Modern Greek Mythology

Cartoon by Michael Ramirez -  click to enlarge.

How Espen Conquers His Fear

Prometheus

Dionysus Unleashed (again)

Following last year's mob rape in Tahrir Square of "60 Minutes" reporter Lara Logan, comes another, far more deadly, Egyptian Night of the Furies:

(Sky News) At least 74 people have been killed and 1,000 injured after a football pitch invasion in Egypt, according to reports.Clashes are said to have broken out as fans flooded the field seconds after the game in the northern coastal city of Port Said finished.There were reports of rocks, bottles, flares and fireworks being thrown as politicians in the country criticised a lack of security at the match.Doctors treating the victims said some had been stabbed to death. One player caught up in the rioting described it as "a war".

I would describe it as another horrific example of the Primal Sin.

Mitt and the Mad Myth of the Mormons

Say what you will about Mitt Romney, the guy is an Eveready energizer bunny, always upbeat and undaunted, effective and accomplished in business and politics, and obviously totally committed to his family. It also happens that Romney is a Mormon.

In this regard he seems to me a perfect example of a basic idea behind this blog: that what is most important about a myth is not its credibility, but its effectiveness in sustaining and guiding positive human behavior.  As the Mormon character says at the end of the (in)famous South Park “All About Mormons” episode:

Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life. and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don’t care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people. And even though people in this town might think that’s stupid, I still choose to believe in it.

Two Feet of Snow in Seattle

(from Michael Drescher)

Inscrutable Frivolity

Mark Rothko, "Red on Maroon"

Saturday night we joined the parade of looky-loos touring the LA art galleries on south La Cienega Boulevard.  The profusion of mind-numbing abstract art and the zombie stares of the foraging crowd reminded me of John Logan's Rothko play, RED, and a review of it written last year by the British critic/playwright Lloyd Evans:

"This play is about painting, or rather about the remnant of painting we call ‘modern art’. Before photograpy destroyed draughtsmanship, artists were labourers, odd-jobbers, innovators, scientists in the best sense, philosophers with dirty hands using the materials of the universe to enhance our understanding of it. Until the second half of the 19th century, painting was a vague and happy alliance between technique and meaning. No one cared at what point a piece of representative art rose from the literal to the metaphysical. But once craftsmanship became obsolete this started to matter a lot. It became paramount. Divine inspiration was everything suddenly, because there was nothing else. Every artist had to pose as a genius or face being dismissed as a water-colourist, a weekend doodler, an easel weasel painting pretty sunsets. Artists declared war on craftsmanship. Sadly they won. (Writers tried it, too, but after Finnegans Wake, the worst book ever published, they hastily and blushingly signed an armistice.) Crucial to the artist’s new status was his strategic decision to shift the burden of elucidation from himself to the viewer. ‘Don’t ask me what it means. I commune with the godhead, earth-dweller, you explain it to me.’

"These two renunciations — of technique and of meaning — created art in its current phase of inscrutable frivolity."

That about sums it up.  Even the simple value of beauty seems to have been forgotten.  After two hours wandering, I left the galleries feeling absolutely nothing.