well.

I believed more accurate data from the people who had known her well would help her better interpret her chosen present and futures.

I don’t know if my communications had their good-intended effects, but I did what I thought would help everyone the most.

I did what I thought would help everyone interpret each other more accurately and truthfully.

I didn’t need her unnecessarily or incorrectly questioning the nature, depths, and resolves of the loves she had.

And I hope she saw all of her loves in more revealing and honest lights.

I couldn’t speak with certainty about the nature of others’ love.

But I could speak of mine.

And I believe that was the most honest and helpful thing I could do for everyone.

So

Don’t be afraid if you love too hard or if you love too strong.

Neither of those characteristics will necessarily improve the odds you will receive the love you seek.

But communicating the depths of your love may still benefit all the people you care about.

Speak your heart.

Speak your mind.

Lay your love out on the table.

Even when it is not accepted, it still may have positive effects for anyone passing by.

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. . . and Senate.

The above painting is Francisco Goya’s  “The Third of May 1808.”

(Click on the above image if you wish to view it individually.)

The Iraq military conflicts that the United States’ (and many other nations’) policies escalated continues to weigh on me and many others.  These thoughts came to mind today:

A War Without End

One of the environments that breeds the extension of horror and terror is when government and “legal” directives create contradictory, unattainable, secret, or undefined requirements that “must be met” before violence, disregard for human rights, suppression of open communication (free press), and foreign rule will stop.

Autocracies often promote the idea that no one can serve two masters.  I’ve found this cliche to be untrue on small personal levels and on large governmental levels. 

Some of the most healthy and productive relationships & governments I’ve observed have been guided by multiple competing, adversarial, co-existing, and cooperative parties.

It is difficult for countries with competing religions (where each religion believes they are the one and only true way to live) to sustain democracies.  Democracies often require concessions that there may not be only one true political system, ideology, or religion.  Democracies tend to thrive in countries with diverse religions and ideologies, where daily life regularly reminds us there are many people around us with many different and adversarial sacred beliefs.

Francisco Goya’s “The Dog”:

Goya’s art suggests he had too many hard-lived, tragic, and sophisticated understandings about the ramifications, mindsets, and environments that come from violence and policies employing violence for the “good of the state.”

I watched the recent film “Goya’s Ghosts,” and while I admire many things about the film, I am not going to write a review of the film because I have too many critiques.  But one thing the film did convey well is the hopelessness created in societies with arbitrary, biased, and unfair judicial standards, singular state-run religions, and cruel torturous methods used to promote the “most current and best” political systems, such as when the “most current and best” political system was Napoleon’s militarily-delivered and heavily foreign-influenced “democracy.”

For the U.S., no matter how good our ideas, no matter how good our political systems, and no matter how strong our military, history suggests most people and nations don’t want to be ruled by foreigners.  Nations tend to want to have self rule.  And many people and nations will fight to the death in pursuit of achieving their own brand of self rule.

The U.S. has been uneducated, immature, and naive in their assessment of the complexity and severity of Iraq’s problems and internal domestic adversaries.  The U.S. has in large part failed to persuade the people of Iraq that there is a workable road map to help them achieve a clearly better governmental system.  Beyond the military debates, the U.S. has too often failed diplomatically and on the public relations fronts in the U.S., Iraq, and around the world.

We should not stop talking about these problems.

We should not stop debating possible better solutions.

We should increase our diplomatic efforts.

We should increase our efforts to improve Iraq’s citizens’ quality of life and ability to become economically and politically self-sustaining.

We should stop our human rights’ abuses.

We should give all people from every nation due process of law.

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Over on 43Things, I don’t have 43 Things.

At the moment, I have 11 so far.

Fittingly, not just 10.

Consistent with so many other parts of me, I have one more than 10.

One of my 11 things is:

“Inspire others to find worthwhile things to create”

If someone were to ask me the question:

What should I create?

I might answer:

Work to help create whatever you think might do significant good for everyone.

That’s one place to start.

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Whatever you perceive to be the greatest challenges facing you, your family, your community, and your world - you can take diverse, regular, and intermittent steps to address those challenges.

Whatever frustrates you on any of those levels, you can find multiple and simultaneous ways to address those issues on various levels.

Your challenges and choices can be how to use ingenuity, technology, and multiple mediums to best address the broad range of issues that concern you.

To the degree your efforts disproportionately focus on one problem, then the time, thought, and efforts used in pursuit of addressing only one dominant problem will take away from your ability to proportionately address other problems that concern you.

To the degree you focus on helping only one person, then those times, thoughts, and efforts may not be able to help many others who might benefit from your intelligent aid.

When in doubt, consider mediums and methods that can help one more person.

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On side notes: 

Congratulations to Gerard Way, Gabriel Bá, James Jean, Dave Stewart, Nate Piekos, Tony Ong, Sierra Hahn, Scott Allie and Mike Richardson on the 6 completed issues of The Umbrella Academy - an artwork that effectively deploys most, if not all, of the strengths of the comic medium, using superheroes and ultra-violent allegory as an examination of familial and interpersonal conflicts.  It is an extraordinary artwork and I highly recommend the 6 issues or the trade paperback that will collect all the issues into one volume.

As a kid, I grew up in Mike Richardson’s little neighborhood comic shop of horrors, before he started Dark Horse Comics.  I enjoyed reading and examining all manner of comics “inappropriate for girls and boys” in the encouraging environment for reading and exploring new ideas that he created.

Congratulations to Terry Moore.  The first issue of Echo #1 is amazing and Terry continues to reveal his superhuman skills and work ethic to self-publish in an era when self-publishing should be impossible.  Truthfully, self-publishing has always been impossible to do profitably, but don’t anyone tell Terry that because it has never stopped him from somehow finding ways to do it successfully.

I was pleased to see the headline today that Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn have removed their petition for divorce.  I’m completely uninformed about their lives, but nevertheless I’m very happy for them if reconciliation is what they want.

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“Hotel California” lyrics by “The Eagles”

On a dark desert highway
Cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas
Rising up through the air

Up ahead in the distance
I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night

There she stood in the doorway
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself
This could be Heaven or this could be Hell

Then she lit up a candle
And she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor
Thought I heard them say

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year
You can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany twisted
She drives a Mercedes-Benz
She got a lot of pretty pretty boys
That she calls friends

How they dance in the courtyard
Sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember
Some dance to forget

So I called up the Captain
Please bring me my wine
He said, “We haven’t had that spirit here since 1969″

And still those voices are calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Their livin’ it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise
Bring your alibis

Mirrors on the ceiling
The pink champagne on ice
And she said, “We are all just prisoners here of our own device”

And in the master’s chambers
They gathered for the feast
The stab it with their steely knives
But they just can’t kill the beast

Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before

Relax, said the night man
We are programmed to receive
You can checkout any time you like
But you can never leave

© All rights reserved by The Eagles.

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Commentary:  Hotel California is about the seemingly inescapable environments we can knowingly and unknowingly be complicit in creating for ourselves.  The song is an admission of circumstances we can find ourselves in, not always knowing how we became so entangled and confined.

Wikipedia suggests:  “The song tells the tale of a weary traveler who becomes trapped in a nightmarish hotel that at first appeared inviting and tempting.  The song is generally understood to be an allegory about hedonism and self-destruction in the Southern California music industry of the late 1970s;  Don Henley called it “our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles.”

The song has many more very good interpretations.

The song is about mirages.  It is about facades and false riches.  It’s about what is tempting and what is true.  It’s about how there are almost as many ways to become caught up in things as there are things.  It’s about trying to reconcile (or trying to avoid) our pasts, presents, and futures.

The song is about choices we’ve made that lead us to feeling or believing we cannot undo what we have begun.  The song examines if we can undo what we have done to ourselves.  The song is in part an illustration of cycles of depressive thinking.

The song is not a traditional metaphor for Christian Hell, where the consequences of a life’s decisions are exacted upon us in an after life.  The song is more about the consequences we experience in this lifetime for the choices we’ve made.  The song is not interested in how an all-seeing and all-powerful God might reward or punish humans;  rather, the song is about how our actions can cause their own sufficiently dramatic rewarding or punishing consequences in this lifetime.

I’m not sure of all of the reasons why I find the song nevertheless hopeful.  A plain reading of the lyrics alone might suggest a fairly pessimistic outlook.  But like old fairy tales, I think the song shines as a cautionary tale, not about a specific set of circumstances, but rather about circumstances we have all found ourselves in to some degree.  It can be uplifting to hear and know we are not alone in these types of feelings, like listening to many other blues or rock n’ roll songs.

It also doesn’t hurt that the song ends with a longer than normal terrific electric guitar duet - two guitars sometimes playing the same melody line at different octaves and other times in harmony, responding to each other and playing together against the cycles of the night.  There’s something in that guitar duet that suggests to me, like many AC/DC songs, that if we are in the worst of places, there is something noble in playing loud and fighting on.

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A good friend, who I love very much, wrote this to me today:

“The reason I am sending this to you is that it is one of the jillion “heartbreak and longing for the love you lost” texts on the planet, and of course that is the theme of your life, so it reminds me of you.  One way in which you differ from the poem’s speaker is that he longs for nepenthe — some draught that would enable him to forget so that he can ease his pain and move forward in his life.  I wonder why it is so important to you to define yourself by this suffering.  I am not saying one should stop loving ever.  Heaven knows I love those I have lost.  I am not saying one should forget or try to forget.  But I question your choice of re-opening the wound every day.  This is it.  This is your one chance at life.  Why do you want to be so sad?”

Then she included the text to Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven”.  The text to that poem can be found here.

I responded to her by writing:

The desire for nepenthe is likely a root cause for some people’s alcoholism.

Edgar Allen Poe was likely a severe alcoholic.

He wrote about what he knew and what he personally had felt and experienced. 

Some people may perceive that life might be better lived each day with one hand behind their back, fingers crossed.

I prefer admitting wounds are still open.

nepenthe -

1. a drug or drink, or the plant yielding it, mentioned by ancient writers as having the power to bring forgetfulness of sorrow or trouble. 

2. anything inducing a pleasurable sensation of forgetfulness, esp. of sorrow or trouble. 

She introduced me to Sting in 1986.  He released this song in 1987:

“Looked beneath his shirt today
There was a wound in his breast so deep and wide
From the wound a lovely flower grew from somewhere deep inside
He turned around to face his mother
To show her the wound in his breast that burned like a brand
The sword that cut him open
Was the sword in his mother’s hand.”  - Sting’s “A Lazarus Heart”.

As much as she is my love, she is my rival - I didn’t make up the rules of that part of love - love has always had that as a component.  Two people can’t care greatly for each other without also being great rivals on many things (like you and me for example).

To the degree others may pursue nepenthe, I pursue honesty.

Why do I choose honesty and its inherent and regular sadness?

Because love is what a person does, and not simply what a person tries really, really hard to believe, whether or not it’s true.

“How we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives.”  - Annie Dillard

You have mentioned that Annie Dillard’s books are sometimes very sad.

I do not spend my days hoping for nepenthe or pretending nepenthe exists.

Nepenthe may not exist.  If nepenthe does not exist, then that may disarm the therapeutic theories that advocate and rely on trying to “forget” or to “let go.” 

There may be some women who should not be encouraged to “let go,” “forget,” or “belittle” the loves they have lost.  And I don’t think they should be made to feel guilty for the loves from which that can’t seem to disconnect themselves.  If you pressure someone to stop caring for the loves of their past, then your pressure may even lead them to mental illness, madness, or self-harming behaviors, because they are torn between supposedly “conflicting” feelings that may both be as true to them as they have ever experienced.

When you ask someone to not feel the way they feel (even if it’s their wanting someone they can’t communicate with and the accompanying sadness), and when you ask someone to act in ways inconsistent with their honest feelings, you’re asking them to live a lie, and that can do more harm to them than good.

And those are some of the reasons I’ve never asked you to stop loving or to stop feeling sad.  If you have open wounds, I encourage you do whatever you think might be best for everyone to address them.

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The painting above is by Hilo Chen.

At some point, I realized I enjoyed art because it was often more honest than the status quo.

I enjoyed art because even when it was fantasy, it often spoke to something more true than popular conceptions conveyed.

Art, even when it is hyperbole, can reach toward feelings that are sincere.

Artwork by Frank Miller:

Art cares about things that supposedly “appropriate” people shouldn’t care about.

Art stares at the things many of us are taught to turn away from:

Artwork by Fenton Bailey:

If you’ve never studied the World War II and Korean War photographs of Margaret Bourke-White, then I encourage you to study them.  They are honest.  They study what most people shun.  She photographed what many people considered to be grotesque and obscene.  She photographed a German mother standing over her two children she killed, before she commited suicide.  She photographed hundreds of graphic pictures of the German WW II concentration camps.  In the Korean War, she photographed a picture of a South Korean soldier proudly holding up the severed head of his enemy.  Her work is timeless and important.  I choose not to show the violence here, but I choose to honor and promote her honest artworks.

Portrait of Margaret Bourke-White:

Artworks by Egon Schiele:

Artwork by Mirabilia:

Artworks by Egon Schiele:

Egon Schiele died at the young age of 28.

I believe I was strongly drawn to art because it is important, if not essential, for learning how to live a healthy life.  Art teaches us things that are not taught commonly in most schools or textbooks.  Art often takes the lead in educating us about taboo topics most other education sources avoid or censor.

Someday, someone is likely going to lay their sexual cards on your table.

The better you understand sexuality in the arts, the better you’ll likely know more ways how to play or how to fold the expected and unexpected cards you are dealt.

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On a side note:  Congratulations to The Washington Post for winning 6 of the 14 2008 Pulitzer Prizes awarded for journalism.

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© All rights reserved by the respective artists.

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Who do you treat as a second class person?

Why do you treat them that way?

Is it because of their race?

Is it because of their religion?

Is it because you’ve filled your quota of first class people and you can’t accommodate one more?

Is it because of their gender?

Is it because of their sexual orientation?

Is it because of their marital status?

Is it because of their appearance?

Is it because your social circle wouldn’t approve of you treating them as a first class person?

Is it because they don’t fit into your plans and predictions?

Is it because they don’t fit into the life story you were writing?

Is it because they don’t agree to agree with you enough?

Is it because they make valid criticisms of you?

Is it because they sometimes discuss what you don’t want to discuss?

Is it because they don’t fit your physical body-type qualifications?

Is it because they don’t make enough money?

Is it because they don’t come from a good enough family?

Is it because they don’t have a good enough job?

I encourage you to re-evaluate whatever it is that causes you to consciously or unconsciously treat someone as anything less than first class. 

If someone’s treatment of you and yours has been first class, then consider that maybe they should be treated as first class based on the quality of their character, and the quality of their kind, fair, and good behavior toward you and yours.

When you are encouraged to treat others as second class for unwarranted reasons, then consider rebelling.  Even then . . .

Love always

Consider responding to first class behavior with first class treatment. 

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On a related side note:  As you might expect, I don’t like the lyrics and supporting philosophies behind The Beatles’ song “If I Needed Someone” from their album “Rubber Soul.”

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Here is a kind and encouraging responsive post Greenwoman2007 created to a post I wrote a few days ago:

http://leafingout.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/an-unintended-meme/

If you ever exclude someone because you want to show them how they mistreated you, because you want to treat them as poorly as they treated you, because you want them to learn some hard life lessons, and because you have the good intention to teach them some important lessons about love,

Then be careful because the most dominant thing they may learn may be they genuinely loved you.

And if you ever discover they changed and they learned many or most the lessons you intended,

Then what will you be able to do?

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