Business Meeting

[Photo by KPA]

I managed to catch these four bankers (?) in the banking district of Toronto (its "Wall Street" on King and Bay) at the Mies van der Rohe Toronto Dominion Centre a couple of days ago. The cows in the back are by Canadian sculpture Joe Fafard titled "The Pasture" which I describe in a previous post:

The sculptures above are titled "The Pasture" by Joe Fafard. They look like they are in the tradition of Pastorals:

The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an idealized manner, for urban audiences. As a noun, a pastoral refers to a single work of such poetry, music or drama.

Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty

[Photo by KPA]

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN
By John Keats

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

The Useless Ilana Mercer Is At It Again

Ilana Mercer, with whom I corresponded for a while until she cleverly called me an idiot without actually attaching the word to my name, is at it again. Here are some posts I did on Mercer's libertarianism (however much she denies it), her writing style, her recent book, and her support of Ron Paul.

I go to her site to see what libertarians are saying. We need all the information (and thought processes) we can get, so we don't get blind-sided like I did with her crass reaction to my positions.

Here's what she recently wrote about Ameerah Al-Taweel, Princess of Saudi Arabia:

Is Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel the most beautiful woman in the world? Indisputably. Her face is simply exquisite. Poise and manners are perfect too. Mrs. Al-Taweel’s simple, rich-girl solutions to endemic unemployment sound more left-liberal than classically liberal, but her heart is pure and she is bright. Married to “Buffett of Arabia,” Ameerah Al-Taweel is also terrifically wealthy. I hope she does not pick up any ho-like mannerisms while in America.

Since my blog is interested in, "how art, culture and society converge," and many of my posts discuss beauty, I simply cannot go without commenting on the so-called beauty of this princess as opined by Mercer. (Of course, Mercer is not only talking about the woman's physical beauty, but her beautifully decorous manners as well, with no sarcasm intended.) I often dislike commenting on innocent bystanders' uncontrollable features such as their looks, but this Saudi Princess is no innocent bystander, as I will show later in this post.

This Saudi royalty is no masterpiece. Her strangely compressed/elongated face doesn't have the delicacy or refinement of a true beauty. There is a fetishistic pull towards highly placed Third Worlders that some people in the West respond to. Ameerah Al-Taweel's large, darkly kohled eyes are her attractive features, and are part of her exoticism. Mercer could be reacting to that.

Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel as a: Western woman, a Muslim woman,
an Oriental Princess, a devout wife. How many hats (robes, dresses)
does she wear? Which one is the real her?

Al-Taweel is often photographed wearing chic, designer Western clothes, looking as smart and well-groomed as a Catherine Deneuve, yet she hails from a country which mandates that women cover up in dark, dreary robes. Al-Taweel does appear at times with black head-coverings, but her reasons are unclear. Is it is camaraderie with her Muslim sisters? Is it to please her husband? Is it her whim for the day?

As for Al-Taweel's non-physical attributes, I just cannot find it. She may be soft-spoken, but she clearly promotes the anti-female, sharia-based legal system in Saudi Arabia (with a different set of rules for herself, of course), advocates polygamy through her own marriage to bigamist Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal (who is also twice divorced - Muslims style?), agrees that women cover up Muslim style, as a physical manifestation of the restraints on women.

She prattles on about allowing women the vote by 2015 (four years from now, when anything could happen, including rescinding this "permission") and being an advocate for women driving despite this newspaper headline just today: Saudi woman to be lashed for driving car.

She is a hypocrite, but more precisely, she lives as an elitist Third World autocrat (or an autocrat's wife), with one set of rules for herself, and another set for the masses.

So this is the "beauty" that Mercer chimes about.

As Keats writes:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, --that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

A writer who cannot discern this is not to be trusted.

Chaz Bono Still On Prime Time TV

From Chas to Chaz, Bono's Journey:
Chastity Bono turns to Chaz Bono.
That means she no longer has to be a lesbian
with her girlfriend (pictured above right)
she met before turning trans.

I wrote about Chaz Bono's participation in Dancing With the Stars, and how it remained in the competition for another week, which I concluded was due to the "freak show" factor.

Well, Chaz is back again, despite a weird, creepy dance routine, and actually being the worst in the competition. I'm pretty sure it is still the freak factor that keeps it on the show for another week.

The good thing is that all the other celebrity dancers are really quite good, as was the one eliminated (an Italian actress, and probably the reason she was voted off is because not many people would know her). So, the trick is to keep an eye on Chaz and study its behavior and actions, as a reference for other "trans" freaks in our brave new society. Their aggression can really only be countered by our aggression, but we have to know what we're fighting against first.

(Serious) Design Flaws of a Vera Wang Gown: Or, How Vera Wang is a Mediocre Designer

Arianna Huffington with her daughters
in the October 2011 Vogue
Left: Isabella in Vera Wang
Right: Christina in Prabal Gurung
Center: Arianna in Lanvin

Vera Wang's dress in the October 2011
Vogue, work by Arianna Huffington's daughter

Here's more on that much-touted, mediocre designer Vera Wang.

To the detriment of being called racist, I repeatedly find myself bewildered at the subtle ineptitude I find in "Asians" - the category in the West which now includes Chinese, Korean and Japanese (but probably a more accurate term would be East Asians, since South Asians includes the far different race of Indians, Bangladeshi and Pakistani, also from the Asian continent).

For example, I was in the bank yesterday, withdrew some money, and asked the teller for my balance. She wrote it on a piece of paper. I said I would prefer a print out, so that it is an official record. Her response was a mixture of lies (that I had already finished a transaction and the system had switched off), laziness (unwilling to log back into my account) and possibly ineptitude, the cause of which I haven't figured out other than if the system does shut down after a log off from a recent transaction, she doesn't know how to turn it back on for the same transaction. All this was communicated to me in broken English in a Chinese accent.

(As a side, but important, note, there is a huge influx of Chinese in Toronto these days. I think many are entering on "economic" and "education" immigration quotas. I think there is also a racial component to their ability to enter Canada relatively easily. Blacks and Muslims, and to a lesser extent Indians, appear to be more "different" than whites, so the Chinese are a better choice to fill the immigration quotas promised by almost all the political parties. Their contribution in both those areas are suspect, and I will provide some information, research and conclusions on these soon.)

Back to the Chinese teller. If I had been really difficult (I did throw back the scrap of paper at her after telling her it was unacceptable), I would have asked for her manager, reported her behavior, and indicated that this wasn't the first "lack of communication" that had occurred with Chinese tellers in the bank, who either: don't understand sufficient English to be tellers; or don't have sufficient training to be tellers. I suspect it is a combination of all the above.

This isn't an isolated incident. It happens at coffee shops, in department stores, even on streets where negotiating the sidewalk with Chinese pedestrians is a weird event where they seem to think that ceding the sidewalk space is the responsibility of the other person - something which I no longer do, with interesting effect.

Back to Vera Wang. Above are the dresses from the October 2011 Vogue issue where she designed one of the dresses for Arianna Huffington's daughter, Isabella. (The other is by another "Asian" designer, Prabal Gurung, but more on him in a later blog post, but here is his odd, mediocre - there's that word again - Spring 2011 collection.) Below are close-ups of parts of Wang's dress, with my critique of what's wrong with the dress.


- The fabric: For a "flowing gown" which this dress seems to attempt to be, why use such heavy fabric, which rather than flowing seems to be dragged down by its own weight?

- The collar area: This shapeless, formless cut looks like a cheap, quick cut by a mediocre tailor.

- The gathering: These shapeless gatherings add nothing to the aesthetics of the dress. In fact, they make it look like some home-decor fabric, like a curtain.

-The waist: There is no distinct cut or shape for a waistline, other than a weird gather around the waist. The drop waist with a thick inelegant band makes the dress even more shapeless. Isabella is a thin girl, with very little of a waist. This dress gives her no figure, nor helps accentuate a waistline through cut or tailoring.

- The sleeves: Isabella's thin arms are dwarfed through the gaping holes that pass for sleeves. Longer sleeves, or some busy pattern even on these short sleeves, would have made her arms more attractive.

- The "train": For want of a better word, that's what the fabric dragging at the back seems to resemble. But what the dress looks like is a long gown with a piece missing in the front.

- The color: The red color has a blue tint. Red with a blue tint is cold and dark. Why not go for a more festive brighter red? After all, Isabella is only 21. I think color in design is a very important part, which often makes or breaks the design. Wang was unable to deliver in this category.

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Entries on Vera Wang at Camera Lucida:

- Vera Wang's Aggressive Asian Outreach: Part I, September 21, 2011
- Vera Wang's Aggressive Asian Outreach: Part II, September 21, 2011
- Vera Wang's Aggressive Asian Outreach: Part III, September 22, 2011

- Vera Wang vs. Amsale Aberra, August 9, 2011
- Wang's Wedding Dress Fit for a Vampire's Bride, August 24, 2010
- More Thoughts on Chelsea's Wedding, August 7, 2010
- Vera Wang: Wedding Dress Designer?, July 29, 2010
- Modern Bridal Wear, January 27, 2010
- The Global Runway: Part 3, August 4, 2006

Lesbian Freaks on Prime Time TV

Jane Lynch (right) with her "wife" Embry
and "daughters" Haden (left) and Chase

In my previous post, I wrote on Glee actress Jane Lynch who "married" her female partner.

Here is more sordid information on the lives of these lesbians.

Lynch's "wife" Embry had a lesbian relationship with another woman, Kimberly Ryan. During this period, Embry and Ryan both underwent in vitro fertilization, and had a daughter each: Chase (Ryan's IVF daughter) and Haden (Embry's IVF daughter).

Embry adopted Ryan's IVF daughter Chase.

The "family" split up when Ryan converted to Christianity. Ryan is now married to a man. She decided to stop Embry's visitation rights to her IVF daughter Chase (and Embry's adopted daughter). But Embry won the court battles, and can visit with her adopted daughter Chase.

The story is sordid, ugly and depressing. The details are here.

The offspring of these unnatural unions, and conceptions, look weird. Haden looks like Michael Jackson's IVF kid Blanket - with those bewildered-looking eyes.

Lesbians and Other Sexual Freaks on Prime Time TV:Jane Lynch and Chaz Bono

From Chas to Chaz: Bono's Journey:
Chastity Bono turns to Chaz Bono.
That means she no longer has to be a lesbian
with her girlfriend (pictured above right)
she met before turning trans.

Right: Family photo with Jane on the right
Left: Jane with her "wife"
Jane Lynch, the ebullient lesbian, doesn't need (want?) a sex
change, and wears pants or dresses, depending on
the occasion. She still calls her "partner" her "wife" though,
seeing as they recently got "married"
[Photos from Jane Lynch's new book "Happy Accidents"]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wonder what set off the triggers that eventually changed these young girls? They weren't particularly attractive as young girls. Could it be that they're rebelling against, angry at, the taunts and rejections they got in the school yard? Young friends teasing them that they looked different? That they were too tall, too fat? Bullies who took advantage of their shyness? Mothers who didn't come to the rescue, but told them to "go out and fight back?"

I always wonder what turns people into lesbians or homosexuals. Camille Paglia, the famous anti-lesbian lesbian thinks that it is the relationship with a cold and distant mother which triggers off lesbians, and a close and cloying one which sets off homosexuals.

Here's what Paglia writes in her book "Vamps and Tramps" about lesbians:

A once lesbian-friend, now married, declared to me that lesbians suffer from "buried rage, with a desperate need for consolation. I see a persistent pattern among white middle-class lesbians: they often have a decorous, passive-aggressive mother, who uses her daughter as a proxy to act out her secret ambivalence towards men, in the person of the never directly confronted husband. Caretakers on the surface, lesbians are seething with unacknowledged hostility...

Well, these photos seem to show that. Although the Cher photo somewhat belies that. But Chastity was part of a show business family, and I would think that Cher really had no time for her except when she was on stage and performing with her. But Cher was genuinely shocked, upset and hurt at her daughter's change of, well, person. I think in a normal family, she would have been more the pestering, ever-present mother (would Chas have turned Chaz too, then?). Chaz, as an adult, could have figured that out, and forgiven her mother. But revenge is sweeter than forgiveness, I would think. Revenge to pay back that absent mother, irrelevant of the reasonable reasons. So, Chastity went the self-destructive route. Some revenge. If life was so unbearable, she could have just left. But true to her narcissism, she preferred to stay in the limelight, and shock her mother with her public, exhibitionist act.

Here's Cher's account of her reaction to the sex change:

"I was hysterical one day because I was calling Chaz's answering machine and I realized it was her old voice, and then I said, 'Chaz is there a way I can save it because I will never hear that voice again?' And there wasn't, it was gone.

"That's the most traumatic thing that has happened to me in this whole thing - hearing her voice and knowing I'll never hear it again."

[S]he avoided seeing Chaz - whose father is the singer's late husband Sonny Bono - for a long time after he began treatment because she was so nervous.

..."I was so nervous...I hadn't seen her and I was putting it off...If I don't recognize her, what will happen?"

Cher also admitted she still doesn't feel "comfortable" referring to her offspring as "him" rather than "her".

..."At some point, I'm gonna have to start calling her 'him'. It doesn't seem comfortable to me yet. Actually I just can't remember and I guess I'll start forcing myself but I'm not sure she cares."

The "transgendered" "Chaz" Bono, "daughter" of Cher (who herself has transformed her face and looks very different from her original looks) is a contestant on Dancing with the Stars. I think DWTS is one of the few good shows out there where contestants have to fight for their position as the best Celebrity Ballroom Dancer through about twelve weeks of hard competitions (some actually have to withdraw because of injuries). The professional dancers have dedicated most of their lives to ballroom dancing, and are graceful dancers, humble individuals, and good teachers. They know showmanship isn't all, and talent and hard work are also part of their success.

So, how did "Chaz" Bono, the "transgendered" freak (Bono is a guy on top, but female at the bottom) make it so high up in popular culture to get invited to do a show like DWTS, and to stay on for another week of competition (the contestant with lowest number of audience votes is sent home, and Bono made it through the first week)?

I think that people are just interested in the freak factor, and the spectacle another week with Bono will bring.

Still, I'm not sure if "transgendered" freaks are more acceptable in our current society, as much as they attract attention and curiosity. I think society has always been like this (think of circus freaks) where such creatures are inspected and viewed within confined areas apart from society, but don't participate in normal society. Today's freaks appear to be more accepted (they walk our streets like ordinary members), but they're not quite there yet. Anyone who sees Bono, and knows about its transformations, will not help gawking. And Bono received death threats when its participation in DWTS became known, and the DWTS set has had to hire bodyguards.

Lesbians are another story these days. I suppose it could be that they haven't altered any anatomical parts that society is more lenient towards them. Or because there have been some in the spotlight (Ellen DeGeneres, Rosie O'Donnell) who have been aggressively using their platform to tell their audience that they are just like them (they want love and family, only that they have a slightly different version of what family is).

Actress Jane Lynch, a lesbian who recently "married" her "partner," got the hosting job for this year's Emmys. She made a joke about her "marriage" at the Emmys with co-presenter Elizabeth Moss, another actress:

[Lynch quips]: "A lot has changed since 1955, women can marry other women. Hi Peggy [a character in the 1960s TV show Mad Men]"... Moss replied: "Does that mean that women don’t have to sleep with men anymore to make it to the top?" To which Lynch dryly replied: “They still have to do that."

But that is obviously changing, or has even probably changed, if we look at high-placed public figures like DeGeneres and O'Donnell. And lesbians (and homosexuals) have managed to convince contemporary society that their way of life belongs in the mainstream, marriage and all. If we've come so far with lesbians, I don't see why the transgendered cannot come out of their viewing cages, and live unaffected lives in normal society. It is just a matter of time.