All Hijabed and Ready to Judo

This could be straight out of a Saturday Night Live skit.

From Drudge:

Saudi Arabian judo athlete will compete in hijab...

The Telegraph title is a little more complete:

London 2012 Olympics: Saudi Arabian judo athlete will compete in hijab.

Here are excerpts:

A female Saudi Arabian athlete will compete in a headscarf during her judo event, the International Olympic Committee confirmed today...

Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani, 16, will compete in the +78kg judo category...

Mark Adams, communications director of the International Olympic Committee, said..."[T]he judo federation in Asia does allow for some headscarves. It is a version that is safety compliant but also allows for cultural sensitivity...and the judo federation has reached a compromise ..."

New Book Cover and Title

Here is my new book cover, with a revised title: Mere Culture, after C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.

Here is some background on Lewis' title:

- Communicating "Mere Christianity"
From the C. S. Lewis Institute:

For I am not writing to expound something I could call ‘my religion,’ but to expound ‘mere’ Christianity, which is what it is and what it was long before I was born and whether I like it or not…So far as I can judge from reviews and from the numerous letters written to me, the book, however faulty in other respects, did at least succeed in presenting an agreed, or common, or central, or ‘mere’ Christianity

- The Whos and Whats of "Mere Christianity"
By William Griffin:

The words “Mere Christianity” weren’t original to Lewis. In the seventeenth century Richard Baxter, an Anglican divine with Puritan predilections, used the words “Mere Christianity” in his book The Saints’ Everlasting Rest. The work was something like the sixteenth-century Spaniard Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises in that it prepared the soul, through a series of measured steps, for its heavenly home. The first ten chapters described Heaven, who’ll be there and who won’t, and why one must pursue Heaven strenuously while on earth. The last six chapters prescribed the Anglican method, with Puritan overlay, of pursuing the heavenly, and indeed heavily contemplative, life.

- From the preface of C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity:

I hope no reader will suppose that “mere” Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions—as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else.

It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals.

The photograph on the book cover is one I took of the old head office of the Canadian Bank of Commerce (now known as the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce - CIBC) on King Street, in Toronto's financial district.

Here is a blog I posted on the photo(s) and the building last summer, which I titled Gilded Ceiling. There is a slide show of more photos I took of the interior at my photography blog.

A Hierarchy of Bouquets

Left: Marc Chagall, Bouquet sur Fond Orange, ca. 1975
Middle: Raoul Dufy, Le Bouquet d'Arums, 193)
Right: Jean-Pierre Cassigneul, Bouquet de Fleurs, 1968

Larger images:
- Marc Chagall's Bouquet sur Fond Orange
- Raoul Dufy's Le Bouquet d'Arums
- Jean-Pierre Cassigneul's Bouquet de Fleurs

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I've found similarities between Chagall, Dufy and Cassigneul (see my posts on their paintings here, here and here). But, like everything in art, there is a hierarchy. It goes:

First: Chagall
Second: Dufy
Last: Cassigneul

1. Chagall's Bouquet sur Fond Orange is an explosion of colors. But his painting is much more organized and structured than it seems. For example, he has divided his color blocks into three: floral sections of violet/blue and red/pink, and green/yellow leaves. The orange, which is reflected in the brownish pot, is the glow of light which illuminates the forms. Being Chagall, he cannot help but add in his village/town life, a glance at civilization. This painting is about an arranged, designed vase of flowers, not flower growing in the wild. Homes line the painting's background, and a fruit tree, another form of civilization, stands next to the table with the flowers. His bouquet dwarfs other items on the table, and rightly so since it is the most important item in the painting. It dwarfs a bowl of fruit and what look like a bottle of wine and a glass filled with wine, and a salt or pepper shaker. A miniature women dressed in red stands by the table. Clearly, the subject of the painting is the bouquet, and not her.

2. Next in hierarchy are Dufy's whimsical flowers in Le Bouquet d'Arums. Dark red and black ink trace the forms of calla lilies, leaves and small floral shapes, which are covered with strokes of colors. These colors are suggested rather than filling the forms with exactitude. The red flower could be a carnation: the lilac and purple of small flowers, the yellow and white of the lilies, and dark green for leaves. Rather than result with an unfinished effect, this evokes whimsy and delicacy, where shapes float in colors, and colors never completely define, or constrain shapes.

3. Finally Cassigneul's Bouquet de Fleurs. I tried looking for flowers without the perennial silent woman that fills his works, but could find only a few. I couldn't find any of the joyful, colorful renditions of bouquets that Chagall and Dufy paint. Instead, this was the best I could find. As always with Cassigneul, there is a lack of form. The tulips and roses are a blurred and shapeless, and the leaves blend into the background wall. Dufy's quasi-unfinished forms give us whimsy; Cassigneul's just look unfinished. This is because Cassigneul doesn't draw, but rather paints spots of color to form his shapes. His pot is the most elaborate of the three paintings, but it distracts from the flowers. Chagall left his pot without patterns. Dufy's callas could be in a garden, or in a vase that is below the paintings frame. Cassingeul pot is covered with an unidentifiable pattern his pot, which add a further layer of confusion. As always with Cassigneul, I feel that he is a clever painter, but not a very talented one.

And when we put him alongside the other two, we can see his limitations even more.

Art these days lacks a critical approach, partly because of the attitude that "everyone is an artist, don't you know," and a disrespect for art history and all our predecessors. We seem intent on working with a clean memory slate.

And modern art is all about deconstructing, then reconstructing. This is great if you were born about seventy-five years ago, where there were great works to deconstruct (and reconstruct, in your fashion). What we have now is an already diluted, deconstructed art, several generations down the masterpiece line. What can we deconstruct? The deconstructed pieces? This, of course, resulted with the famous empty canvasses that hang on museum walls, to the amusement of the unsuspecting public. Now, we just works that are dredged from an empty imagination, since there is nothing left that is worthy enough to guide us.

The Male Gaze and Western Art

Mark Richardson, over at Oz Conservative (who is part of Jim Kalb's bloggers' group, of which I am also a member) writes about the Male Gaze, and one feminist woman's negative reaction to it. He quotes "An older Canadian woman":

Men don’t look at me the way they used to. In general, they don’t look at me at all. This is what happens when a woman turns 40 (50, 60 etc.). It’s a fact of life.

In theory, this is supposed to be an exhilarating passage in the life of a woman...

...In reality, it sucks. I’d give a lot for men to look at me like that again.

...on the whole, being gazed on was not at all demeaning. It was empowering. I was the one in charge, because the choice of how to handle any given male’s response was entirely mine. No matter how sexist or unfair it seems, no one in the world has more erotic power than a 20-year-old girl.

Richardson ends his column with:

(Final thought: it's a pity to have to discuss relationships in terms of power - that's me capitulating a bit to liberal thought patterns. It ought to be the case that young men and women seek love and find the highest expression of this love in a faithful relationship.)

I understand his position. Yet, without the male gaze, and the female erotic/feminine power, there wouldn't be Western art.

The feminist woman whom Richardson quotes, whose movement coined the term, is somewhat subdued in her later years, and even acknowledges that she misses this male gaze in her old age. As Richardson says, she spent her younger years rejecting her femininity, at a time when she did have all the power. And this power would have had staying power, when she had only her wrinkled face to offer.

At its best, the "male gaze" does not seek power, nor subjugate woman, nor reduce her just to her biology and sexuality. It is a demonstration of supreme admiration and love for woman. It manifests itself in some of the best art in Western culture.

Margaret Wente is the "older Canadian woman" that Richardson quotes. She is a relatively well-know columnist for Canada's Globe and Mail (here is her full article, which Richardson links to). Her biography at Wikipedia says that she is sixty-two years old, and her spouse is Ian McLeod. As women like Wente get older, they start to realize what they missed, and missed out on. Here is a post I did on the awful The View panelist Joy Behar (I call her heinous in my post), who finally married her "partner" in her sixties after decades of "living together."

Here is what this site says about Wente's "partnership":

Last year [1998] Wente finally married her long-time partner, Ian McLeod, executive producer of CTV's W5. For years the two kept their separate houses, living together in each house for a year at a time.

"...separate houses, living together in each house for a year at a time." This means that Wente was basically on some kind of adolescent sleep-over, and could pack her overnight bag and leave whenever she felt like it. I suppose a sixty-year-old wimp of a "husband" would let her do whatever she wanted, including playing at marriage. I doubt Wente's life changed that much when she signed the contract with McLeod. For one, she didn't change her name.

What kind of man would allow such a way of life? Once upon a time, women would have been worried that if a man agreed to such an arrangement, he must have something else going on. But does the post-modern, feminist-pecked McLeod resemble a real man?

The Gazes of McLeod and Wente

O Brave New World

Pablo Picasso
Women Running on the Beach, 1922

I've read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World many times. Only recently, I found out that he derived his title from Shakespeare's The Tempest.

From Wikipedia:

Brave New World's ironic title derives from Miranda's speech in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I:

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.
—William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I

Pax Canadian Style

White Canadians wish peace for their country, I'm sure.
Yet their Pax seems only achieved through numbing their
brains and minds, rather than decisively taking steps
to take back their country.

The image above is of the Canadian Female Ice Hockey
players "celebrating" their gold medal at the
2010 Winter Olympics

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I haven't read Pax Canadiana's Canadian Immigration Reform Blog in a while. I went there to see what he'd written about the Scarborough shootings. He's abstained from writing directly about it, but instead, his July 8, 2012 headline that caught my attention:

"Can You Please Leave Canada? Pretty, Pretty, Please With Sugar On Top?"

Pax links to this Toronto Star article (Canada offers failed refugee claimants $2,000 to go home) and writes:

What a joke! So the government wants to bribe failed refugee claimants to voluntarily return home with a one-way plane ticket and up to $2,000 to help them re-establish themselves in their homelands. Do you think anyone will seriously take them up on that? For that to work they're going to have to offer more money than that.

He continues:

I wouldn't say this money being offered is an incentive for failed refugee claimants to willingly excuse themselves from Canada but more so an enticement for future would-be asylum seekers to try their luck with the Canadian asylum system as it makes it less risky to do so. If you're successful in your bid then you get Canadian citizenship. If you fail you get a plane ticket home and a possible $2,000 to help cover costs. How can you go wrong?

This is pretty much what I said in my post $10,000 To Go Back Home.

I try to address the incentive issue, and the "refugee" excuse. I write:

People fleeing war torn countries can be provided with special countries of refuge near, even adjacent to, their countries of origin.

Now the Canadian refugee policy is that any refugee who buys a plane ticket (what real refugee can afford a plane ticket, anyway?) and lands at a Canadian airport is automatically a "refugee claimant." "Claiming" refugee status can take years, during which time the claimant can disappear, change his location and name, marry a citizen, or just live illegally. But should he stay legal, and obtain his refugee status, he can then start the process of applying for landed immigrant (green card status) and eventually citizenship. As a refugee, it is almost guaranteed that he will get residency. Citizenship is acquired merely by living a certain number of years in Canada. That is why I wrote in my earlier post that refugee claimants who arrive at Canadian airports asking for asylum should be returned to a country near their homeland, with hopes of eventually repatriating them back to their countries.

But tackling the refugee problem is not enough. Immigration, mostly from Third World, non-Western countries with no cultural resemblance to Canada, should also be curtailed. I wrote:

[T]he government should follow a strict policy of reducing immigration into the country.

This is a more complicated issue, since two of the most important criteria for for entrance into Canada are economic, which takes into account financial and other assets the applicant brings, and educational, which favors immigrants with post-secondary, and preferably post-graduate, education. So far, Chinese and Hong Kong immigrants win hands down. But, their acceptance into Canada doesn't guarantee benefits for Canada.

In fact, Chinese/Asian immigrants' educational credentials are not up to par with the Canadian system. And their financial assets are often tied up with their countries of origin, in which they continue to invest even after immigrating to Canada.

They have higher rates of acceptance into universities and post-graduate programs because of their higher secondary and college scores (often from their countries of origin, which are nevertheless hard to verify since different grading criteria are used in Canadian high schools and universities), thus displacing white students. But once in these post-secondary institutions, and especially with post-graduate work, they produce inferior inventive and creative research. Many types of industries depend on graduate level research to improve and upgrade their products, thus inferior works affects them and eventually Canada, reducing the country's competitive place in the world.

"My eyes were made to erase what is ugly"

Left: Dufy, Jetee d'Honfleur, 1930
Right: Cassigneul, La Plage Aux Hortensias, 1985

[More images after the end of the post]

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Raoul Dufy:

"Mes yeux sont faits pour effacer ce qui est laid"
("My eyes were made to erase what is ugly")

A couple of days ago, I posted some images by Jean Pierre Cassigneul, a painter whose print I have carried around for many years. Yet, I don't know (or didn't bother to know) much about it, or him.

It is Dufy who has always attracted me. From a long time back, I started to study his vivid colors and exotic (French) locales. He painted a variety of subjects, but almost always the same ones. He painted mostly the French coastline, often in southern France in Nice, but sometimes in the north in Deauville and Honfleur. He scatters his scenes with people. His themes include: at the racehorses; sailboats; views of the sea through open widows; bouquets of flowers; musical instruments; and some famous European (mostly French) towns and buildings. He was also a diverse artist and designer, making textile prints, tapestries, murals, furniture, woodcuts, lithography, ceramics and theater sets.

Dufy is certainly the more important painter. Cassigneul never got the similar popularity. I think Cassigneul paints well. His subjects are pleasing and his paintings pretty. But there is a lack of completeness in his paintings, like a slightly blurred photograph, or a painting without the moldings of light and dark (shadow and light) to give them a three dimensional quality.

For all of Dufy's Fauvist "seemingly wild brush work and strident colors...with [his] subject matter [having] a high degree of simplification and abstraction [source]" his paintings are defined and sure, even if they often look like watercolor sketches. Sail boats have clear lines; horses are molded and given rounded bodies through dark and light paint; the sea is differentiated with white paint for crests and dark blue for troughs; the outer and inner colors of petals are given different shades; and he painted portraits of actual, recognizable people, rather than anonymous subjects like Cassigneul.

Cassigneul paintings are pleasantand flattering to the women, who are his central (overwhelming) theme. But they are always anonymous women, and he tells us nothing about their personal backgrounds: no names, titles, positions, or even relations. Many have dark, vacant eyes.

Dufy's subjects look anonymous, but they are seldom alone, and are almost always within a social context of the horse races, at the regattas, or on piers and promenades. We recognize the individuals and groups of individuals through their social and cultural milieu. Where his subjects are alone, they have distinct features. They are almost exclusively women, either painted as portraits or nudes. And in many of his portraits, he gives us the names of these female subjects.

Left: Dufy, Portrait of Regina Homburger, 1952
Right: Cassigneul, Profile, 1982

Left: Dufy, Reggatta, date not available
Right: Cassigneul, Dans le Train Bleu, Côte d'Azur, 1970

Left: Dufy, Fenêtre ouverte sur la mer, ca. 1923
Right: Cassigneul, Femme au Balcon, Vue de l'Avenue Foch, 1990

Left: Dufy, The Racetrack, 1928
Right: Cassigneul, Longchamp, ca. 1967

Left: Dufy, Le champ de courses de Deauville, ca. 1941
Right: Cassigneul, Dimanche au bois, 2008

$10,000 To Go Back Home

The famous Canadian mosaic, falling apart at its seams

A few days ago, I posted a blog rather dramatically titled Thieves and Hypocrites on nonwhite immigrants that have settled in Canada with no intention of becoming Canadians. I still stand by that title, although I might also add liars to the mix, despite a hypocrite being a kind of liar.

I keep using those words a lot in conversations. Recently I said the following, after shootings at a block party in the northern part of Toronto. The guests and shooters were all immigrants, or immigrants turned "citizens," from nonwhite countries.

I said something like:

"Harper's government should start the process of sending back nonwhite immigrants back to their countries of origin. All (this really is without exception) the nonwhite immigrants I encounter, either superficially or through longer interactions, when discussing their place and presence in Canada, ALWAYS talk about their dissatisfaction with Canada, where they expected to advance further in their lives, in terms of wealth or career or feelings of "acceptance." Almost all their conversations revolve around this country of origin, which some have never even seen. Many second generation immigrants (those born in Canada) spend a considerable amount of their time thinking about and discussing a country they have never seen, and re-inventing their cultural background on that mythical country. They say they feel alienated from the main stream Canadian culture. They spend all their time with like-minded immigrants, and not just nonwhites, but those from their specific cultural and national background.

Let Harper give each "family" a one-off $10,000 check for its members to relinquish their Canadian citizenship or landed immigrant status (the same as a green card in the U.S.). And a one way plane ticket back to their countries of origin for each family member. This sounds unfeasible, and many would probably not accept it. All kinds of organizations will scream "racism" etc. Politicians will use it as bait for the next elections. But some immigrants will go back. They can then use this money, large by Third World standards, to improve their own countries, building small businesses, schools, hospitals or clinics, pharmacies, hotels, factories, and so on, from all they have learned through their years in Canadian schools, universities, and their various employments. Even the governments they return to will benefit, since not only are they getting aid (this could be considered a form of international aid) but they'd get the best manpower possible: people who would financially invest in the country, and also who have strong cultural, social, psychological and emotional attachments to the country.

These immigrant-returnees can then start pulling back all the unhappy immigrant youth, some who terrorize Canadian cities with guns and violence. These immigrant-returnees can start the proud work of rebuilding their countries, which have reached terrible states partly because there is NO-ONE to build and sustain them! Younger generations can then spend their time, energy, education and smarts doing useful, even honorable, things, instead of shooting each other (and others) up. This is the gift that immigrant-returnees can give to their alienated children.

Why $10,000? This is about what the average amount a person gets from Canadian welfare checks over the span of a year (it is probably more with many other amenities that are not directly attached to the actual check). Rather than hand out this free $10,000, year after year, to immigrant (which includes naturalized citizens - the criteria for whom can be worked out later) welfare recipients, the Canadian government can simply give these $10,000 to a certain number of "eligible" immigrants every year. The checks would be handed out in one installment to each eligible immigrant family. This would be the last check that such immigrants would receive from the Canadian government.

This would continue until immigrant numbers have been considerably reduced. It could be a five to ten year plan.

At the same time, the government should follow a strict policy of reducing immigration into the country. This also includes reducing the number of "refugees" who enter into Canada. People fleeing war torn countries can be provided with special countries of refuge near, even adjacent to, their countries of origin. Since wars and droughts are always temporary, as are even fascist governments, their refuge will be considered temporary. If that's not the case, then they can slowly be assimilated into the country of refuge, which should be a relatively easy task since these refuge countries are similar to their own. International bodies such as the UN, and countries like the U.S. and Canada can also help establish these protocols."

I often met with a shocked silence. But no-one has come out and condemned my suggestions.

The Mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, said something very similar. Except his was based on crime prevention. After the shooting at the "block party" he said the shooters, and their affiliates, should all be deported. Uproar ensued. "These are Canadians!" "They were born in Canada!" "What will they do back in a country they know nothing about?"

This is what Ford said:

"I’m going to sit down with the prime minister and find out how our immigration laws work...Obviously I have an idea, but whatever I can do to get ’em out of the city, I’m going to. Regardless of if they have family or friends, I don’t want these people, if they’re convicted of a gun crime, to have anything to do with the city of Toronto."

I agreed with him.

A Glint of Evil

I made this collage of portraits of Sally Ride, the lesbian astronaut who recently died. More on Ride at the View From the Right, via The Thinking Housewife.

Photos:

1. Even as a high school eighteen-year-old (top black and white photo) Ride has a distinct lack of femininity. The later years of high school is when girls have achieved some understanding of their femininity, and often are not shy or reticent about showing it (some showing too much). But, Ride in her late teens, opts for a little girl's pony tails with ribbons for her hair. Her wide smile and assertive jut of the chin give her a masculine demeanor. Teen-age girls, however much they play jock-like sports, still find a way to look feminine.

2. Monitoring control panels in the space shuttle Challenger. Even as a young woman, there is the set jaws and unsmiling eyes of someone who is not willing to be feminine.

3. Standing with a masculine swagger in her astronaut's suit.

4. She is there in the middle with another fellow-lesbian, tennis player Billie Jean King. They looked up adoringly at the statuesque Gloria Steinem, the anti-female feminist, who made their lesbian "lifestyle" much easier.

5. With the endorser of same-sex marriage. Notice her masculine chin, and, well, masculine smile. Her hands also look unusually large, and it must be quite a handshake she's giving Obama, who looks a little overwhelmed. Here is a larger photo showing her expression better.

The men in the background look on with pathetic expressions, thoroughly approving of the occasion, but also as though they've been whipped into that approval. The older man is Craig Barrett. From Wikipedia:

Craig R. Barrett (born August 29, 1939) is an American business executive who served as the chairman of the board of the Intel Corporation until May 2009. He became CEO of Intel in 1998, a position he held for seven years. After retiring from Intel, Barrett joined the faculty at Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona.

Below are photos of Craig Barrett, looking much more serious giving a speech at the World Economic Forum in 2009 (left), and in an enlarged version of the above photo, at Sally Ride's launch of the science program "Educate to Innovate" at the White House, also in 2009. (I have to add here that Barrett is wearing the same tie to both occasions - i.e. he is are not at the same event.)


6. A much later official portrait (from what I can find out, it is her official portrait at the California Hall of Fame, where she was inducted in 2006). It is an odd, androgynous face, with unsmiling eyes.

Finally, Ride's "partner" Tam O'Shaughnessy. The photo below is the only one available on the web. O'Shaughnessy looks even more insidious than Ride. With her squinted eyes and elongated face, she looks like a ferret. At least her and Ride, California natives, never "married."


Here's a profile on O'Shaughnessy:

Like Ride, O'Shaughnessy was interested in science from a very young age, and "one of her favorite childhood memories is of watching tadpoles in a creek gradually sprout legs, go green and turn into frogs," according to her bio on the Sally Ride Science website.

After moving on from tadpoles to high school, O'Shaughnessy attended Georgia State University, where she earned bachelor's and master's degrees in biology. She went on to teach college biology, then went on to earn a doctorate degree in school psychology from the University of California, Riverside, after her interest in the psychology of learning was piqued by her experience as a professor.

O'Shaugnessy has gone on to do many things in her career, writing nine childrens' science books, as well as helping her partner "found Sally Ride Science because of her long-standing commitment to science education and her recognition of the importance of supporting girls' interests in science," according to the foundation's website.

Quite a career trajectory, from a masters degree and college teaching career in biology to a PhD in psychology to writing children's science books, such are the elite women of academia.

Time For Hydrangeas

Hydrangeas are blooming now, from yellow/cream puffs to variations of mauve and violet.

I have had the above postcard for years, and managed to keep it pretty much in tact. It has no title except at the back there is "Reproduction d'une oeuvre de Jean-Pierre Cassigneul," and a copyright with 1980 - it is not clear if that is the date of the painting or of the postcard print.

Cassigneul is a painter I really don't know anything about. Here is his website, with a biography and a large sample of his works. He draws and paints sinewy, pensive women in big hats, often by the seaside which looks like the northern French coastline, surrounded by large bouquets of flowers, often hydrangeas. He had his first exhibition in 1952, and is still producing work.

A recent Christi's auction brought $266,500 for Cassigneul's painting Le Massif d'Hortensias. That's a pretty respectable price.


I cannot find the title or the date of the piece above, but it has the grayish cast of the northern France coast. The muted colors of the hydrangeas brighten the painting. There are ships on the water, so this cannot be a view of some large river. Dieppe and Deauville are large towns on the Atlantic coast, although Deauville is (and was) a more popular vacation resort. Many of Cassigneul's paintings have Deauville as the seaside resort, so even those not bearing that city's name most likely depict it.

L'Hortensia Bleu, 2007

L'Hortensia Bleu is a dark, broody painting, with blue wall paneling and a violet/blue hydrangea. The empty writing pad suggests a letter that cannot be written, where words are not forthcoming. The wicker chair belongs to the southern, airier climate, but even that doesn't give respite to the dark interior.


The above piece is titled Le Massif d'Hortensias and again I cannot find its date. It is one of the few pieces which evoke the heat of a summer in southern France. But the surrounding trees suggest a northern region.

Femme au Balcon, Vue de l'Avenue Foch, 1990

Finally, above are hydrangeas even in the city, with the gray background reminiscent of the norther sea. This time, I was able to find a title and a date for the painting. This painting appears to have been appraised at between $72,921 and $97,228.

Thieves and Hypocrites

My original title to this blog post was "Canada the Convenient for the Hypocrite Immigrant." I edited the title to "Canada the Convenient," cutting out "hypocrite immigrant."

Since I was trying to make my words have the same short effect as "Toronto the Good," I stuck with "Canada the Convenient."

But, in reality, all contemporary immigrants are hypocrites. They cross thousands of miles to park their bodies and extended families in Canada, yet they have nothing good to say about the country. They are essentially thieves. They will take, steal, but leave nothing for Canada other than their failed cultures and histories.

So, I am even harsher than my original blog: Contemporary immigrants are thieves and hypocrites.

Anti-Semitism Is Evil Intentions Towards Jews

A group of Jews, including a small boy, is escorted from
the Warsaw Ghetto by German soldiers in this April 19, 1943 photo.
The picture formed part of a report from SS Gen. Stroop
to his Commanding Officer, and was introduced as evidence
to the War Crimes trials in Nuremberg in 1945. (AP Photo)
[Source: The Atlantic, Oct 16, 2011]

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GalliaWatch writes:

Here's a must-read article posted in English at Front Page Magazine, and in French at Riposte Laïque. The author, Giulio Meotti describes the end of European Jewry, as Islam slowly but surely takes over. Whatever happens to the Jews, you can be sure, will happen to all of us.

I agree with the overall warning in her article, but I think we should look at anti-Semitism and its evil intentions towards Jews as something that happens to Jews. Of course, all evil eventually destroys what is before it. But, the intention of anti-Semitism is the destruction of Jews. I think we should be able to understand that without transferring it to us.

I do agree, though, that Islam has a more thorough system of elimination, and a wider span. Its strongest hatred is directed at Jews, but all other infidels follow. In terms of combating Islam, it is important to understand this method of elimination, because, yes, as Giulio Meotti writes, next are all the other infidels.

Canada the Convenient

The blog title is a take on "Toronto the Good."

In the area of one block, this is what I saw yesterday:

1). An "extended" Indian family

Three generations of Grewals live in their five-bedroom pebble-dashed house...

There's mum and dad, Sarbjit and Arvinder...; eldest son Sunny together with his fiance Shay; pregnant daughter Kaki with husband Jeet; and youngest son Tindy.

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There were several adults, including what looked like mother, father, an elderly man who could be a grandfather, an elderly woman who looked too old to be a grandmother and could be a great grandmother, four young children, one young enough to be wheeled around in a stroller, and four other adults (sisters, brothers, cousins?). I counted twelve people in this group. The elderly members were wearing a traditional dress of the Indian subcontinent (it looked Punjabi or Muslim to me). The younger men were wearing jeans. The children had on cute outfits.

The language they were speaking was not English, and they certainly didn't communicating in English to the children.

It is becoming clearer and clearer that non-white immigrants have no intention of changing once they come to Canada. Bringing in elderly relatives from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh ensures that the youngest generation, most likely born in Canada, will continue their traditions. Of course, regular activities like going to school, and at work (unless it is one of those extended family Indian shops) will be in English and within a general Canadian tradition. But everything else, important things like family holidays, meals, weddings, etc., will always occur within an Indian context.

2). A white male and a Chinese/Asian female

I notice more and more a triumphant look in the Asian
(Chinese, Korean) females, and an insipid, overwhelmed
look in the white males of this couple type.

But, I wonder how long this will last? As I wrote in an
earlier blog, the women in high-powered Asian/White couples look
like they're in trouble. There is only so much "dragon"
men will take from women, after all.


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Chinese/white couplings look more assimilated, but an interesting development is that their half Asian offspring prefer their Asian background to their white one. When I was an art and design student, ALL the Asians students (Korean, Chinese and a few mixed) almost always associated with their Chinese/Asian background. Their works referenced their Asian background, some even traveling back to their ancestral homes to re-enforce this heritage. They did not have the slightest interest in Western art and design, and even mocked me when I said that those were my important influences.

A recent development is that this Asian/half Asian younger generation is coupling with each other, leaving whites out of the equation altogether. Another way that whites are being cast aside is that more and more Chinese/Korean Asians are coupling off with other non-whites: with Hispanics, blacks and Arabs.

3). Three Muslim women

Of Burquas and Shopping

These young women looked like they were in their early twenties, all burquad, but carrying fancy fashion shopping bags from the mall nearby. And I don't think they were buying halal groceries. They may look like they had an enjoyable day of shopping, but I don't think they will want to change their burqa fashion anytime soon.

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Second and third generation Muslims appear to be "more Muslim" than their parents. But, I think this is inaccurate. When their parents immigrated to Canada, they still had to adhere superficially to the cultures and mores of the society. They did not abandon their cultural and religious backgrounds. Now, with exponentially increased numbers, and the policy of multiculturalism soundly in place, they can allow their children to show their true colors.

4). Conclusion

People are mostly happy with what they have. Coming to Canada doesn't mean they will change their ways and cultures, it just means they will bring these cultures with them. Canada is simply a real estate option, to set up house in good apartments, with good schools nearby (which are more than willing to accommodate to their requirements) and food and other amenities which cater to their needs. Then they can go about the important child rearing activities such as providing religious and cultural education to their non-white (non-Canadian) families.

Of course, what these single-minded immigrants don't see is that all these amenities were put in place by their white predecessors. Non-white immigrants are fleeing their failing countries to start afresh in Canada and the U.S. Once they have displaced whites, with high birth rates, in schools, with their religious institutions, with offspring who do not, and cannot, associate with white culture, what they will have is a North American version of the failed societies they left behind. They cannot fathom how their parasitic behavior affects their host countries, which, like true parasites, they have to destroy in order to live the only kind of life they know how to, and want to, live.

Balenciaga! The Old Master is Still Ahead

1950s Balenciaga coat inspired by
Goya's Cardinal Luis
Maria de Borbón y Vallabriga

Left: Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke
Right: Francisco de Goya's Cardinal Luis Maria de Borbón y Vallabriga, 1800

Left: Balenciaga "Infanta" evening dress, 1939, inspired by
Diego Velázquez' 1653 painting of the Infanta Margarita
Right: Balenciaga's illustration of the dress

Left: Diego Velázquez, The Infanta Margarita, 1653
whose dress Balenciaga used as an inspiration
Right: Picasso's Version
Shameless art destroyer and fellow Spaniard (who
went to art school) did his own version of the Infanta

Charlotte Gainsbourg modeling modern Balenciaga,
whose designer, Nicolas Ghesquiere, calls her his muse.
Ghesquiere is another one of those contemporary
designers who cannot see beauty if he was given the moon.
Ugliness is his curse.

Balenciaga's Spain: Bullfighters, Boleros and Flamenco Dancers

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While looking for a Gardenia perfume, a salesman at the Bay's general perfume counter suggested I try Balenciaga's eponymous scent. It is really very good, with a delicate, yet enduring floral/powdery scent. He gave me two samples. The usual salesman I go to had been promoted to the Givenchy counter. I usually show him my latest finds from various magazines. He is often impressed that I know more than him about perfume, at least for that day.

A pleasant saleswoman at Eaton's also gave me a sample bottle. And at Sephora's, my favorite perfume store, the salesgirl "prepared" a sample tube for me. I told her that I was really glad that perfume makers are creating stronger scents with distinct floral overtones, unlike the insipid fruity concoctions that are so popular these days. I said that this means that women want to be like women, rather than like adolescent girls. I said that I wished that would transfer into fashion, which is now a disaster with all the shorts and flip-flops that women are wearing.

"Think of the beautiful, well-constructed, clothes of the fifties. How daring were they, with those amazing color combination! Now all we have is grey, beige or black, with slivers of color mostly in the ugly prints on t-shirts," I said.

"I wouldn't want to go back to the fifties. They were really restrictive on women," replied this nice woman.

Feminism rears its ugly head in unexpected places. I thought this woman, who works in a perfume store, would have some appreciation for beauty and beautiful clothes. Yet all she sees is that feminine clothes are "restrictive." In her eyes, women should dress like androgynous blobs since feminine clothing makes them suffer.

Actually, she has it all wrong. The cellulite-baring skirts and shorts that are a couple of sizes too small which women wear these days surely leave them unable to walk or sit comfortably. And on the other extreme, I'm noticing a reaction to all this lost femininity, where women are wearing such high heels that I'm afraid to look at them in case of the inevitable fall. Fifties heels were much lower, and much more feminine.

I think this nice lady felt bad disagreeing with me (she was a little emphatic), and gave me ah handful of samples, including Tom Ford's and Marc Jacobs' Gardenia scents.

Of course, true to our postmodern world, Balenciaga's perfume is being advertized by the androgynous (and ugly) French celebrity Charlotte Gainsbourg. She is the daughter of the French Jewish singer Serge Gainsbourg (the Leonard Cohen of France), and the awful English actress Jane Birkin, whose breathy songs in heavily accented French somehow made it into the French song charts.

Still, the perfume is lovely. The perfume designer is Olivier Polge.

I have to add, though, that Balenciaga is of the "gay fashion designers" group. Valentino, who does equally lovely feminine clothes, was another homosexual prominent in women's fashion design. Both, at least to give them some credit, were of the old school, and didn't flaunt their homosexuality, unlike a stream of contemporary "gay" designers that thrust their egos at us. And not surprisingly, Valentino and Balenciaga spent their energy designing beautiful clothes, while the Gallianos and McQueens (what an apt name) of our time give us their distorted egos instead. But, as many high level designers show us, gayness is not a prerequisite for a male to have have a career in fashion design.

Here are the main notes for Balenciaga:
bergamot, spices, violet,
carnation, oakmoss,
cedar, vetiver, patchouli

And as this perfume blogger writes: "it's quietly elegant...[and] modern and grown-up."

That best describes the classic Balenciaga fashion design as well.

Several books have come out on Balenciaga since 2011. And there was the 2010 exhibition Balenciaga: Spanish Master at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute in New York which

examines the influence of Spanish culture on the late, great couturier. Conceived by designer Oscar de la Renta and curated by Vogue’s European Editor at Large and vintage couture authority, Hamish Bowles, the spectacular show examines how Cristóbal Balenciaga was influenced by Spanish royal court––and regional––dress, religious ceremony, dance, art, and bullfighting.

Below are some of Balenciaga's (the original) designs, mostly from the 1950s.

All Scrubbed Up

TD Centre Cows
[Photo by KPA]

These calm and lovely cows sit and mull over their surroundings.
Yesterday, they had more to look at. The Royal Bank building
in the background (whose windows are filled with pieces of
gold leaves) was glowing in the afternoon sun.

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These are my favorite animal sculptures in Toronto. They sit in front of the Toronto Dominion Centre, calmly (as cows are wont to do) gazing at passersby. Some stop and sit to eat their lunch, drink a coffee, or dialogue with a colleague. But most just walk hurriedly by them.

I brought a small bottle of orange juice as a respite from the unbreakable heat we have here (although not as bad as what our neighbors to the south are experiencing), and sat on one of the few stone benches scattered around the grounds.

There is construction going on in the area (and has been for about a year now), and a construction worker walked by me.

"Hello there," I called out a greeting.

"Hi," replied the busy man, walking on.

"Have you been working around here for long?" I persisted. "Don't you think these cows have been given a scrubbing recently?"

He stopped, and laughed. And looked back at the cows.

"Yes they do look cleaner. They just got moved back from another location."

"Yes, I know. Maybe they wanted them to look as good as new, now that they're back in their old place. Thanks, bye."

He went off chuckling.

The Barbarization of Contemporary Young, White Men

High power NBC reporter Chelsea Clinton
has a glimmer of fear in her eyes, although
she's wearing the same dramatic
Oscar de la Renta dress as comedian Tina Fey
which should boost her confidence.
Fey on the other hand, manages to look
confident and feminine, and much
prettier than Chelsea.

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I don't think that feminism and the modern world's supposed equalization of the sexes makes women more powerful and men meeker. I think it is actually the opposite.

I wrote about Chelsea Clinton's creepy husband in my previous post, where his meek-looking expression is actually a camouflage for some kind of inner rage that seeps out of him. Chelsea, although a power woman and a reporter at NBC, has the expression of a frighted woman. It is not clear if her husband actually has a job, although Wikipedia calls him an "investment banker," but without any references. Jobless men with successful wives is nothing new in this opportunistic world of such men mooching off their wives' salaries. Why should Mr. Marc Clinton be any different?

Below is an image I posted on the receding power of women, power stilettos and high-power jobs notwithstanding. Whether in business suits or the slutty "I'll wear what I want" garb of prostitutes, modern women forfeit their femininity and end up with narcissistic bullies for boyfriends and husbands. Men are still stronger, and I don't think they're about to give up that advantage any time soon. Rather than fighting back, women are returning to some ultra-feminine, ultra-docile state, where even nice girls will bare their bodies to get the approval of their modern macho men. Feminists had it so wrong.


I write about the man/guy above:

The guy looks arrogantly confident. In this world of gender equality, there is still a male swagger, and a female demureness (the woman is acting very demure). His uniform is skinny jeans and a long, disheveled shirt, untucked, and over some t-shirt. But he looks a little too aggressive, and possessive. Who would want that kind of a guy around? (That's the funny thing about this "girl power" era of ours, young women actually seem to find this obnoxious-looking male attractive.

Left: Male model from Buffalo Jeans Ad
Right: Marc Mezvinsky

It's uncanny how similar Mezvinsky looks to the male model from the Buffalo Jeans ad, whom I describe here as arrogantly aggressive, and also like the narcissistically aggressive man with his just-right disheveled look that I write about here.

Despite his scruffy look, Mezvinsky's pants are clean and trendy cargo pants, and his sweat shirt is a spotless white. And no sneakers for him. Unlike poor Chelsea who has opted for flip flops, his shoes are slightly worn but stylish loafers.

Left: Image from my post : "The Arrogant Aggression of Scruffy Jeans"
Right: Marc Mezvinsky: The dishevelled narcissist

Notice how Chelsea looks dishevelled and unattractive, as though she has given up on looking good. And how she trails forlornly behind a focused and almost growling Mezvinsky who is pushing his way forward. This is a far cry from her much more confident presence when she was a busy single girl.

"The Curse of the Vera Wang Wedding Dress" And the Rebellious Mr. Wang

Marc Mezvinsky's expression vacillates between the insipid,
characterless look that is so common in young men these days,
but seems to change into the hard glint of a narcissist without warning.

The first half of my blog title is not mine, I got it from the Daily Mail, whose full title is:

Curse of the Vera Wang wedding gown? How eight celebrities who married wearing her designs have ended up divorced

Celebrity marriages and divorces are nothing to set standards by, but eight divorced celebrities attached to her wedding dresses? That's not a good record. Chelsea Clinton, who also wore a Wang dress for her wedding, may be next in line (although I wouldn't wish the trauma of divorce on anyone). I wrote in 2010 about Chelsea, her "mounds of chiffon" wedding dress, and her husband's dubious background:

[T]he groom is the son of...convicted politician [Edward M. Mezvinsky]. That is hardly the groom's fault (or Chelsea's). Still, the reason she is in the limelight is because of her infamous parents. And, who can ignore her husband's notorious family background? Perhaps they were destined to meet and wed.

Destined to meet and wed in a Vera Wang dress? Despite the couple's happy appearance, there is a frighted look in Chelseas's eyes as she stand next to the husband, who at times looks like the insipid male that is so common these days, but then changes into a narcissistic and aggressive demeanor and attitude I see in many young men these days.

And to give Wang's insipid husband some credit, the New York Post writes about their marital discord:

"They used to fight all the time in public, even at dinner. They would berate each other in front of other people, even though it made others uncomfortable." A source added that Becker, a former CEO at tech firm NaviSite, even bitterly joked that he was "Mr. Vera Wang," making light of his place in the marriage. Another source told us, "They didn’t get along. But all her staff have been ordered not to talk. There is concern that it doesn’t look good for a wedding-dress designer to get a divorce."

It seems that there is only so much hen-pecking that husbands will take.

By her own design: Vera Wang in her own
creation at her wedding to Arthur Becker in 1989

Wang designed her own wedding dress because:

[S]he wasn’t satisfied with the wedding dresses that were available. "I’m very modern and sophisticated," she told USA Today in 2009. "I didn’t want to look like the top of a wedding cake." So she hired a seamstress and created her own minimalist dress. [Source: Elle Magazine, August 18, 2011]

Leave the fluffy wedding cake look to other, gullible brides, seems to be her motto.

A Petty Vandal's Petty Conquista of "Art"

Left: Woman in a Red Chair. Picasso, 1929
Menil Collection. Houston Texas
Right: Defaced painting

Here is the story of an "artist" defacing the work of another "artist."

Houston cops are hunting for a dapper art vandal who was caught on video spray-painting a priceless Pablo Picasso painting at a museum last week.

Cell phone video shot by a visitor at the Menil Collection Wednesday showed a suave hoodlum in a dark suit jacket and sunglasses spray-painting a stencil over the Spanish master's Woman in a Red Armchair...The brazen graffiti writer sprayed a picture of a bullfighter slaying a bull and the word "Conquista" on the painting.

The witness who shot the video told KPRC television that he confronted the well-dressed vandal afterward.

The vandal said he was an up-and-coming artist and desecrated the artwork in order to honor Picasso, the witness, who didn't want to be identified, told the station.

In this era when "art" is the most scared thing around, it is truly a sacrilege to deface a "work of art," even an ugly and mediocre painting!

But Picasso had it coming. I visited a recent exhibition of his work at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and concluded that he was one of the biggest artist frauds around, and not only that, he was also one of the biggest defacers of art.

It is ironic that another useless, talentless artist should mimic him, to the extent of defacing his (Picasso's) images. Picasso's students cannot be accused of hypocrisy.

But, of course, this vandal only did superficial harm, since all he did to the painting was spray gold (!) paint on it, scribble the word "conquista" and a stick-bull. And isn't spray paint, the modus operandi of graffiti "artists," itself considered art by our connoisseurs these days? Picasso's heirs are pretty lame.

And to make it even worse, this petty vandal was caught on a cell phone! Some museum patron video taped the whole incident on his cell phone and "confronted the...vandal afterward." So much for a Kodak Moment gone awry. I actually don't know who is worse, the vandal, or the cell phone hero, who just wanted another sensation to post on his Youtube/twitter/blog.

Gretchen Sammons, a museum spokesman, assures us that:

'The artwork is currently with the museum's onsite conservation lab. The prognosis is good. But we have no idea when it will be back on display. It's an active investigation with the Houston police.'

The prognosis is good!

I'm working on a blog post on ancient Greek and Roman culture, which I viewed at the Royal Ontario Museum recently (actually, I've been there several times this past month). As I went through the sculptures, I was astounded at the beauty of the work, and specifically the carvings of delicate, gauze-like drapes on these sculptures.

As I looked at these works, I remembered seeing similar translucent drapes on one of Picasso's paintings at the AGO. It is on Les Demoiselles Avignon, a painting that distorted nude female figures and covered them with a gauze-like material. Someone as clever as Picasso (and as talent-bereft) could have only got the idea from these classic Greek and Roman sculptures. And of course, rather than marvel at the beauty of these sculptures and elevate them, the petty, envious Picasso can only desecrate and destroy them. And his are not goddesses, as the Greeks and Romans portray, but prostitutes from a whorehouse in Spain.

At one time, destroying or effacing the works of art of a civilization would be enough to start wars. And no, Woman in a Red Chair is not art, which the reason why the only irate person was a cell phone "artist" who just wanted the images for his personal gallery on twitter.

Will Vera Wang Wear Black for Her Divorce?

Wang and Becker, on May 15 2011
at the Museum of Modern Art's 39th
Annual Party, with Wang in her hippy
costume while her husband is in
full black tie attire

Here's is a high profile divorce of an Asian woman and a white man. My intuition has been that Asian women/white men marriages are more fragile than they seem. Since this type of union is relatively new (as far as the human species is concerned), I think we're beginning to see the beginnings of the fall outs.

I was never impressed with the Wang/Becker marriage. I wrote about the fashion designer and her husband last January intuiting some kind of marital discord:

[Wang] doesn't talk about her husband in the article [January 10, 2012 Harper's Bazaar]. Does he travel from one side of the country to the other on Wang's schedule?

Wang had recently bought a home in California, and relocated her business from New York, where her husband still lived at the time, to Los Angeles.

And about Becker, I wrote:

He looks like another one of those insipid, disconcerted spouses.

Later on, I found that he actually quit his job in 2010 to work with Wang's fashion conglomerate. I wrote:

A 2010 headline at the NaviSite website informs us that "Arthur P. Becker Steps Down [as CEO] and is Succeeded by R. Brooks Borcherding," which implies that Becker has retired. This leaves him ample time to follow his wife around to satisfy her yins and yangs.

People Magazine confirms Becker's beck and call to his wife with:

Though Becker reportedly had his own business ventures, he was also involved in Wang’s company, which has expanded into makeup, fragrances, mass market, juniors, home goods and a lower-cost bridal line in recent years. However, a friend of the designer tells WWD that the couple “will not let this impact the running of the company. They have worked too hard to build it up.”

A cheeky blogger writes:

Some suggest the divorce from Arthur Becker had some clues in her Fall 2012 Bridal Collection (view gowns 7-13 here), known for Wang's penchant for all things dark.

This may be a joke, but I have written about Wang's funereal wedding gowns, where I comment:

Wang's flashing bride in black is a negative statement on weddings, and life, in general. In our culture, white is for purity, whereas black is often for death, the mysterious (and evil?) underworld, darkness and obfuscation. And if the bride wears black, it is as though the she went to her own funeral. Or is a widow executing a vengeful act...And what real-life bride wants to be dressed in black, even with the modern woman's dearth of cultural knowledge and sensitivity?

And the bride wore black:
Wang's Wang's black wedding dress
from her Fall 2010 collection

Appearances matter. A black wedding dress, however much a fashion statement, is a black wedding dress. Of course, besides the macabre color Wang chose for the most important day in the union of a man and a woman, she also produced mediocre gowns which I call mounds of chiffon, which were exaggerated piles of gauze to detract from the mediocrity of her designs.

Becker plans to continue working with the Wang enterprise (at the other end of the country from Wang's California base). There is no doubt that Wang is a savvy and aggressive entrepreneur. But eventually, young women will catch on, and demand more from the dress they will wear at an important milestone in their life. What will Wang concoct next? And what will Becker do?


Above is a 1995 photograph of Wang and Becker. I describe the photo thus:

Fashion designer Vera Wang coiled, Eve-like, around her husband.

Even insipid white men eventually untangle themselves from life-threatening situation.

Summer Reading

Cover illustrations by James and Ruth McCrea

Summer is a time when I do most of my fiction reading now. Below is an unpublished blog I did on Ernest Hemingway a couple of years ago. I don't know why I didn't post it, except that I was hoping to do more of a literary critique of his books, and especially of The Sun Also Rises, which I recently started to re-read, marking the pages that affected me. The Sun Also Rises was one of my favorite books when I was in university - in graduate school to be exact - when I was was studying endless scientific research papers to fine tune my thesis. I would read just a few pages of the lovely script before embarking on journal articles. If I read too much, that would be the end of my "serious" studies, and I would spend the rest of the time on the book.

Here's what I wrote in my unpublished blog:

Summer Reading

Hemingway was a favorite of mine, back when I used to carry fiction books with me wherever I went. I don't do that as much now, but I do keep up with my fiction reading. I’m often re-reading older classics. Jane Austen's Emma and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina are perennial favorites. Contemporary fiction writers leave me unsatisfied. I can see their talent (of the talented ones, that is), but their stories are imbued with their personalities, as though they cannot shake off their egos as they write. Their stories also have macabre, strange, or nihilistic endings, and I come away bewildered or depressed.

Cover illustrations by James and Ruth McCrea

I've read four of Hemingway’s books: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea and For Whom the Bell Tolls. And his collection of short stories: The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories and Men Without Women. I'm not a literary critic, so I don't really know how to start analyzing Hemingway's writing - it's already been done ad infinitum anyway by experts and laymen alike. But, his stories are accounts of unrequited love in many ways. The characters, which he brings to life so clearly, are very modern people who enter all kinds of debacles, yet they come out surprisingly pure and unblemished despite their weaknesses and failures.

Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner and Eroll Flynn
in a 1957 film adaptation of The Sun Also Rises
Directed by Henry King

King also directed Ava Gardner in 1952 in
The Snows of Kilimanjaro, another Hemingway adaptation

Cover illustrations by James and Ruth McCrea

What surprised me reading Hemingway this time around are the long, unending sentences that Hemingway uses at times, producing an almost trance-like meditative quality. This goes against the hard simplicity of his prose that many analysts have described about his writing. His description of places, whether it is a café in Paris or the Spanish (and Italian) countryside resonates in my mind – always has – and urges me to visit these vivid locales.

[End of original (unpublished) blog entry.]

Here's an excerpt from The Sun Also Rises as Jake Barnes, who is the narrator and protagonist, describes their entry into Spain:

Then we crossed a wide plain, and there was a big river off on the right shining in the sun from between the line of trees, and away off you could see the plateau of Pamplona rising out of the plain, and the walls of the city, and the great brown cathedral, and the broken skyline of the other churches. In the back of the plateau were the mountains, and every way you looked there were other mountains, and ahead the road stretched out white across the plain going toward Pamplona.

[Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1954. pp. 93-93]

But looking at the stamp in my (worn) The Sun Also Rises, I find this:

Paper Back Junction
343 East Main Street
Lock Haven, PA 17745

So I was a fan of Hemingway even as an undergraduate in the small Pennsylvania college where I was a busy biology student!

The first pages of the book has these two quotes:

"You are all a lost generation"
- Gertrude Stein in conversation

- "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever...The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose...The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits...All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again."
- Ecclesiastes

The nihilist, modernist, Stein is juxtaposed with a biblical account of the fullness, continuation and eternity of God's creations and of life. This odd, disconcerting juxtaposition is partly what makes The Sun Also Rises a masterpiece: people never quite give up on life, and on love, despite the devastations many have been through.

Below is a photo of Hemingway in Pamplona in 1925, which I blogged about here. Hemingway first edition of The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.

Left to right Ernest Hemingway with Lady Duff Twysden,
Hadley Hemingway, and three unidentified
people at a cafe in Pamplona, Spain, July 1925.

[Photograph in the Ernest Hemingway Photograph
Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
and Museum, Boston.]