in the dark

A photo in very poor light of something I’m doing. The poor light is an intended aid to seeing it anew in terms of what’s right or wrong with it, and trying to get it to its desired form; and so anyway here is the dark, blurry photo.

Numbers

“Hi, how are you?”

“To be honest, I’m pretty worried.”

“Why, what’s up?”

“Pregnant men.”

“Pregnant men? Sure that’s wonderful. We’re all equal now.”

“I know, I know. That’s what social justice is all about: complete equality.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Overpopulation.”

“Overpopulation? What do you mean?”

“The planet is already struggling to keep up with the demands made upon it by us humans. There’s just too many of us.”

“That’s true, yes. We’re a blight upon existence.”

“Well if things are that bad already with just women giving birth, what are things going to be like when men start giving birth as well. Because of course they can.”

“Of course they can, yes. We all know that. But it’s just that up till now, because of prejudice and ignorance, through all of human history no man has ever given birth. But that’s all about to completely change.”

“Yes it is. But what about so the population increase that will follow?”

“Yes, I see what you mean. I’ll have to think about it. Maybe governments will have to award themselves increased powers so as to cope with the situation. Because we’re already on the precipice.”

“We are. And this could push us right over the edge.”

“You’re right. Our people need to have a serious talk about this.”

biRdS again

 A recently posted picture after being worked on a bit.

the thinker

 An awkward piece to try to finish.

Movie, Disney

A new full-length Disney animation is coming out - made by a coming together of talent, technology and empathy - aimed at the very young, so give your kids a treat, if you have some, and bring them along to see it and savour the magic of the Disney experience. 

The film is called Paving the Way for AntiChrist, and features the voice of President Zelensky in the role of a friendly dragon. We are also informed that “Sir Tony Blair represents the views of the European Union in the film”. Whatever that precisely means I’m not sure.

Critics have been warned that negative reviews of the film could be interpreted as hate speech.

Independent Spirits

They were so cutting and sharp, so witty and cynical and superior about all these powers-that-be; looked down at them from their heights, these independent spirits, they poured amused scorn on their stupidity and their corruption. But then someone came along who all these powers-that-be were utterly united in in their fear and hatred of, so threatening to their foundations, their system must he have been felt to be.

And so how do you think did these proud, independent spirits respond to this threat to these corrupt creatures they’d been laughing at for so long?”

“I’m presuming they rejoiced at this unexpected threat to all the stinking incestuousness.”

“Well no, you presume wrong. It turned out that they had infinitely more hatred and scorn for this new threatening outsider than for all the others combined.”

“Really? I suppose their sense of independence suffered an awful lot when they saw that, after all, they were knee deep in all the incestuousness? That their independence was a complete illusion.”

“No, there was nothing like that. I think they were convinced they more independent than ever.”

“So no blow to their self-esteem?”

“Oh no.”

Perfectly Normal

 

What happened there in the second video is of course perfectly normal and natural, as we’ve seen repeatedly happen to healthy, quite young people live on air the last couple of years or so. The sequence of videos in no way is meant to suggest a connection in theme or possible causal relation between them; i.e. I’m an extremely fit former professional soccer player, I urge you to get the vax, I feel great, and a little bit later, I’m now collapsing live on air.

And the reason I saw the above at all is the following video on basketball player Lebrun James’ 18 year old son getting a heart attack. Again, it seems a massively more likely thing to happen to fit young people now than roughly up till about 2 years ago.

Colonel Douglas Macgregor

 

Fascinating interview with this man on Steve Turkey’s YouTube channel primarily about Ukraine, Russia and the west. It seems to me to be a bit of a poorly titled video but maybe there’s some kind of disingenuousness at play there in this world of often trigger-happy censorship. 

Bangladesh

The latest from the Corporate Whore franchise is the revealing of an upcoming docu-series called Corporate Whores Light Up the World. In the first episode of the must-see series, stars of the entertainment industrial complex travel to Bangladesh to educate impoverished local children about gender identity, and enlighten  them on how certain transitioning surgeries could open up opportunities for them in the porn industry. 

“It was wonderful to give these kids the glimpse of a better life,” recalled one of the stars. “The whole experience was humbling but also uplifting in an emotional kind of way. We felt pretty good about ourselves afterwards.”

Fake

 More on the music front, where there is also a new song out by Fake News Shitstorm called Child Trafficking Doesn’t Exist (But if it did it would probably be a good thing).

Champagne

Toxic Blandness have just released a new song, Champagne Socialism Makes Me Feel Hot, the sounds of which are apparently already resounding across the Hollywood Hills. The B-side is Champagne Socialism or Death (Woke Me Sideways).

art 55

 Something I must go back to and try to finish.

landscape

 

Domestic Requiem

 

By Paul Klee.

St Paisios, Prayer, Healing

 

I think there’s great depth in this little piece on St Paisios. And also to add, regarding something like spirituality, though I’d have come from a developed instinct, if I can put it like that, or bias towards ideas and generalised truths, such as in The Philokalia, actually reading the biographies of modern figures like St Paisios and St Jospeh the Hesychast I think is more potent and penetrates silently and deeper into oneself.

Sunset, Down the Highstreet, Canterbury

 

Albert Goodwin (1845-1932)

Cold War

“You know a bit about history - tell me a bit about the Cold War.”

“Well, in brief, it was a prolonged conflict between East and West, after which the protagonists swapped ideologies.”

“Really? Is that what happened?”

“Kind of.”

biRdS

 Just messing about.

Keith Vaughan

 

Two works by 20th century English artist; the first is The Sower, the second is Landscape with Sheep and Shepherd, Derbyshire.

Preference

“Which would you prefer - Trump in office or World War 3?”

“Emm . . . I don’t know . . . I really don’t like Trump.”

“So you’re picking World War 3?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe.”

“Did you get the Covid vaccine?”

“Of course! We have to stay safe.”

“And have you had booster shots?”

“Yes! Why do you ask?!”

“How many have you had?”

“I’m not sure. Too many to count. As long as they keep me safe I’ll keep taking them. Think of the alternative.”

ink +

 

Festival

Exciting news of a brand new music festival, sponsored by Facebook, has just emerged, and which for now is going under the working title of Corporate Whores in a Field. 

I can’t as yet confirm this but there’s whispers that Mr Gaga and His/Her Possessed Band of Happy Castrates are already pencilled in to appear.

Mystère de Pâques/ Easter Mystery

 

Maurice Denis, 1891.

The God-Man

A powerful essay by Justin Popovich (1894-1979): https://orthodoxmonarchy.net/files/THE_GOD-MAN_by_saint_Justin_Popovic.pdf. I must see about reading more of him, and I see he wrote on Dostoevsky which I’d like to see, Anyway, he could certainly write. For example:

. . . man learns the complete truth about man, about the purpose and meaning of his existence only through the God-man. Outside of Him a man turns into an apparition, into a scarecrow, into nonsense. Instead of a man you find the dregs of a man, the fragments of a man, the scraps of a man. Therefore, true manhood lies only in God-manhood; and no other manhood exists under heaven. 

. . . While the God-man is the fundamental truth of Orthodoxy, the fundamental truth of every heterodoxy is man, or fragments of his being--reason, the will, the senses, the soul, the body, expertise. Integral man does not exist in heterodoxy; the whole man is divided into atoms, into particles. And it is all for the glory of man's greatness. But just as "art for the sake of art" is nonsense, so also is it nonsense to say "man for the sake of man." That path leads to a most pitiful pandemonium, where man is the supreme idol--and nowhere is there a more pitiful idol than he.

Nietzsche on Socialism

Nietzsche unfortunately seemed to fall prey very much the temptation of pride and egotism, imagining them, certainly at times, to be the greatest of virtues rather than the very wrong spiritual path - though this reaction of contempt to a very fallen world around one, the world of “the rabble” in Nietzschean terms, is a very natural and powerful temptation. Self-protection from the grasp of “the world” is necessary, but there’s more to the spirit than one’s relationship to the world, and if one ends up virtually defined by one’s contempt for it, then that’s a parody and horror in itself. And perhaps these kinds of dynamics led Nietzsche to rejection of humility whilst exalting the proud ego, having a title of a book like Why I Am So Wise, and ultimately losing his sanity, and tellingly even signing letters “the crucified one.” 

Anyway, Nietzsche still could be a man of great gifts and insight, and I really just wanted to post something I saw from Nietzsche on the imaginative projections of European academics that comprise the supposedly rational formulas of socialism - and towards which realisation we should all of course devotedly aspire:

Socialism itself can hope to exist only for brief periods here and there, and then only through the exercise of the extremest terrorism. For this reason it is secretly preparing itself for rule through fear and is driving the word “justice” into the heads of the half-educated masses like a nail so as to rob them of their reason… and to create in them a good conscience for the evil game they are to play.

― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

And thus, in the name of justice, for instance boys should be allowed say they are girls and men can give birth! Or governments will award themselves totalitarian powers and deny you your rights if you don’t take a drug that doesn’t stop you from getting the illness it’s supposed to vaccinate against. 

Because if half-educated masses are consenting to being robbed of their reason, anything is possible.

Regatta at Perros-Guirec

 By Maurice Denis, painted in 1892.

More From the Movement

From within the hallowed halls of the entertainment industrial complex, the Corporate Whores movement seems to be building up a real head of steam, some touted droplets of which which may hopefully soon liquefy into solid entertainment, as it were, below:

Corporate Whores Grow Old Gracefully (At a guess, this involves elegant use of plastic surgery treatments for aging corporate whores)

Corporate Whores Support a Cause

Corporate Whore Wears a Dress (This one is apparently more in relation to “masculine” corporate whores - tyrannical though of course such a labelling may be, and indeed is)

Extremely Wealthy and Intellectually Illiterate Corporate Whores Call Enemies of Global Corporate Whoredom Racists and Fascists (A bit of an insightful and provocative edge to this last one. I can feel the embers of my righteousness and desire for the victory of moral truth being stoked just by the title alone.)

Corporate Whores Go Slumming It With the Plebs (This one gives fans a chance to meet and hang out briefly with their heroes and heroines. Again, apologies for any pain and offence such distinguishing terms may unwittingly cause. It is difficult to navigate the field of oppression and tyranny that is our debased world of language, designed as it intentionally is to oppress the vulnerable.)

John Lennon - Society Run by Insane People for Insane Objectives

Here in 1968 John Lennon says he believes “society is run by insane people for insane objectives.” 

Rolling Stone magazine has strongly refuted Lennon’s claim, and says “Everyone should stop trying to think for themselves and just do what they’re told. Most of us are simply not qualified to act otherwise, and we should trust the hard-working, wise and benevolent people running society to think for us and tell us what to do. This will unarguably save us lots of energy, we’ll be happy and then the spirit of rock n roll will assuredly never die. And don’t forget to stay safe and keep taking those booster shots.”

When pressed a little further on Lennon’s remarks, Rolling Stone in the human form of its spokesman, said “In more enlightened times Lennon would have been cancelled for misinformation and hate speech and had his assets frozen - thus helping to keep the spirit of rock n roll safe for future generations.”

Choral and Landscape

 

Paul Klee, 1921.

Cover

Fake News Shitstorm, pioneers of originality and daring, are releasing a cover version of Deep State Cabal’s recent hit single Leave Our Pedos Alone. “This song is about protecting the vulnerable, and that’s what we’re all about,” explained the band. 

In an undoubted boost for the success of the song, the Corporate Whores Form a United Front movement has issued an informal statement in which they “wholeheartedly endorse both the original and the cover version, and their undistilled message of tolerance and inclusivity. Corporate whores forever.”

Sore Throat

“So what seems to be the problem with Joseph?”

“Well doctor, he’s had a very sore throat for the last few days, and I’m a little worried it’s not clearing up as quickly as I thought it would.”

“Have you considered gender surgery for Joseph?”

“Sorry?!”

“We in the medical and psychological fields are coming to realise that many, maybe even most, medical complaints in children stem from their unease regarding their biological misgendering, as it were. And so I think you should seriously consider a course of transitioning for Joseph.”

“That’s deranged! I just want something for his throat!”

“You seem to be very ignorant of what’s been happening in the field of progress lately. Children need to be protected from such ignorance and resulting abuse.”

“This is demonic thinking!”

“What?! Are you some kind of Donald Trump supporter?! I am going to be recommending to the authorities that this child be taken from you for its own protection.”

“Quick Joseph. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Joseph the Hesychast

 

A quick recommendation for the above book which I’m currently reading. A docu-film on him below:

David and Bathsheba

 

By Pablo Picasso in 1949, based on or inspired by a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

Find

If you don’t find truth you’ll find delusion.

Louis-Matthieu Verdilhan, Ports

 

Three paintings, probably all of the port of Marseilles, a very common focus by this French artist, who  lived from 1875 to 1928. The simplicity of the style seems to match the feel of such unadorned places.

Transitioning

“What are you up to lately?”

“I’ve been transitioning.”

“Really?!”

“Yeah. I’ve been transitioning from an idiot to a bigger idiot,”

figures 2

 

The final state, or something I think very close to it, of a piece I posted here recently.

Meekness, Softness

“Spiritual meekness is one thing, but softness and indifference are quite another. . . . Our time is like a bubbling, steaming cauldron; one needs temperament, courage, audacity.”

Saint Paisios (1924-1994).

Documentary

“Have you seen that new documentary Corporate Whores Form a United Front?”

“Is that the one with all these figures from the various entertainment industrial complexes - music, film, tv  and all that - and they’re talking about things of topical and social interest?”

“That’s the one. It’s very informative. And thought provoking.”

“And do they have all different kinds of opinions? Like diversity in action?”

“No. No diversity. They all seem to have the exact same opinions.”

“That’s probably why it’s called Corporate Whores Form a United Front.”

“That’s probably it all right.”

“It’s amazing what people can achieve when they put their minds together.”