Saturday, August 19, 2017
Quote of the day from Absalom Absalom by William Faulkner-- marriage + divorce
Mr Coldfield into allowing Ellen to wear powder on her face for the occasion. The powder was to hide the marks of tears. But before the wedding was over the powder was streaked again, caked and channelled. Ellen seems to have entered the church that night out of weeping as though out of rain, gone through the ceremony and then walked back out of the church and into the weeping again, the tears again, the same tears even, the same rain. She got into the carriage and departed in it (the rain) for Sutpen’s Hundred.
“It was the wedding which caused the tears: not marrying Sutpen. Whatever tears there were for that, granted there were tears, came later. It was not intended to be a big wedding. That is, Mr Coldfield seems not to have intended it to be. Of the two men (I dont speak of Ellen, of course: in fact, you will notice that most divorces occur with women who were married by tobacco-chewing j.p.’s in country courthouses or by ministers waked after midnight, with their suspenders showing beneath their coattails and no collar on and a wife or spinster sister in curl papers for witness. So is it too much to believe that these women come to long for divorce from a sense not of incompleteness but of actual frustration and betrayal? that regardless of the breathing evidence of children and all else, they still have in their minds even yet the image of themselves walking to music and turning heads, in all the symbolical trappings and circumstances of ceremonial surrender of that which they no longer possess? and why not, since to them the actual and authentic surrender can only be (and have been) a ceremony like the breaking of a banknote to buy a ticket for the train)—of the two men, it was Sutpen who desired (or hoped: I have this from something your grandfather let drop one day and which he doubtless had from Sutpen himself in the same accidental fashion, since Sutpen never even told Ellen that he wanted it, which—the fact that at the last minute he refused to support her in her desire and insistence upon it—accounts partly for the tears) the big wedding, the full church and all the ritual.
Friday, August 18, 2017
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Charlottesville car terrorist victim, Heather Heyer's mother--" I know this is a flash in the pan"
Heather Heyer's mother speaks at length to @MSNBC
highly recommended I thought TV presenter very gentle sympathetic
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/charlottesville-victim-heather-heyer-s-mother-susan-bro-full-interview-1027074627967
says WH called her -- but she knows "this is a flash in the pan"
"right now everyone and their brother wants to talk to me."
Relates racist incidents recently in her community.
8-17-2017
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Madame Butterfly in Melbourne
https://opera.org.au/whatson/events/madama-butterfly-sydney?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Reef%20New%20-%20Priority%201%20Campaign%20Top%2010%20Countries&utm_term=%2Bmadama%20%2Bbutterfly&utm_content=Madama%20Butterfly%202017#media-id=162220215
Go if you can, at least try and catch it somewhere.
I did some research a few months ago, and Puccini based it on a story, based on 2 interracial couples.
One was a woman married to the rep of the famous trading co, Jardine Matthiessen.
That marriage was a happy one. But Puccini and his lyricist added the sad ending.
The son was ostracized due to his mixed race background and died in the Nagasaki bombing.
I have been thinking abt that for awhile, but have not started work on it yet.
As for the opera, it is perfect in every way, and it is sung over and over and over for a good reason.
If you read the libretto, which is available online, you will see that the story, dialogue, and characterizations are perfect also, especially the maid and the marriage broker, and the general who proposes to Butterfly, and is rejected.
Especially when she says she has "an American marriage" and she can't be divorced so easily.
I thought the sets, the music, the singing, everything was just perfect in the Kennedy Center production that I saw.
I also enjoyed the fiber glass heads by the set designer.
kmkaung
8-16-2017
Hall of Nations Kennedy Center DC.JPG
Kyi May Kaung
Words Sounds and Images
Burmese Rohingya activist Wai Wai Nu
http://www.thedailybeast.com/burmas-rohingya-princess-has-met-obama-why-not-aung-san-suu-kyi
I met her when I was on Facebook, and tried to meet up with her when she was in DC,
but she called me and said she could not make it.
It turned out she had had a panic attack, and it has happened to me also.
She said she "could not breathe."
I asked her to seek medical attention through her hosts or call 911.
kmk
8-16-2017
My favorite street clothes, cosmopolitan blog.
http://www.thesartorialist.com/page/2/
Everyone is very spiffily dressed or undressed.
8-16-2017
Yesterday my blog posts hit all time high of 1661
I don't think any of them were bots, as none from Russia, which happened once about 2 years ago.
These are juts my usual geographic distribution of readers.
8-16-2017
I must hope that lawsuits like one below will bankrupt the alt R, a k a KKK hatemongers white supremacists.
For what I am referring too, watch Rachel Maddow on MSNC talking about Ukiah robbery in N California on Route 101 earlier this week.
According to Rachel's research, and BTWm she has a Ph.D. from Oxford,
the robbery of the Blink truck netted abt 3 m for the robbers, who used the cash to finance hate activities.
They beat up a Native American woman and her child who were just passing by and were ordered to pay millions, which bankrupted them and for a while they had to go underground.
If I remember right, this happened in 1945.
So if something bad happens to you, talk to PRESS, take legal action.
Criminality should not be rewarded.
kmk
8-16-2017
Quote of the day from Daily 202, copied and pasted for info reasons.
Tadrint and Micah Washington have filed a lawsuit against organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally. (Arelis R. Hernandez/The Washington Post)
THE FALLOUT IN CHARLOTTESVILLE:
-- Two women injured during the chaos surrounding the rally in Charlottesville have filed a $3 million lawsuit against individuals they say were the organizers and name more than two-dozen right-wing and neo-Nazi groups, accusing them of inciting violence. From Arelis R. Hernández: “Sisters Tadrint and Micah Washington were headed home in their car Aug. 12 when they turned down an open Charlottesville side street where counterprotesters were marching. Within minutes, a Dodge Challenger slammed into the crowd and rammed into the rear of their car, causing a chain-reaction crash that killed one and injured 19 others. ... The Washington sisters were not participating in the protests and had been visiting a friend when they got caught in a maze of detours. Lawyers for the Washingtons — Tadrint, 27, who recently finished EMT training, and Micah, 20, who works in the hospitality industry — say at the point their car was hit, they had nowhere to move as bodies flipped over them and onto their vehicle’s windshield. Their car was splattered with blood, and emergency personnel tried to revive Heyer, a 32-year-old counterprotester from Charlottesville, a few inches away.”
-- The helicopter involved in the crash that killed two Virginia State Police officers this weekend as they surveilled the white supremacist rally had crashed once before in 2010, after it lost power during a training flight. It is unclear whether the incidents are related, but officials said the earlier crash will be considered as part of their broader investigation. (Lori Aratani)
-- The University of Virginia’s president defended the response to last weekend’s white nationalist marchers. Susan Svrluga reports: “U-Va. President Teresa Sullivan wrote to the campus community that law enforcement learned Friday afternoon that a protest was planned at the Rotunda, and officers were staged along the route that the white nationalist group said it would walk. But the group took another route and turned onto the Lawn, Sullivan wrote. She wrote that law enforcement stepped in within minutes of the violence and ordered people to disperse.”
-- A student newspaper editor who had originally argued that the city of Charlottesville should allow the alt-right to march admits in a new column, “I was wrong.” “It was naïve of me to not take their threats seriously,” incoming sophomore Brendan Novak added in an interview with The Post. “You could see it coming…it wasn’t hard to predict.” (Samantha Schmidt)
-- Vanity Fair’s Sarah Ellison writes on how Charlottesville became “ground zero for white supremacy”: “Charlottesville may always look pretty on the outside, but as someone who attended U.Va., and recently reported on the school, it’s actually a sadly predictable location for the biggest and bloodiest white supremacist rally the nation has seen in decades. Charlottesville is perhaps one of the most liberal towns in the South. It is also one of the whitest.”
-- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called on the Trump administration to form a task force on the threat posed by white supremacist groups and urged Jeff Sessions to go to Charlottesville and “personally handle domestic terrorism investigations.” (Charleston Post and Courier)
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
The Buddha did not preach hate, he respected all religions and he lived in a multicultural and diverse society
with many people following different religions in ancient India.
Let us pray and send Metta or Loving Kindness to all the victims of the car attack by a white supremacist in Charlettsville, VA on Saturday.
Trump said in his latest press conference that "the mother's statement" was very good, but he did not mention the victim Heather Heyer's name, nor has he visited with any of the families, and now he adds insult to injury by saying "both sides are to blame."
ALL the late night TV comedians spoke better than he did.
Obama's tweet earned 1m retweets.
And this baffoon comes along.
He has no shame.
8-15-2017
T. goes rogue at press confce in T. Tower lobby, Kelly is ashamed, looks down.
DT is lying, minister on the scene says there were no counter protestors with baseball bats. Police stood down.
http://www.msnbc.com/mtp-daily/watch/trump-again-blames-both-sides-for-charlottesville-violence-1025310787999
Monday, August 14, 2017
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Quote of the day--from Howard Fast's Spartacus, from Gutenberg Project site--
He whispers the empty philosophy of his kind and his profession, "Dum
vivimus, vivamus."
But it is empty and without solace, and his bones and muscles ache as he
stands up to begin his day and force his body and mind to the task of killing
Spartacus — whom he loves and values above all other white men in the place.
Yet isn't it said, "Gladiator — make no friends of gladiators."
IV
They went to the baths first, the four of them walking together in silence. It was
no use to talk, because there was nothing for them to talk about now, and
since they would be together from now until they entered the arena, talking
would only worsen the situation.
Already, the baths were steaming hot, and they plunged into the murky
water quickly, as if everything had to be gotten through without thought or
consideration. The bath house was quite dark, forty feet long and twenty feet
deep, and lit, once the doors were closed, only by a small mica skylight. Under
this pale light, the water of the bath was dull gray, overlaid by the hot mist
rising from it, steaming from the red-hot stones which had been dropped into
it, filling the whole bath house with the heavy texture of vapor-saturated air. It
penetrated every pore of Spartacus 's body, relaxed his tense muscles, and gave
him a strange, divorced feeling of ease and comfort. The hot water was a never-
ending wonder to him, and never did the dry death of Nubia wash entirely from
him; and never could he enter the bath house without reflecting on the care
given to the bodies of those who were bred for death and trained to produce
only death. When he had produced the things of life, wheat and barley and
gold, his body was a dirty, useless thing, a thing of shame and filth, to be
beaten and kicked and whipped and starved — but now that he had become a
creature of death, his body was as precious as the yellow metal he had mined
in Africa.
And strangely enough, it was only now that hatred had come to flower in
him. There was no room for hatred before; hatred is a luxury that needs food
and strength and even time for a certain kind of reflection. He had those things
now, and he had Lentulus Batiatus as the living object of his hatred. Batiatus
was Rome and Rome was Batiatus. He hated Rome and he hated Batiatus; and
he hated all things Roman. He had been born and bred to accept the tilling of
the fields, the herding of cattle and the mining of metal; but only in Rome had
he come to see the breeding and training of men so that they could cut each
other to pieces and bleed on the sand to the laughter and excitement of well
bred men and women.
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