Category Archive: METAPHYSICS
Russian Futurism
(by Vladimir Markov) (1969) Markov quotes Nikolai Lossky: “Ideas are not thoughts, they are a special kind of reality.” Isms we can sneer at, at least as soon as their individual shells are rent and the flesh within wastes. Futurism was an avant-garde conceit borne from impressionism, via the blind alley of ‘Ego-Futurism,’ and turned to something even vaguer by Marinetti, who came like a royal progress to Moscow and made something of a fool of himself. The ‘manifesto’ was nothing of the sort, really – a hatred of all things old, a desire for all things new, it represented stunning narrow-mindedness…
Continue Reading →Gay, Straight, Other…Let’s Have an Adult Conversation on SSM
Photo c/- Montrealais
[The Federal Parliament has seen fit to compromise upon its election policy of a plebiscite on same-sex marriage, so that we are to get a postal survey or some such, in which the citizens can have a say and from which, possibly, legislative reform might ensue. There has been a considerable resistance to the move, on the grounds of cost, the non-binding nature of the poll, its vagueness and uncertainty, and the disharmony wreaked upon the minority by a national debate. Under the Constitution, the Federal Parliament has exclusive power to make laws with respect to Marriage, Divorce and matrimonial…
Continue Reading →Monkeying About
water-colour of Charles Darwin by George Richmond
May 5, 1925: Teacher John Scopes is charged with having taught evolution in a Tennessee school. Originally designed as a means of putting the town of Dayton on the map, the case became a circus when Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan rolled into town as defence and prosecuting counsel. The whole affair became a hoary old film of which The Varnished Culture has previously spoken. Scopes was convicted and fined $100 (which was overturned on appeal because, unusually, the penalty had to be stipulated by the jury rather than the trial judge). But Dayton did great business that summer….
Continue Reading →20 September, 622
(photo by Noumenon)
On this day, the Prophet slipped out of Mecca and decamped to Medina. It was a bad day for a great religion; the day the Sword cut the cords of Compassion and Mercy. One day, Allah shall re-tie those knots, and there shall be The Peace! “Every hardship is followed by ease.”
Continue Reading →Bad Apple
Piet Mondrian's pointillist 'Apple Tree' c. 1908/09
The Apple had a bad rap even before the Book of Genesis. On Mt. Atlas, the golden apples grew, guarded by the daughters of Atlas, the Hesperides, who were pilfering the apples while Dad groaned under the weight of the world. Heracles (Hercules), on his 11th labour, agreed to shoulder the burden while Atlas plucked the apples from the tree. He then conned Atlas into taking up the slack again, and made off with the forbidden fruit. He was a pathological liar, that Heracles! Ironically, Heracles ended up presenting the treasured apples to Athene, who gave them back to the…
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