art is good for you

 

Joel Jackson. Mandala with Seven Chakras. Now. Columbus.

 

A building marked for dental in Grandview had two American Indian statues out front. Inside, there was more art, paintings and sculptures, mostly of the same theme. Some of the offices were being painted. This one was the only one with an artist. He was enjoyed speaking on art, and was happy with my interruption.  Joel lives in Columbus, but came from south of Pittsburgh. He showed me his stencils, and computer drawing, and how the piece would look with various colours. We both agreed, art is good for you.

Columbus Ohio has a lot of painted murals, and some other outdoor (and indoor) public art. Here is some that i enjoyed on the hottest day of the year, so far [about 10 weeks ago, was my last visit, also on the hottest day of the year to that point]. I have posted others previously.  Some can no longer be viewed. One that i missed, some years ago (1999-2004), Botticelli's Venus was painted on a now no longer existing building. I wonder whether that was a conscious effort to show outdoor versions of master works. There is a version of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, and Grant Wood's American Gothic.

A recent Star Trek Mr Spock has been painted over. This outdoor art is often temporary, while spray vandalism may last a long time. One wall painting, which i would have liked to see, has been painted over maybe a couple of years ago, maybe a little longer. Most of the wall was not painted with illustrations. Since then, the whole wall has been spray painted with a street hip hop crew. Well, that wall has been painted over several times. Good art was replaced with a loud and garish scene. One of the two obliterated ones was a Memento Mori, which portrays in art something that brings attention that death is coming.  The Latin means “remember that you will die”, or some would translate as:  “remember that you must die”.  Latin is more inflected than current English, so grammatical distinctions are embedded in the word, and additional words are not needed to clarify.

So there are paintings, and sculptures with skulls, and people contemplating death. Now this reminds us life is short, remember that, and do well. The Grim Reaper cuts and collects people with his scythe. In stories, he is death personified. Here he said, "Live, because I am coming.", a slight variation.

 Mandi Caskey & Jacob Tanner. Football Players. 2013. Franklinton.

Perhaps, Harvard-Yale is not the big game. The football collegiate yearly rivalry game is Michigan-Ohio State. Their first match was in 1897, and Michigan, Their next match was  a tie in 1900. Continuing to 1912:  Michigan won 13 times, Ohio State not at all, two games were tied. There was no game from 1913 to 1917. Ohio State's initial victory was in 1919. They have played yearly since. Michigan has retained the edge in the series.

Here we see the school colors. The ball carrier is in scarlet red, and light grey; the tackler in blue, and "maize". The ball players look a wee too old for college. That handlebar mustache is pre-1900, and the clothes maybe too.

Well, Ohio State takes the seriousness of the game rivalry to ridiculousness, and obnoxiousness. Ohio State has a chip on their shoulders. Michigan is the older (1817-21 as Catholepistemiad*, or 1837 in Ann Arbor), and much more highly regarded academic school. The name of the brewery is Land Grant. The first land grant school was Michigan State 1862, by that name 1925, it began in 1855 as Agricultural College of the State of Michigan. 1870 saw Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College founded, and eventually (1878) changed their name to Ohio State. 

Jesse Owens went to Ohio State, and i see fotos, and sculptures with him wearing a red track shirt,  the word OHIO. Ohio U's colors are green and white, and he went to Ohio State. Well, Ohio State wanted to be Ohio, and lost. Ohio was the first college in the Old Northwest in 1803.

And right close by is this message and plea for the honey bees.

Chinos Art. This part was painted first after 2020. W. Broad Str. Hilltop.

 Our Lady of Guadalupe (Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe) is the Mexican Madonna (Mary). There is no cultural image that identifies Mexico more than this. Her image is also an image of social justice, for and beyond Mexico.

It was expanded to show Mexico before the coming of the Spanish.

Jack Greaves. Unicorn in the Garden [with lily]. 1987.

Outside and across the street from the Thurber House is a small park. On the ground there is a bronze tablet that has James Thurber's fable of The Unicorn in the Garden. 

Jack Greaves. Unicorn in the Garden [with rose]. 1987.

This one is at the Columbus School for Girls in Bexley. In the story 'the mythical beast' eats flowers in the garden. When the statues were put in place, there was a procession from the one to the other. In 1992. Greaves made a different unicorn for the Scioto River downtown.

Joan Wobst. The Opera Pot. 2002. Bexley.

On the campus a few feet away is another sculpture with a small fountain in a cauldron surrounded by Wagner's Brunhild, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, Puccini's Madame Butterfly, and Marcello from La Bohème.

One of three dog sculptures in a soon to be opened little park in Dublin Ohio. They had put in most of the cement, and paving blocks. Some flowers and mulch was there to surround the dogs. We were taking pictures, and some guy came to tell us go away. We talked a bit. He said grass sees was just put sown. We saw that under the straw. It has to have just been put down. The seed was visible, nothing was close to germination. I said, i saw a golf ball. He tells us, they took four buckets of balls out, it was a driving range before. The area is crowded with new apartments and such, and with signs threatening towing if parked on lots off a narrow two lane road.

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*Catholepistemiad:  I read that and thought it was a joke, Cat-hole-piss-the-mud. No, it was ridiculous Greco-Latin nonsense with inflated arrogance.

2024 Miscellany #12

Tinman has been shot again, previous holes were patched. e.152nd Cleveland.

Taking a mannequin pose while waiting for friends to meet at Monet exhibit Cleveland.

just past afternoon, 19 August, middle 60s, with a north wind, with washboard waves

Upper Edgewater Cleveland, Lake Erie

Truck riding Teen age Mutant Ninja Turtle with nunchuks.

Karma had to read a pee-mail.

We were at a dog park recently, and met Orin (L) and Luka (R). These two ere very easy to approach, and showed no anxiety. Silken Windhounds are a new breed, bred from Borzois and Lurchers, they also are sight hounds. The first litter came in 1985.

narcissistic collapse

O yea, Orange Caligula is rattled.  For some reason being called weird really bothers him. Perhaps in his distant past he was called that. Trumple-thin-skin is a malignant narcissist.  Donny Dipshit is a racist, and a misogynist. A black woman is not acceptable. Unlike most psychopaths with his personality disorder, Don the Con is really stupid. Orange Cheato is vindictive. The melted circus peanut is a sadist. Cadet Spanky Bonespurs has dementia. The Devil's protege expects center ring in the circus always. Attention to him has been diverted. Perhaps, he is entering a mental death spiral. Trump is a psychopath, and hates being mocked.

Monday begins the Democratic Convention in the Chicago Lands. It is going to be unique.  A sitting president, Joseph Biden, who easily won all the primaries, will not be nominated. He deserves to be president for four more years. He really earned it. Instead, he succumbed to electoral pressure and abdicated. Biden sacrificed the position of the presidency, so that the party would have an easier time winning against anti-democratic forces.

Biden deferred to his vice-president, Kamala Harris. She will be the first of several demographics to claim the presidency. She quickly won support from the entire party. She kindled interest from outside the party. Harris was something new for the press, and at first they were welcoming.

The first question was who will the new vice-president be? Tim Walz was a most excellent choice. The man is very congenial, He has a good history: teacher, coach, soldier, congressman, governor. The contrast to the weird billet the Repukes have chosen is remarkable.  Walz, more than anyone else, found the magic word to rattle the fascist opponents. 'Weird' is accurate, understated, non-aggressive, humourous , and dismissive. Harris and Walz are happy, they laugh, they act like humans. This is beyond annoying to the Republicans. Trump and Vance are malevolent frauds.

Erich Fromm's, The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil, 1964, Fromm used the term “malignant narcissism.” That defines Trump.
  “It is a madness that tends to grow in the lifetime of the afflicted person. The more he tries to be a god, the more he isolates himself from the human race; this isolation makes him more frightened, everybody becomes his enemy, and in order to stand the resulting fright he has to increase his power, his ruthlessness, and his narcissism.”

John Gartner has for several years tried to focus America on this.
“Trump suffers from malignant narcissism, a diagnosis [that is] far more toxic and dangerous than mere narcissistic personality disorder because it combines narcissism with three other severely pathological components: paranoia, sociopathy, and sadism. When combined, this perfect storm of psychopathology defines the ‘quintessence of evil,’ according to Fromm, the closest thing psychiatry has to describing a true human monster.”

Gartner's comrade, Howard Marks, The Shallow State @OurShallowState
“Narcissistic Mortification is when a narcissist like Trump crosses over to a place where he sees visions of his own demise. A malignant narcissist who once held the loftiest of titles, cannot cope with this. Trump's fears have become "dread." He is very unhinged, yet uncomfortable in the feeling itself, because he knows he's partly responsible. Reality is being forced upon him, that's not of his making. He can't have that!
    To put it in more psychological terms, narcissistic mortification is EXTREME fear experienced when one with a rigidly grandiose pathology sees his sense of self as exposed, defective or inferior. It was coined by Freud in his book Moses and Monotheism.”

The next stage is narcissistic collapse. What is the collapse? Is it terminal, temporary, or cyclical? What is the collapse? It is narcissistic rage.  Remember Adolf of the Third Reich? 

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This is already a bit long. Bandy X. Lee is a psychiatrist also. In 2017 she edited The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump. She has spoken to many in Congress of the danger of Trump and his insanity. Lee taught at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School from 2003 through 2020.

In 1964 Goldwater ran for president, and was widely thought crazy. So a “Goldwater Rule” came about. Thou shant call someone that is crazy “crazy”, if  you have not personally examined the crazy person. Yale invoked it upon her over both Trump, and the vile Alan Dershowitz. Yale is acting against academic freedom, and probably is in league with supporters of Trump.

2024 Miscellany #11—summer

Karma had her stroll at Wendy Park on Whiskey Island the morning of 28 July. She is an art aficionado, and viewed Small Giants by Alex Senna. The Girl Giant was looking elsewhere.

Bucky among cucumbers.

Golden puts one foot before the other.

One of Tim's many signs.

Kite on a breezy evening, Lower Edgewater Cleveland.

Seen in Parma, might not last til election day, significant deplorable population.

Upper Edgewater Cleveland, 2 days after the storm

Have vegan relatives who go to W. 11 for eats.

 Mount Misny, Collinwood-Euclid line

Someone is having fun, no text. I don't have to say anything, you just know. 

 

For people outside the target area, northern Ohio, he is an injury lawyer, and a local personality. A few years ago, he did teevee commercials. "I'm Tim Misny. I 'll make them pay", then "You know what i do". Now, a real lot of billboards, some are meant to be funny, and are. Some people hate him, and use the term 'ambulance chaser".  He has a sense of good humour. I know nothing about his business practices. I do know companies have their own lawyers, who do the damnedest to cheat people out of compensation. Death, injury, and loss are serious. To have malefactors skate scot free is unjust.

WEIRD

Weird, what is weird? Generally it is either creepy, kooky, spooky. In Shakespeare's MacBeth, the Weird Sisters are the ones cooking horrible things in a cauldron, performing maga, ahh magic.

When someone sees something odd, they may say quizzically “that's weird”.  When someone does something silly, or odd, one might say dismissively, “you are weird”. In popular culture we have Weird Al Yankovic, and Weird Barbie from a movie. Yankovic is a musician who creates parody and novelty songs, his weirdness is benign, and entertaining. Weird Barbie was the toy Barbie that was roughly played with, and in the movie became an eccentric, but perceptive outcast in Barbie World.

Republican weird is the strange, outlandish, eerie, horrific, unnatural creepy kind. The kind that makes you feel icky, uncomfortable, it is unpleasant, and is offensive.

Kamala Harris is so much better as a candidate now than four years ago. In a a campaign statement she has “Trump is old and quite weird”.  Trump mocked her as laughing too much. Trump never laughs, he has no humour. What he has is spite, malice, and viciousness in its place. If he smiles, it is a false one, or a gloat taking evil enjoyment. Why the absence, or antipathy to laughter and genuine smiling?  Laughing can be happy, or mocking, or recognising some truth. Look at trump on film and fotos: he looks angry, goofy, or false.

Harris has picked up on the weirdness. I read that Tim Walz (Gov. Minn.) was the first one to repeatedly mention it. Since the Orange Weirdo kept mentioning a fictive serial killer in speeches, it was not understood whether he thought Hannibal Lector was real. Oh, and the shark fixation, killer windmills, and a slew of other weird things that are part of his act. Do not forget, the hair, and orange paint.

The Repukes are full of weirdness. And they don't like being called on it. They always were putting out that Democrats were some horrible other, not like normal Americans. The lie was/is that Republicans are normal. They are creepy weird.  For many years, my phrasing to describe them was that they are crazier than outhouse rats. But weird is the winner. The kind of weird people warn others, when they say ominously, “stay away from him, he's weird”.

Trump, well you know.  Vance is weird toooo. He has lived through disguise. He is weird. He is a falsity. He is queer. The eyeliner, and wanting to police menstrual cycles is very creepy weird. As a whole, Republicans are abnormally fixated on everyone else's crotch.

Vance has only been Vance for some eleven years. He was born James Donald Bowman, he was then James David Hamel, and is now JD Vance.  He came to fame by writing a fictive memoir. He was born and lived in a town between Cincinnati and Dayton. In the book, he made constant reference to the bad stereotype of eastern Kentucky culture. He went to the Marines, Ohio State, Yale Law, married a Hindu, became a vulture capitalist in San Francisco, and presents himself as a hillbilly. That's alright, Trump presented himself as a Swede for years.

Calling repukes weird hurts their feelings. Traitorous psychos is more accurate.