Lenten Roses

Lenten Roses

Easter Saturday is equally difficult as Good Friday.

It is a day of emptiness. Our God has left us.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Innisfil Beach Road, Simcoe County, Ontario
[Photo By: KPA]

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
By William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

Mousy Models Fulfilling An Ideological Mandate

Holt Renfrew's Official Video for Spring 2018 (now on display on the store's mega-screen at the
Square One Shopping Centre in Mississauga)

"See Carolyn Murphy and Liya Kebede don the season’s most forward-thinking flourishes for the Holt Renfrew Spring 2018 Magazine."

Spring Awakening/L’éveil du printemps: Video
Soundtrack: Tribal -
"Custom track made specifically for Holts.
The title of the song is Yup, Okay"

Spring Awakening/L’éveil du printemps: Editorial

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Below is an unpublished article from August 2011.

[2018 Update: Kebede is now gracing the big screen at Holt Renfrew's Mississauga store.]

Of course now it is no longer enough to have female models prancing around. We need some kind of interaction between them after all! And almost always that has some lesbian connotations. These women are not just besties!

Liya Kebede, the American model of Ethiopian origin, is on the May 2009 cover of Vogue magazine, and that's supposed to be a good thing. After Michelle Obama in March and Beyonce in April, Vogue is apparently on a roll adding her to the roster of "black" faces.
I don't know how Kebede got into the modeling business. By Ethiopian standards, she is not even that good looking. She is too dark, and her features are too mousy. She looks more Somali than Ethiopian. In a normal setting in her homeland, she would be called “cute” (especially if she also had personality), but not a beauty.

But, in America, what they seem to want in their "ethnic" models is that they either go all the way to the extreme end of the spectrum, like the Sudanese model Alek Wek, or have just enough Caucasian features (small lips, straight nose, high cheekbones without being too strong) and dark skin to figure as an acceptable "black" model. All this without looking too Negroid. This is actually the look of the super model, and mother of them all, the Somali Iman. It is not surprising that Halle Berry, a mousy-featured favorite film star, is so popular. Another mousy but popular model is the Indian Padma Lakshmi. Liya, Halle, Iman and Padma could actually be sisters.

It is frustrating to look at these women as models of beauty, when all they're really doing is fulfilling some ideological need of putting nonwhite models, whose looks are not too threatening, on main stream fashion magazines.

Truth in Images

From an unpublished post in January 2012:

The indomitable Kristor, frequent correspondent at the View From the Right, and now at Laura Wood's The Thinking Housewife, makes the no-nonsense response to her post Would Protectionism Have Saved Kodak?:

Film is like buggy whips. Let’s just move on, shall we?

To this comment by Roger G.:

Donald Trump said on the Sean Hannity Show yesterday that the once mighty Kodak has gone bankrupt because they didn’t get the U.S. government to protect them from Fuji. Trump argued that Fuji destroyed Kodak by selling below manufacturing costs.

I studied photography and film for four years (about 1/3 of those years were part-time, while I worked in a completely unrelated job to fund for my school).

The program was wonderfully technical. I avoided the Leftist/Marxist/Third World/Anti-Art/Anti-Beauty/Anti-west bias of many of the "art" teachers (well it was more like a bulldozer-level bias) by disappearing into the photography dark rooms, and the film editing suites, where no-one bothered me, and I could simply work on those machines (which surprisingly, few students used until the marathon rush of due assignments). This "experimentation" was vital for my education, since most of the teachers wanted us to produce some self-expression drivel, screw technique and art!

Part of the wonder for me in the dark room and while editing was the tactile aspect of working with the celluloid (film or photography). Another was seeing the chemicals magically produce an image from nothing (a blank, white piece of paper). And yet another was the challenge of fitting a puzzle, trying to put a coherent set of images together in the editing room.

Of course, some of these pleasures are possible in digital media since the digital images are is still a puzzle to fit together, but here, we are several steps away from the original images. In film, we see them viscerally on the film strip. We can touch the strip, turn it upside down, pass it through the editing board, cut it here or there, and attache various sections together to make a coherent piece. This visceral experience was especially clear around my work area, where film strips were flying everywhere, pieces were misplaced, then found, cutting boards were sometime faulty, sometimes ruining a special frame, for which I would have to improvise another. And it took time to physically maneuver all those strips around.

In the photography dark room, it was liquid (and the smell of the chemicals) that were the messy components.

Near the end of my studies, I actually developed my own films, after having learned to do the same in photography. One more step closer to the "images."

Film editing used to remind me of sewing, or embroidery, which is probably why I went into the archaic field of textile design.

So, this is what Kodak is forfeiting (well, its been going on for a while now). I don't think it is just cheap Fuji films which destroyed photography, but the attitude that the intricate, time-consuming, artistic endeavor of making films can be replaced by fast, impersonal digital technology.

I am not completely against digital technology. I think the internet, blogs, online sources, have provided incredible services. Yet, at the same time, this digital world needs to come second to the real world. What good is a "digital" relationship unless we've given up on the real one?

Fitting Puzzles
The mage in the background is a print of this

Spring Willows

Spring Willows
Central Park, New York
Late March 2016
[Photo By KPAl]

Tough Beauty in NYC

"Upper West Side" NYC Nail Polish

This is a post I wrote in 2011:

Tough Beauty in NYC

There is a make-up brand called New York Color (abbreviated simply as NYC which looks like it stand for New York City). Their In a New York Color Minute nail polish - meant to dry in a minute - are the most fun (if that is a word to use for make-up) since they're all named after neighborhoods in Manhattan, which is of course synonymous with NYC.

Imagine wearing the “East Village” turquoise blue, or the “Park Avenue” gray, and living the sophisticated life of a Park Avenue socialite or an East Village artist vicariously through the nail polish.

Toronto Color (abbreviated as TC) just doesn't cut it. Not least because TC doesn't mean anything. During tourist season, T.O. - as in Toronto, Ontario - crops up more as a gimmick than a custom. And even if there were a huge campaign to recognize TO (and a catchy TOC for a make-up line?), what Toronto locations would have the same effect as Prospect Street or simply Uptown?

These are the NYC colors and names that caught my attention:

- Mulberry Street - beige
- Central Park - pale orange/pink
- Wall Street - pale translucent pink
- Prospect Park - glittery pink
- Spring Street - orange
- Times Square - red
- Park Avenue - gray
- Fashion Avenue - fuchsia
- Lincoln Square - lavender
- Uptown - dusty pink

The only problem I have is with the “Wall Street” very pale pink. I would have thought that female Wall Street workers would be more bold.

The NYC make-up line is very cheap. The product labels say: "Designed in New York. Made in the U.S.A. Dist. Coty US LLC: New York, NY 10016." I would think that "Made in the USA" has a lot to do with the low prices.

So much for cheap Chinese products. I would support Donald Trump's presidency purely for his stand against them, and his promise to reduce the Chinese hegemony on our daily products while building up Made in the USA.

Here is Trump talking about China and cheap Chinese products on CNN:

They're making stuff that you see being sold all the time on Fifth Avenue, copying various, you know, whether it's Chanel or whatever it may be, the brands, and just selling it ad - ad nauseum. I mean this is a country that is ripping off the United States like nobody other than OPEC has ever done before.

These are not our friends. These are our enemies. These are not people that understand niceness. And the only thing you can do, Wolf [Blizter], to get their attention is to say either we're not going to trade with you any further or, in the alternative, we're going to tax your products as they come into the United States...

We would - I would lower the taxes for people in this country and corporations in this country and let China and some of the other countries that are ripping us off and making hundreds of billions of dollars a year, let them pay...

They're going to make General Motors build the cars in China. They're not going to let China - they're not going to let General Motors take their cars from this country and sell them in China. They want General Motors to give up all of its intellectual rights and at the same time have Chinese workers build the cars, something which we are not doing, to that extent. If you look at what's happening with China and what they're selling to this country - or take South Korea, with the television sets and everything else, they're making it over there. China wants General Motors to build the cars in China.

At the end, Wolf Blitzer asks Trump if he's going to run for the US presidency. Trump answers that he's "giving it serious thought." Since then, Trump has said that he will officially announce his bid for the presidency on the finale of his show "Celebrity Apprentice," a show which I'm sure taught him some hard lessons about race reality in America, and in the West in general. Trump may seem to have brushed off all those ugly "celebrity" incidents, but as a hardened businessman, I don't for a (New York) minute think he will take any of them lightly.

Palm Sunday

Palmesel: German for Palm Donkey
Depicting Christ's entry into Jerusalem

Date: 15th century
Geography: Made in Franconia, Germany
Culture: German
Medium: Limewood with paint
Dimensions: Overall (w/ base): 61 1/2 x 23 3/4 x 54 1/2 in., 182lb. (156.2 x 60.3 x 138.4 cm, 82554.7g)
Classification: Sculpture-Wood
Credit Line: The Cloisters Collection, 1955

[Photo By: KPA
The Cloisters, New York
March 2016]

Matthew 21: 1-17

1 And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples,
2 Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me.
3 And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them.
4 All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying,
5 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
6 And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them,
7 And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.
8 And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way.
9 And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.
10 And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?
11 And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.
12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
13 And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them.
15 And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of David; they were sore displeased,
16 And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?
17 And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there.

"Be Bold and Shine With Melted Metals"

Below are the promotional posters (giant ones) posted right outside the Holt Renfrew store at the main entrance of the Square One Shopping Centre in Mississauga.

From a distance they look benign enough. In fact, since the photographs are relatively dark, it is hard to distinguish what the images are. But as you walk closer, what you see are these detached faces with unfocused expressions, either looking "internally" or out onto some distant horizon.

Since the glass that covers these posters reflects light and the surrounding objects, I got some interesting juxtapositions. For example: the top photo elongates the face and upward focus through the reflection of the highrise building. The middle photo which looks like the face is marked with tribal stripes (part of the actual photo) has the Canadian flags fluttering beneath the giant face. And the third appears to be looking sleepily (and creepily) into the superimposed buildings.

Each is advertising an eyeshadow color by Tom Ford for a new line called "Extreme" with the tag: "Be Bold and Shine With Melted Metals."

Top: Silver
Middle: Sapphire Blue
Bottom: Gold

Extreme for what? Towards what?

This is the now frequent, ambiguously worded language that is used to present nefarious elements into ordinary, everyday life. We have it in films like A Wrinkle in Time (which passes itself off as a children's fantasy tale), television series such as Lucifer, and dark and macabre streetwear highlighted with tattoos and metallic eyeshadow from cheap knock-offs of Tom Ford's metalica makeup.

And Ford is not to be outdone in the film department either, where he has directed two "luciferan" films: Nocturnal Animals and A Single Man.

And where else but in film does he have carte blanche to project transitions of man to beast to Lucifer into a Hadean world and onto the giant silver screens, using his transferable skills as fashion's extreme creative director?








Promotional Posters Outside Holt Renfrew, at Square One Mississauga
For: Tom Ford's Spring/Summer 2018 collection "Extreme"

[Photos By: KPA]

And this s not Ford's foray into the netherworld, as I wrote here.

"A Wrinkle in Time" and Universal Salvation

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

I wrote about the movie A Wrinkle in Time here and here, but prior to going through the copious notes I took while rewatching the movie (using my hand-held "book-reading" miniature lamp) for an upcoming "movie critique" post, I bought the book on which the film is based. That too deserves a review, although a parallel critique (with the movie) might be a better approach.

Madeleine L'Engle the author of the book is described thus:

L'Engle was an Episcopalian and believed in universal salvation, writing that "All will be redeemed in God's fullness of time, all, not just the small portion of the population who have been given the grace to know and accept Christ. All the strayed and stolen sheep. All the little lost ones." As a result of her promotion of Christian universalism, many Christian bookstores refused to carry her books, which were also frequently banned from Christian schools and libraries. At the same time, some of her most secular critics attacked her work for being too religious.

Her views on divine punishment were similar to those of George MacDonald, who also had a large influence on her fictional work. She said "I cannot believe that God wants punishment to go on interminably any more than does a loving parent. The entire purpose of loving punishment is to teach, and it lasts only as long as is needed for the lesson. And the lesson is always love."

In 1982, L'Engle reflected on how suffering had taught her. She told how suffering a "lonely solitude" as a child taught her about the "world of the imagination" that enabled her to write for children. Later she suffered a "decade of failure" after her first books were published. It was a "bitter" experience, yet she wrote that she had "learned a lot of valuable lessons" that enabled her to persevere as a writer.

I thought the book would have the same allegorical character of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia books (also later made into films). But no. It's closer to the Harry Potter series.

I should have known better.

I asked my local bookstore cashier whether she had read the book. "Yes when I was a girl. I don't remember much about it except that I found it scary."

Me: "Well the film isn't a lightweight fairy tale either. I thought it was scary for an adult!"

I continued:

"At the very end, two little girls with their parents walked toward the exit. The parents were still focused on the screen. I guess to read the huge scroll of credentials. But the little girls - sisters, one was maybe three the other five - just stood there. Not talking, not moving. One looked back and saw me in the very back row. Who sits in the front row in an IMAX movie theatre! I was the only one up there by then. I could see a desperate look in her eyes. As though she wanted comforting. Then her sister followed her movement and also looked back and she had the exact same expression. Finally the parents moved on to the exit and left."

I bought the book anyway.

Oprah decided to join this project in the guise of a children's movie. She has allowed these evil forces to be unleashed. And to lay claim to the innocents.

A Wrinkle in Time's Real "Journey": That of Replacing God

High Priestess Oprah in A Wrinkle in Time

Here is a re-tweet from James Perloff (March 19 tweet):

Christian Movie Crushes Expectations, Beats Oprah

Here are excerpts from the linked article:

“I Can Only Imagine” tells the tale of Bart Millard, the lead singer of Christian group MercyMe. It details Millard’s journey of faith that led him to write the title song, which is the best-selling Christian sing of all time.

[...]

In the movie, Millard’s father is portrayed by Dennis Quaid, who brilliantly performs this tough-skinned man’s conversion to Christ. Quaid, who is a Christian, said making the film continued his journey in faith. “What moved me about finishing it really was my character of Arthur and how he found grace,” the actor said. “That’s the beautiful thing about the good news that Jesus was talking about.”

This Christian film produced by an independent film company even outperformed Oprah Winfrey’s movie “A Wrinkle In Time.” Hollywood would be wise to listen up to the demands and interests of people of faith.

I said in my first post on A Wrinkle in Time here:

The movie is a really a story made for adults who can come with their children. In effect, through simplistic child-like language, and a fairy tale ambiance, Oprah has lured the adult population to watch her path. And she is willing to sacrifice the innocence and psychopsychic safety of the young children to do so, whom she is using as a shield to cover up her intent.

Oprah's A Wrinkle in Time is really a post FOR believers. Oprah, through her years interacting wth the public, has realized that the vacuum that atheism (or rejection of Jesus Christ) has produced is manifested through a spiritual dearth.

A Wrinkle in Time is the beginning of her "journey" to bring her spiritual message to the people, to occupy that empty space. Her movie may be getting low ratings but it's now "out there." The word is out. And Oprah is nothing but persistent and ambitions. This movie is just the very first steps to a very large goal.

Spring

First Day of Spring
[Photo By: KPA]

Spring with a Harp

Spring With A Harp
at Failte
[Photo By: KPA]

About

I just updated my "about" section. Well it is just a re-post of an outline of the speech I gave at the Power of Beauty Conference in 2014. All the information (past and present) still stands. The "future" is working its way through!

I'm on Saturday October 25 at the J.C. Williams Center at 10:40am.
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This is one of the first photographs of me after my family and I left Ethiopia.


Champs de Mars, Paris. Six months after we arrived in France.

This picture was taken about a year before the terrible, and still damaging, “Ethiopian Revolution” when Emperor Haile Selassie was unceremoniously removed from his throne, and soon after, a vicious communist regime ran the country for almost two decades.

I am ten in this photograph. My brothers and I were in English-language French schools, since we knew no French having received our primary education in English.

We lived close to the Bastille, in the city-center. Ironically, this is the center where the French Revolution started. But, we were oblivious to these political turmoils. We had turmoils of our own: How to make sense of this new and bewildering country.

We often went to Champs de Mars, the park where the Eiffel Tower is located. We went there to walk in the garden, to ride the various carts and ponies, to eat some ice cream. Pistachio was my favorite.

From this photo, it is clear that I was still in some kind of shock over my new environment. I wonder what it was that had caught my attention. A little girl, who could be a friend? People quarreling in that strange guttural language which I would soon learn to speak? A flower or plant I had never seen before? I don’t remember.

But this expression, and this curiosity, coupled with a deep desire to understand and make sense of my surroundings, has been my way of life ever since.

And Paris became my standard: For language, for food, for art, and for cities.

As I got used to the city, I became a devout museum-goer. Friends and families coming to visit us, would be told “Kidist can take you to the Louvre.”

I got to know Paris so well, and especially the older city-center, that I could get around through its small side-streets and alleyways. I would use the large boulevards for quick maneuvers to specific shops and locations and not for adventurous discoveries.

The juxtaposition of the small and intimate with the large that is so much part of Paris, became my standard for gauging a city. Wherever I went, I would look for the intimate and the grand. “This is how a city should be,” I thought.

It was in Paris that I got to love art, and Western art. Non-Western art was few and far between, and only occasionally would a visiting troupe of dancers or a theater ensemble come from an Asian or an African country. I don’t remember seeing any exhibition of African art. My informal education took took on Western orientation. And in my formal education, I went to school in British boarding schools, in the beautiful county of Kent.

By age eleven, I had acquired a Kodak Instamatic camera. Rather than take endless shots of family, pets (of which we had none anyway in our cramped Paris apartment, although I had two! dogs over my short life in Addis Abeba), or friends, I mostly used my films to take pictures of Paris: The Louvre, The Tuileries Gardens, the Seine, and here the Madeleine.


View from Eglise de la Madeleine [Photo By:KPA]

Here, even then, in my juvenile amateurship, I seemed to know something about perspective. The view is from the steps of the Eglise de la Madeleine, and looks all the way down to Place de la Concorde.

But Paris is a dictator. She tells us exactly what we should be looking at, and what we should be taking. Such a confident city! So sure of her beauty! That was when I began to form my ideas about beauty. I realized, or internalized the idea, that beauty takes time, that it has its standards, and that people love beauty. The same way that they love Paris.


Paris from our balcony [Photo By:KPA]

(I had a Parisian friend in Toronto, who just couldn’t bear to be apart from her beautiful city. She was too polite to say that she couldn't find Toronto beautiful, but she compared everything with Paris).

Fortunately, I was never like her. Firstly, because I had seen other beautiful places, however different they were from this enchanting Paris. My young school years were in England, in the lovely Kent valley, then in the port city of Dover, with the spectacular White Cliffs, and the volatile and at times dramatic English Channel.


Cliffs of Dover and the English Channel [Photo By:KPA]

I saw that there was beauty in other environments. That nature could be beautiful also, and leave us as enchanted as cities like Paris.

By about fifteen, while in Dover, I had graduated to a better camera, where I could focus, adjust the focal point and shutter speed. The cliffs deserved better! And I joined a photography group at school. My first “real” photograph, which I shot, processed and printed myself, is of the doorway of the school’s library. This was probably my first real attempt at making art.


Dover College Library [Photo By:KPA]

While taking this photograph, I deliberated whether the door should be closed or open, and decided on “half open.” The the next pressing issue was from which angle to take the shot: From the side, from the front, from afar, from nearby. I didn’t realize then that this was all about “composition.” Then finally once taken, the photograph had to be developed, and the decision became how I would print the picture. Should I darken the door? Should I crop the top? Is there enough contrast in the bricks?

It became clear to me that image making is a long process, with many points of deliberation. So the image being taken better be worth all that trouble!

While in England, although I never won an art prize, or even streamlined into the arts (I entered the sciences), I still participated in the school drama and music activities, all separate from the academics. I was in school choirs all through my high school years, and I won the music prize and received the complete Mozart’s piano sonatas, the musical notes, that is, not the records! I studied and performed at least one of them. And I received the poetry prize one year, and through the gift card I received, I chose a book on the impressionist painters which had so impressed me while I acquired my informal art education in Paris. I even won third place in a ballet competition, for which I received a tiny, but cherished book on the fundamentals of ballet.


Dover College School Choir

Then, I went to America to continue my post-high school studies. I went first to a college in the mountains of the Susquehanna valley. There I was surrounded by nature, but different from the wild English waters. This time, it was undulating valleys and mountains, which became my focus, and no longer the city (for now, at least). I became an expert bike rider, and would travel through the farms in the quiet country roads, surrounded by those mountains.


Bike ride through the Pennsylvania countryside


Susquehanna Valley [Photo By:KPA]


University of Connecticut, with the Nutritional Sciences building in the background

Then I discovered another city, New York City. Its size, and lack of the intimacies that Paris offered struck me at first. But I loved the grand avenues, those infinite perspectives both horizontal and vertical, the friendly, energetic people, the largeness of everything, including the museums, which I proceeded to visit. This was another confident city, confident in its unique identity. Paris was never on the lips of New Yorkers. Who wants Paris when you’ve got New York?

And I saw the charms of this city. Despite its largeness, it is very much a city of neighborhoods, offering intimacy in its coffee houses, the side streets, uptown or downtown, east or west. There were neighborhoods, where each had its own character. Looking up at skyscrapers, I noticed the care and attention they got from their architects and designers, despite the chances that few people will look up to notice the details.


Details of skyscrapers [Photo By:KPA]


Balloons on Wall Street, 4th of July celebration [Photo By:KPA]


Riverside Drive [Photo By:KPA]

I began to understand that beauty, and beautiful objects, had to exist whether they were noticed or not, since they add to the overall dignity and aesthetics of their surroundings. People can feel beauty.


Northern Spirit: Toronto's Harbourfront [Photo By:KPA]

When I arrived in Toronto, during the vicious period of the Marxist government in Ethiopia, I abandoned my “formal” education and training of the sciences, and took on, finally, my formal study of the arts, first by enrolling in the film and photography program in Ryerson University, in Toronto, and then taking several years worth of drawing, painting classes at part-time, night courses, until I finally landed on textile design. But I was well prepared for this, since all through my formal education of the sciences, I had been informally studying art: Taking courses in photography, dance, theater, and eventually painting and drawing.

But I never graduated from my film/photography (BS) program, leaving when I had one year to go. Once again, I took the informal route. If I had enrolled in drawing or painting courses in a university, I would have left with little skill or capability, given the anti-art, anti-technique mood that had started to permeate through colleges and universities and the "post-modern" rhetoric. Instead went to "night school." My night school teachers were adept artists, but the modern world of non-art had rejected them and their talents, leaving them to scrape along in a fiercely negative climate. One may say that this has always been the lot of artists, but I think that our era is especially vicious and destructive.

I thought I had finally landed in my field in textile design, and I thought I had nothing more to worry about, other than to learn this craft, and produce my creations.

But no. One of the biggest challenges I faced, and which I naively and bravely fought off, was people’s insistence, or assumptions, that I would do something “Ethiopian.” It was too long for me to explain that I had no real, physical or even emotional attachment to the country. But, that shouldn’t matter in Toronto, the epicenter of multiculturalism! Indian and Chinese students, who were born in Canada, who spoke fluent, accent-less English, who were wearing the latest MTV costumes, were churning out their “Indian/Chinese/Vietnamese/etc.” heritage pieces, and gaining high praise.

Finally, as I had always done, I retreated into myself, left behind teachers' advice to “do something Ethiopian.” I set up a mini-studio in my mini-apartment and developed my grand ideas.

I produced works on the landmarks around me: the Allan Gardens Conservatory; the triangular shapes of the Toronto gables; the reeds alongside Lake Huron; small spring flowers; large lilac bushes. And finally, the national flower of Canada, the trillium.


Toronto Gables [Design By:KPA]


Allan Gardens Conservatory [Design By:KPA]


Lake Huron [Design By:KPA]


Lilac Bush [Design By:KPA]


Trillium and Queen Anne's Lace [Design By:KPA]

But it wasn’t just a matter of creating these pieces. I spent hours bent over design and drawing books to teach me how to reproduce these images through ink, pencil and paint, which the clever but clearly unskilled textile design teacher wasn’t able to do.

And it was while I was doing the Trillium piece that many things came together.

Art needs to be local. We need to “see” what we’re representing. That art needs to have an aesthetic dimension - it has to be beautiful. And that there is a spiritual dimension to art, not always, not aggressively, but still subtly and present.

I realized that modern artists were discarding these elements, and creating works that people couldn’t identify with. That their purpose was not to create works with beauty, rooted in reality and with a transcendent element, but to recreate their own godless transcendence, their own reality, and they were discarding beauty as something frivolous which distracted from their own serious messages, usually of doom and gloom. The less talented of them went on with post-modernism, which was a distorted assemblage of objects to produce their “ironic” commentary on the world around them.

And multicultural artists were throwing away the reality that surrounds us, in Canada, and were bring in their own reality for their far-away lands, imbued with strange and alien aesthetics.

When I put these two together, multiculturalism and modernism/post-modernism, I realized what was at stake here was the art I know, which I have studied and participated in from a very young age ever since my fateful journey to that most beautiful city. It was Western art that was at stake, made vulnerable by these aggressive battle cries: “Hey, hey, Ho ho, Western Culture’s Gotta go.”

I didn't clearly articulate this then, but soon after, I started a blog called Camera Lucida working on the words “Chamber of Light” where (rather immodestly!) I thought I could shed some light on the world around me. And a few years later, after many postings, altercations with readers, and a maturity of my thoughts, I started my blog (about a year and a half ago) Reclaiming Beauty.

I started the blog on January 1, 2013 (a new blog for a new year), and on February 5, 2013 I wrote at Camera Lucida:

I have started a new project. It is bigger than a website.

I hope to reclaim beauty from the avant-garde, nihilistic environment that surrounds us. Rather than fight it, I thought I would start a site that would be study of beauty, a critique our our current beautiless, or anti-beauty, environment, as well as a place to give and receive practical guides and accounts on how to acquire and reclaim the beautiful. I hope to have a list of regular contributors to the site, who will eventually become a part of a bigger movement.

And on September 29, 2013, I posted at my Reclaiming Beauty blog my proposal for a book, but with a bigger vision of starting a Beauty Movement:

My book Reclaiming Beauty aims to document the contribution that beauty has made toward our Western civilization, from the earliest records of God’s love of beauty, to a young child who sees beauty almost as soon as he is born. Our civilization thrived, prospered and matured because of beauty. Our great artists, architects, writers, philosophers and scientists have always referred to beauty with awe and wonder. It is in the modern era that beauty began to be undermined and eventually neglected by artists and other intellectual leaders.

Reclaiming Beauty will show that the abandonment of beauty leads to the death of culture, and eventually society. Modern man’s neglect of beauty has initiated the cult of ugliness, leaving us with bleakness and nihilism.

But, people want beauty. And they will surround themselves with some kind of aesthetic quality. Still, beauty is the business of the knowledgeable. The man on the street may be able to recognize beauty, but he would not be able to explain why it is beautiful. That is the task of the experts.

With Reclaiming Beauty, I aim to present my ideas, observations and analyses on beauty, and to provide a guide for recommendations on how to remove oneself from the nefarious influences of our beauty-rejecting world. This way, we can build a parallel world which will eventually form a growing movement of beauty-reclaiming individuals, who can start to shape a world where beauty is not minimized and rejected.

Reclaiming Beauty will be the first book on beauty to make a comprehensive, historical, cultural and societal review of beauty. It will describe the moment (or moments) when beauty was not only undermined, but eventually abandoned, as a paradigm of civilized life. Rather than attributing beauty to a Godly goodness, philosophers, writers and artists began to view beauty as their enemy, and as their nemesis. They saw God as a judge who would not let them do as they wished. In order to pursue the image of beauty they desired, they began to look elsewhere. They began to abandon God, and by abandoning God, they began to change their world, filling it with horror and ugliness.

I maintain that this was not their objective, which was merely to look for a different perspective on aesthetics. This realization may have come too late, and too weakly, from the cultural leaders, but ordinary people, who are most affected by these changes in worldview, are already incurring changes. But they cannot make useful inferences, and hence necessary changes. They still need an elite to help them materialize their desires and observations.

A new elite that is pro-beauty needs to take the cultural reins, to guide and return our world back to its awe and wonder of beauty. To this end, Reclaiming Beauty will add an element which no other book on beauty has attempted: guidelines on how to renounce this world of anti-beauty, and how to progressively bring beauty back into our culture.

The book will be a manifesto for concrete references to these basic ideas. Along with the book, a website will be developed that will be an interactive continuation of the book. On the website, members can post their original articles, shorter commentaries, articles and excerpts from other authors, and encourage feedback and comments from other members. At some point, this group can develop into a more formal society, which can meet in a physical locations a few times a year, building beauty societies, whose purpose would be to develop ideas and strategies for bringing beauty back into our culture.

Part of the book will revised versions of what I've been developing over a number of years in my blog posts at Camera Lucida, Reclaiming Beauty and Our Changing Landscape, and from my full-length articles from Kidist P. Asrat Articles.

All images that head the chapters will be from my own collection of photographs and designs. Some of these images can be found at Kidist P. Asrat Photographs and Well-Patterned. Others I will choose from my collection of photographs, mostly in negatives and prints. Others I will take as the project progresses.

Cloisters, New York [Photo By: KPA]


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[Presentation at The Power of Beauty Conference, Saturday, October 25, 2014.]


Addendum:

The website has been running for several years now but the practical elements are still in the works. With my years of experience, numerous travels, hundreds of commentary and observations, Reclaiming Beauty is still my fundamental idea behind everything that I do.

Megyn K. and Vladimir

Below is a video of Vladimir Putin running circles around former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who left Fox News because she complained of "sexual assault" by its boss, and the boss and everyone else ignored/denied her allegations. This is Kelly who disarms her guests by yelling at them thinking that she's being tough and out to get the "Fair and Balanced™" news. She is shedding carefully maneuvered tears at various interviews and appearances. So much for the toughness. I wonder if Roger Ailes yelled at her.

Most likely, Putin has watched her program and also that infamous moment when, another macho, President Trump, gave Kelly as good as she gave (better, actually). Of course, Kelly couldn't handle it.



For all its potential as an SNL skit, this is serious stuff. A senior news anchor from an internationally regarded American media is confronting an influential world leader to act DICTATORIALLY in order to serve America's interests.

Unbelievable.

What happened was that sarted to pray

Daffodils

Central Park, New York
March 2017
[Photo By: KPA]

Our Father Which Art in Heaven

[Photo By: KPA]

Our Father, which art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And leave us not in temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
The power and the glory,
For ever and ever. Amen.

"Suffer Little Children, And Forbid Them Not, To Come Unto Me"

Although I blog about race immigration and other similar cultural and societal phenomena of this modern world, I'm beginning to think we're beyond that now.

I'm still working through the idea that these issues are a detraction or some kind of shield covering up the real thing: A gradual movement away from God and towards Satan.

Films (as I discussed here and will elaborate on the post here) are now boldly and aggressively showing us "the other side."

One of my theories is that film has always been a preferred medium for the Devil to infiltrate society. It began with the early filmmakers and how they understood this capacity, and some used it with great finesse and beauty. I was part of the group which watched and analyzed these films until I abruptly left - never to turn back - after I finished my film program.

This particular moment occurred after I attended a lecture where one of my professors was presenting. By then I had understood his ideas and ambitions. I was, one could say, a preferred student. I worked two summer jobs with him. I learned much in the process. I was an avid student, never missing class, film demonstrations, and local festivals and events. I realized, after I left the program (that departure too was somewhat dramatic though not a full cutting off of the strings), I was just as much a "consumer" as a "creator" of these worlds.

This episode too will make for an independent post because that is when I began to really see the demonic in contemporary art.

Well forget film for a while! The God-rejecting world has now been sabotaged via immigration, multiculturalism and equality (of cultures) into accepting alien gods and beliefs, and has become a conduit for this nefarious side.

The program The Social from Canadian Television (CTV) airs daily and aspires to be "The View" of Canada.

They bring in authors, cosmeticians, fashion followers, politicians and other experts on their show. Once in while they bring in exercise coaches. And they seem to have a preference for yoga-type exercises.

In the most recent episode, they brought in a "mindfulness" expert for children. I realized right away that this had something to do with yoga and mind control.

I wasn't wrong.

There is a video of the interview as well as a long article explaining "mindfulness" on The Social's website.

Here are excerpts from the article:

What is mindfulness?
Being mindful is the practice of intentionally living in the present, without judgment and with gratitude...It is often practiced through various forms of meditation (e.g., sitting, walking, eating, etc.). It has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, increase self-awareness and awareness of others, and promote self-regulation and kindness to self.

How does it work for kids?
Mindfulness can be adapted for kids...For instance, it may be a challenge for a child to sit in silence and focus on his/her breath. But, if we were to pair it with a visual of a balloon inflating and deflating or some other object rising and falling, that would help.

[...]

There is as great book called Mindful Games by Susan Greenland that has a bunch of creative mindfulness activities. But, the best way to teach mindfulness is to practice it yourself and just be present with your child, engaging in activities with no distractions. Talking aloud about your present feelings and sensations is also helpful.

Is it best suited for certain ages?
With some creativity, children as young as three could likely participate in some sort of mindful practice/activity (e.g., going on a walk and recognizing colours, smells, sensations, etc.). Again, mindfulness is any activity that keeps a child in the present moment.

[...]

Should mindfulness replace discipline?
Kids still definitely need consequences for their actions, because that is how real life works. If you steal, you can get arrested. If you lie to your friends, you may lose them. Mindfulness is more of a proactive approach to self-regulation and insight, whereas discipline is a reactive approach. Discipline is meant to be used as a teaching tool to show children not to repeat their behaviour. Although punishment can be effective, research shows that the best way to change behaviour in fact is not through punishment, but positive reinforcement. So that is acknowledging and encouraging the behaviours you want to see.

[...]

How to tell if your child has anxiety
Some signs of anxiety include: bodily aches with no known medical cause (e.g., headaches, stomach aches), difficulty sleeping/eating, frequent crying about school/tests/performance, voicing fears/concerns, avoidance of school/activities, difficulty separating from the parent, etc.

As a parent if you notice these signs, first talk to your pediatrician/family doctor to rule out any medical factors that may be impacting your child's mood or behaviour. Some parents may feel comfortable addressing anxiety at home. There are many books available to use as a resource (e.g., What To Do When You Worry Too Much: A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Anxiety by Dawn Huebner). For more severe cases, parents should seek support from a professional (e.g., psychologist, psychiatrist).

The benefit of yoga and meditation rooms
Yoga is a great way to practice mindfulness through movement. I have often seen teachers engage in yoga practices after recesses as a way to transition from outside play to inside work...Yoga involves deep breathing and exercise which are two things that are associated with stress reduction and positive health overall. Meditation rooms could also be helpful. Already many schools have rooms or areas to allow children to “cool down” when they are escalated. A dedicated room for meditation is a good way of proactively practicing mindfulness.

How to bring mindfulness into the home
Personally, I like to practice mindfulness first thing in the morning, sometimes even before I get out of bed. Before I check my emails or get lost in thought about what I have to do today, I take 10 minutes to focus on my breath. I find it sets the tone for the day and makes it seem less overwhelming. You could try to incorporate it into your morning routine with kids or even before bed. As a family, finding the time to share what we are grateful for is also helpful. Ultimately though, if you want to incorporate mindfulness into your household, you start with your own practice. I’m sure once you start to see the benefits in yourself, you will find ways to extend it to your family.

The last section, How to bring mindfulness into the home, gave me a flash of realization.

"Personally, I like to practice mindfulness first thing in the morning, sometimes even before I get out of bed," writes this woman in the article.

These are the moments for prayer. "Lord keep watch over me during the day." And especially for children. "Mindfulness has taken over God!" I exclaimed (silently).

"I take 10 minutes to focus on my breath. I find it sets the tone for the day and makes it seem less overwhelming."

She has pushed aside our biblical Christian tradition of supplicating to God, praying to God, keeping God near us at all times to help us set the world right for us, or at least to protect us. By doing so she has allowed a gaping void to develop in her spiritual life which she has filled by these mindfulness programs.

And she passes on this "knowledge" to innocent the children.

The woman hardly goes through the history of mindfulness, but starts her introduction with:

"Well mindfulness is a term we're hearing more and more about these days, although it has been around for some time, with its roots in Buddhism."

There you have it.

Buddhism isn't some benign exercise program attained through yoga and meditation. It is a full-blown spiritual and religious practice.

This is the way that young children are being pulled into this nefarious anti-God realm.

Matthew 19:14:

But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

Paris à Tout Prix

Paris à Tout Prix (Paris At All Costs or the official translation Paris or Perish) started off as a charming film about an up and coming Parisian fashion designer. But appearances can be deceiving.

Reem Kherici has the dark hair/dark eyes looks of a French woman possibly with that Mediterranean heritage. But I soon learn that she is Arab.

Fine. There are many Arabs in France now who have appeared to have assimilated and become French.

But Reem's papers are not in order. In fact she is in France illegally. The deportation police come to her workplace and chaperone her out and eventually to Orly airport. She lands in Morocco, a country she barely knows.

As it happens, her father was very ill, which she didn't know, and she managed to be with him during his last days. At this point, I switched off the t.v. and resumed a book I was reading. But curiosity got the better of me, and I turned on the show near the very end with about a half hour to go.

Reem was still in Morocco enjoying the company of her family and old friends. We had a brief tour of Marrakech with happy and content Arabs interacting with each other. There is no multiculturalism (or whites) in Marrakech. People are amongst their own and there is an air of freedom around despite the obvious economic difficulties.

Reem decides she should return to Paris and to her job. She had put together a leather and lace "gown" to show her design team during her time in Morocco with local items (especially the leather). Her stay has not been in vain after all! Here she is, an Arab girl promoting her land.

But she has no passport and she has been banned from entering France.



So she does what any Arab girl would do. She borrows her cousin's passport and goes to the airport anyway.

The cousin looks nothing like her. Reem has a longer face with prominent cheekbones and large eyes. The cousin has a rounder smaller face, is lighter skinned and has slightly oriental eyes. The agent at the airport customs, who looks Arab and should have known better, spends a good deal of time cross checking the passport photo against the real-life traveler before him. Finally he lets her through.

Reem enters Paris illegally. She arrives just in time to present her dress to her fashion house as a runway was in progress. Her leather gown with lace trimmings is chosen as the "final" dress, a big honor in the runway world. It is a success.

Reem has made a contribution to French art and culture. Who cares about the slight aberration that she is neither French nor a legal resident. She is PARISIAN!



Above is the runway dress. I couldn't find a full length picture of it. Perhaps it has to do with some copyright issue that it cannot be posted publicly. The costume designer for the film is Aurore Pierre.

The gothic dark S&M alluding leather strap of a dress is further indication of the decline of the classic French culture. Reem may be "Parisian" but she adds no grandeur to Paris, and in fact degrades it.

"To shake the hand of the Universe"

The extraordinary movie A Wrinkle In Time is Oprah Winfrey's chef d'oeuvre, in all its filmic mediocrity. Through it she is able to project her spiritual beliefs through clumsy and inarticulate language, yet powerful in its simplicity. The movie is supposedly made for children; it is a Disney film with a PG (Parental Guidance) rating.

PG: Some material may not be suitable for children. Parents urged to give "parental guidance". May contain some material parents might not like for their young children.

Here is the rating for G:

G – General Audiences
All ages admitted. Nothing that would offend parents for viewing by children.

The movie is a really a story made for adults who can come with their children. In effect, through simplistic child language, and a "fairy tale" ambiance, Oprah has lured the adult population to watch her path. And she is willing to sacrifice the innocence and psychopsychic safety of the young children to do so. She is using the children as a shield to cover up her intent.

I will go into depth about this movie which I have now watched three tims (well 2 1/2). I took as much notes as I could since the film script is not yet available online.

A main theme in the film is that it is a young child (the protagonist sure to win - initially at least - the attention of those six-year-olds) who guides a couple of older children (in their early teens) through a maze of nefarious landscapes. They are out to save the world before the dark force, The It, takes over. The adults meanwhile are scientists busy creating, or getting lost in, their latest astro-physics equation. They are outlying the world through which these young intergalaxy troopers navigate. As one of the scientist says: "I wanted to shake with the Universe." Oprah, one of three "Misses," is Mrs. Which (yes it is that obvious) who appears in her shimmering gown of sparkles (yes she is the light that should overpower the darkness ) along with the other two to guide these children to The It.

"The heavens declare the glory of God"

[Photo By: KPA]

Psalm 19: 1-2

1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

"O Lucifer, Son of the Morning!"

Isaiah 14:12-14

12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

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Excerpt from James Perloff's blog:

Christianity and the Truth Movement: How much do they coincide?

[I]t may be incumbent on those of us in the Truth Movement to become the new Constantines. Though we don’t bear swords of steel, we bear swords of truth, as we battle the New World Order, for whom destruction of true Christianity - and our very souls - is the paramount end-game.

And for those Truthers who don’t recognize it yet, hasn’t the time come to perceive that the universe’s complexity wears God’s signature, that our antagonists are Lucifer and his followers, and that we are in the middle of a spiritual war - one that is played out not only in geopolitics, but in the personal inner struggles of our own daily lives? Over the past two thousand years, Lucifer has done everything he can to disfigure and misrepresent Christianity (see, e.g., my posts here and here). I believe we need to critically analyze and debunk those lies (in the same way we’ve investigated 9/11 and other historical lies), and see God for who He is: our creator, savior, our guidepost for living, and—after bodily death takes us - our ultimate hope.

Heart and Soul

This young singer brought up in Miami since the age of five sings the most authentic Cuban salsa music.

Of course the pornographc lesbian Ellen Degenerate has her claws on her and invited her on her show. Nonetheless the Havana Girl shows herself to be thoroughly heterosexual despite the Ellen Charm™.

I know. I had a flair for salsa dancing. During my Mexico years, I befriended a group of people who liked to frequent a small salsa joint, Bar Leon, in the city's Centro Historico (actually not a very safe district).

A dorm mate at the University of Connecticut from Puerto Rico taught me some basic steps and I practiced them in my cramped room with latino music from a cassette I had borrowed playing on my compact player. Even she was impressed by my results.

At Bar Leon, I would drag whatever partner I could find in my group who was naive enough, or curious enough, to go to the dance floor with me and I would dance as the GUIDE, something unheard of in Latino culture - the woman never GUIDES for the love of God!

Some young man either from the audience or from the floor would ask my clumsy partner to step aside and he would gently nudge me in the directions he would like me to go. He was the guide.

People thought I was some gringo Cuban (or from Vera Cruz). Never the African I was. Although in the my later encounters with deeply religious Catholic rural Mexicans, they thought Ethiopia was not "African" but rather the land by the Red Sea with Mosesian associations. "Vengo del pais por el Mar Rojo" I would dramatize my origins. One time, when a farmer knew I was coming back in the area (word gets around in those hilly villages), he came along to see who this person was. I don't think he was disappointed. But I brought things back to earth by asking him if any senora in his village could make me one of the embroidered tops typical of the region. He told me to come back in a couple of weeks. By then, I had left the region and was renegotiating my future - to stay on with my program or to start new frontiers. Of course I chose the latter.

Lyrcs to:
Havana, Oh na-na
Havana, ooh na-na
Half of my heart is in Havana, ooh-na-na
He took me back to East Atlanta, na-na-na
Oh, but my heart is in Havana (ay)
There's somethin' 'bout his manners
Havana, ooh na-na

He didn't walk up with that "how you doin'?"
(When he came in the room)
He said there's a lot of girls I can do with
(But I can't without you)
I knew him forever in a minute
(That summer night in June)
And papa says he got malo in him
He got me feelin' like

I knew it when I met him
I loved him when I left him
Got me feelin' like
Ooh-ooh-ooh, and then I had to tell him
I had to go, oh na-na-na-na-na

Havana, ooh na-na
Half of my heart is in Havana, ooh-na-na
He took me back to East Atlanta, na-na-na
Oh, but my heart is in Havana
My heart is in Havana
Havana, ooh na-na

Havana, ooh na-na
Half of my heart is in Havana, ooh-na-na
He took me back to East Atlanta, na-na-na
Oh, but my heart is in Havana
My heart is in Havana
Havana, ooh na-na

Take me back to my Havana

Getting "The Shape of Water" All Wrong

Below is a rambling article which I have cut down to its bare essentials by the rambling author at VDare, Steve Sailer.  I understand that VDare is concerned with issues and stories surrounding immigration, but Sailer completely glosses over the real story of this movie: alien/human copulation.

Sometimes race and immigration aren't everything. We have now filmmakers explicitly showing a completely different type of "invasion" with an open acceptance of nefarious and satanic themes.

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Trophy Wife
Steve Sailer
March 7, 2018
Taki Mag


The Shape of Water’s plot is: A Democratic Party Coalition of the Fringes (a disabled woman, a gay man, a black woman, a Jewish Communist Russian spy, and a fish) unites to defeat the GOP Core American cishet evilest evil white male of all time (besides Trump, of course). Square-jawed white man Michael Shannon plays the epitome of hateful hate-filled white whiteness who epitomizes his white male privilege by peeing on the floor.

[...]

Perhaps the pandering politics of this movie is just del Toro’s Safe Space for what he really cares about, which is colors. Nobody who matters is going to give del Toro trouble for his hate-whiteyness, and that frees him up to obsess over the colors he really cares about: not partisan red vs. blue, but red vs. green. The Shape of Water is constructed around a color scheme where red represents the beloved nostalgic past and green signifies the hideous technological future.

If genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains, then del Toro is a genius at imposing his childlike fanaticism about how red is his favorite color and green is his most hated color on every single frame in the movie.

On the other hand, I kind of like green. I’m trying to get my lawn to turn green now that it has finally started raining in Southern California.

Granted, I’m not as aesthetic or as stylish as del Toro.

[...]

...Guillermo del Toro (who is not to be confused with the very cool Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro) is sort of the Mexican Tim Burton, if the Burbank-born Burton weren’t quite so swarthy. Del Toro looks about as pale as the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, an early fatality in the ongoing White Death.

[...]

At the Oscars, del Toro announced that he was an immigrant and that the purpose of art was to “erase the lines in the sand.” Yet del Toro seems to value being able to secure his daughters north of the line in the sand between the Lovecraftian madness of Mexico and the sane safety of suburban America.

It’s almost as if del Toro finding refuge north of the border...is what Trump meant by implying that our immigration system should be reformed so that Mexico is sending their best.

Sex With Creatures: Getting Closer to the Luciferian Agenda

Forget all the hypocrisy of the Oscars with stars wearing million-dollar dazzling jewellry as they stand on stage talking for the underdog in the movement de l'epoque: "equality."

Forget motherly Meryl who points her index finger with a "you can do better" over-her-reading-glasses look at her proteges.

Forget jovial Owen, standing as clueless as his "alright, alright, alright" moment when things were clearly not all right, especially for his blonde and not-so-rosy future.

Forget black directors and actors (and actresses, to revive a discarded word) who pump their black fists at racist Hollywood as they spend their days (and nights) with white "partners."

Forget the gothic stage looking like Satan's boudoir shimmering from the sparkles of a million Swarovski crystals.

What everyone missed is how a movie about intercourse between a human female and an alien creature made it with "Best Picture" Oscar.

This is not a "first" of course. Others have done it and with some popular success. But none have won a "Best Actor" Oscar, and most have an element of comedy in their theme.

Del Toro is dead serious.

I scoured the internet to see what commentators had to say about this epic first in popular movie history, but no-one, nowhere, in the Main Stream Media™ mentions it.

But that is because Del Toro camouflages this collaboration with Satan with the "equality now," "Time's Up," "Me Too" and all those other slogans that have been circulating through the elite crowd for a couple of years now.

Says Del Toro about his move:

"Much like fairy tales, there are two facets of horror. One is pro-institution, which is the most reprehensible type of fairy tale: Don't wander into the woods, and always obey your parents. The other type of fairy tale is completely anarchic and antiestablishment."

So there you have it.

Intercourse with a monster is a "Me Too" moment.

Here is commentary on the film by Paul Bois:

The values governing "The Shape of Water" are best summed up as follows: have sex with anything you want, even if that "thing" is not of your species, and kill innocent people to do it . . . Fin!

That the film presents this in the guise of a tale about how love conquers all in the face of white male patriarchal oppression makes it all the more insidious.

The whole article is succinctly written. Still there is an element of awe and ominousness that is missing. Bois thinks this is just another Disney movie as his article's title The Shape Of Water’ Review: An Adult Disney Movie With A Wickedly Perverse Heart "warns" us.

Bois could have written a similar commentary for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (remember that one?), the true Disney alien movie, although without a wickedly perverse heart, which won four Oscars, the same number as The Shape of Water:

E.T.'s four Academy Awards:
- Best Original Score
- Best Sound
- Best Sound Effects Editing
- Best Visual Effects

One would think that The Shape of Water would have the Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects prizes. After all it was a sci-fi film, at least the copulation part.

The Shape of Water's four Academy Awards:
Best Picture
Best Director
Best Production Design
Best Original Score

What is Production Design?

Production Design...focuses on the creative process of visually and physically developing an environment that becomes an essential component of the storytelling process. Production Designers must possess a keen understanding of the story in order to create a believable and realistic world on screen.[Source]

Yes, recreating that monster, and his copulation scenes, must have taken a lot of creative talent! Although to be fair, it is also creating the environment where such a story can be plausible. Well the Hollywood/Oscar crowd certainly bought it.

This Hollywood style pornographic horror film is rated "R" (Restricted): Under 17 Requires Accompanying Parent Or Adult Guardian, - imagine an "under 17" watching this in the dark theatre! - whereas it should should have received an "NC-17" (Adults Only) - No One 17 and Under Admitted.

E.T. on the other hand, with its benign alien befriending a young girl (although I wouldn't put it past its team for infusing barely detectable scenes of sexual allusion) was given a PG and fairly so, rather the G (General Audiences):

PG - Parental Guidance Suggested
Some material may not be suitable for children. Parents urged to give "parental guidance". May contain some material parents might not like for their young children.

We have come a long way from (or closer to the luciferian agenda) a 1982 "alien befriends a young girl" to the 2018 "alien fornicates with a young woman."

And I'm not the only one to think so. See here and here.

His Mouth Speaketh

Luke 6:45

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

Justin's Delhi Design

What happened to Justin Trudeau? Even a non-politician with a modicum of diplomatic training would have realized sooner than later the mistakes made during an international visit. Plus there is a range of advisors and experts who would be guiding him through these foreign waters.

But I don't think it was lack of knowledge or lack of cultural etiquette that brought on this "Delhi Debacle" as one Canadian journalist calls it. Although, again, I beg to differ. It was not a "debacle" as much as "design."

Trudeau is not stupid, nor is he inexperienced. He climbed up rungs of ladders, at times with dogged (ruthless?) perseverance, to make it to primininstership. Of course Trudeau Père helped, but I don't believe all that much. Pierre Trudeau was not really all that popular during and after his reign. He was skilled and astute enough to to win, is all. Plus Canadians inherently dislike nepotism, since it would remind them too much of the union with Britain, which any Canadian would say has no place (any more) in his country's identity.

I think what Trudeau was doing was his version of "multiculturalism abroad," to show Indians and the world that he is a non-racist, pro-Asia (well pro-India, since Asians have their own version of regional xenophobia), contemporary Prime Minister.

But India is also a huge sub-subcontinent. Even within the country (let alone across regional borders) there are conflicts, disagreements and even at times wars and battles. His advisers certainly know this, and certainly passed on the information to him.

And the dress!

Was Trudeau simply and gauchely playing at dress-up? Possibly. But I think it is his exuberant, and hyperactive and irritatingly childish wife (this is a woman in her forties, and who has given birth to three children) who concocted that one up. Why not go exotic? Look at all those natives! Look at all those costumes! Look at all those temples!

No wonder the Indians got furious!


Trudeau and Clan at the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar


Trudeau and Clan at the Mahatma Gandhi Ashram in Ahmadabad



Trudeau and Clan at the Jama Mosque