The Flawless First Lady

The Conservative Treehouse updates us on the activities of POTUS, but rarely on FLOTUS, so here is his post today on Mrs. Trump herself, Melania, on a "First Lady's" mission to make America Great Again.

When I read TCT's blog post title for today: Melania Trump Liberty University Convocation and Town Hall Discussion on Opioid Crisis… I thought we would see a subdued Melania with less emphasis on her femaleness and more on her femininity coming across perhaps as a good aunt giving advice on her life experiences and how to try to stay on the right track.

And then I saw these photos:







Hillary wore her pantsuits, I'm sure, to cover her thick legs (calves especially). But what about wearing dresses and skirts which go down further than the knees? Not all the way down to the ankles like a 19th historical revival (which would not work anyway without the social and cultural revival of feminine modesty that the era practiced, and which would take a whole revolution to promote in our immodest times), but elegant dresses and skirts which go halfway down those "heavy" calves, which was Hillary's problem but certainly not Melania's? Many stores do carry such clothes and many can be elegant with the right combination of jacket and shoes.

I think Melania wears these thigh-hugging pants to show off her long legs, and to showcase her slim behind.

What does she think people look at when she crosses her legs as she sits down for the interview and exposes more thigh and upper-leg body?

Odd.

Serious conversation is lost and everything is focused on her, and specifically her body.

Maybe she just wants to look sexy?

Well yes, of course.

I googled "Melania Trump Liberty University Convocation and Town Hall Discussion on Opioid Crisis…" without quotations, and sure enough here is The Daily Caller who posts this more close-up photo of her (below) with her makeup masked face which he aptly titles: Melania Wows in Charcoal Grey Pant Suit During Trip to Liberty University, and gives us a rundown of Flotus' wardrobe:

Melania Trump absolutely shined Wednesday when she showed up wearing a striking charcoal grey pant suit during her trip to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.

The first lady looked flawless as ever during a town hall meeting about the country’s opioid epidemic, as she took the stage in the long sleeve jacket and pants that she paired with a scoop neck black top. (RELATED: Ivanka Turns Heads In Gorgeous Yellow Plaid Skirt Suit)

She completed the fantastic look with loose hair and black and grey snakeskin high-heels.

How about this for Melania? A dress in brighter colors with print that is not too overpowering. Something elegant, serious and feminine.

I found it by googling "A mid-calf dress with long sleeves" (no quotes).

Maybe those desperate young men might just listen to her then.

Diversity in Writers: Will the Real Jeeves Please Stand?

The article below is from my Camera Lucida blog posted on December 7, 2005 (twelve years ago).

Then, I started to examine what multiculturalism meant to non-White Canadians (Americans, British etc.) and my views have remained exactly the same today as shows my article a couple of days ago Thanksgiving.

Note: The links to the Amazon.com book lists are not current. Ishiguro, Smith and Rushdie are prolific and have produced books through 2018, and they continue to write in the dystopian style they adopted early in their careers. I recommend changing the Amazon.com search by "publication date" to see their current activities, and the rave reviews all round, including:

- Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant, published in 2015:

Ishiguro has created a fantastical alternate reality in which, in spite of the extremity of its setting and because of its integrity and emotional truth, you believe unhesitatingly. - The Financial Times, February 2015

- Salman Rushdie's 2017 The Golden House, published in 2017:

The Golden House” has been billed by its publisher as Rushdie’s return to realism. Yet the New York City on offer is so gilded and remote that the novel reads like what one’s impressions would be if all one knew of it came from back issues of Vanity Fair magazine. - The New York Times, September 2017

- Zadie Smith's Feel Free:

“…You will have to take liberties, you will have to feel free to write as you like…even if it is irresponsible. - Zadiesmith.com

(Note: Rather than use "truth" as the target, Smith, like all dislocated people, who gravitate towards dystopia - and violence - choses "irresponsible" instead. She knows words and her word choice is not an error.)

All have won various prizes and perhaps the most prestigious is Ishiguro's Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017:

Kazuo Ishiguro
The Nobel Prize in Literature 2017
[...]
Prize motivation: "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world." - The Nobel Prize in Literature 2017

Jeeves of course died in 1975 (born in 1881), and his ghost did not write the 2018 listed books. Rather, they are contemporary reprints which probably do not do the aesthetic credit that the older versions did to his craft.

First edition
Author: P. G. Wodehouse
Publisher: George Newnes
Publication date: May 1919 [Source]

---

Diversity in Writers: Will the Real Jeeves Please Stand?

England has witnessed several years of non-English authors who keep winning literary prizes, or just literary acclaim. Zadie Smith was recently in the headlines, Salman Rushdie has managed to outlive his fatwa, and another less famous but prolific writer, Kazuo Ishiguro, has written yet another book from those fair British Isles.
I’ve read books by all three, even tried more than one of each. And all leave me less than enthralled, slightly confused, and struck by a lack of authenticity. I find their characters to be caricatures. Both Rushdie and Smith go for hyperbole, while Ishiguro goes for exactly the opposite.

I’m beginning to wonder if non-British writers, however much they were born on the Island, can really capture the spirit of the land.

“Remains of the Day” by Ishiguro has a gloomy, undecipherable, remorseful butler try to recapture something of what he’s lost during all those years of selfless service. Actually, I recant my observation about Ishiguro’s understatement. What could be more of a hyperbole than this?

Then there is P.G. Wodehouse, with the inimitable Jeeves. His adroit butler who really always does save the day, after a lot of scampers and near-disasters along the way. And he does get to have his day at the sea-side also, and quite frequently.

I think Wodehouse captured his character with affection as a butler who certainly is not going to be bossed around by any Lord! No remains for him to collect.

Sometimes I wonder; if you don’t have your full emotions invested in a place, how can you write positive things about it? Like Rushdie, Smith and Ishiguro, who seem to deny a possibility for a future in their books, and press on with their circular exaggerations trying to find meanings for themselves.

Ishiguro’s 2001 book “When we were orphans” is about an Englishman who mysteriously lost his parents as a young boy in Shanghai. He returns as a professional detective to solve that ultimate mystery. It reminds me of these writers, trying to find clues about their past by digging into words.

Ishiguro’s latest book forfeited the unapproachable Far East, and his ancestral home, for something even more alien. It seems like he’s completely given up on ‘his’ England. “Never let me go” is about a Utopia (or a dystopia) on cloning. No more real people, real places or real stories for Ishiguro in the advent of the 21st century.

Why doesn’t this progression of his thoughts and stories not surprise me?

Quote from an interview with Ishiguro on "When we were Orphans":

There's a certain kind of branded, packaged atmosphere of Shanghai: this exotic, mysterious, decadent place. The same in Remains of the Day. It was a case of manipulating certain stereotypical images of a certain kind of classical England. Butlers and tea and scones: it's not really about describing a world that you know well and firsthand. It's about describing stereotypes that exist in people's heads all around the world and manipulating them engagingly.

The Best of East and West

[Updated with links to Asma Arshad Mahmood's postings (KPA October 28, 2022). The original article was on November 2018. I recently discovered the title "Thanksgiving" was posted on Mahmood's website, with a link to my posting here on my long-running website Reclaiming Beauty: Saving Our Western Civilization. I am not sure why she posted it. Perhaps it was to show her followers that she IS indeed "home" in Canada, contrary to my]: 

Apart from the usual "Canada is multiculturalism" and "We're Canadians," non-White immigrants have spent their residence in Canada adapting Canada to the lands they left behind. They were never "home."  ] 

 

I am updating this article, with more current, more detailed information on this clever woman who has convinced the Mississaugan, and Canadian, community that she IS "home" here, even as she left her Pakistani home behind.

I contend that she never did, and that my assessment of four years ago was correct. If anything, Mahmood is even more "back home" in Pakistan than she was a few years ago. 

Here are my more recent posts on Mahmood, with some updated commentary.

The "Thanksgiving article is linked here (this webpage),  as well as directed via Mahmood's webpage.

1. Art Sabotage (November 9, 2021) - Article excerpt: 

a youngish girl slurping blood through her hand, while holding a goat (a lamb?) on the other.

After the initial horror - blood, and young animals - I realized that this is clearly a "Christian" theme of the Lamb of God, the sacrificial lamb of God, surrounded by a halo, which Mahmood has translated into her own fetish. And hers is a kid (a goat) not the sacrificial lamb that Abraham offered to God.]

2. Traumas and Multiculturalism (May 2, 2022) - Article excerpt:

Mahmood appears in [a] video, where she shockingly reveals how she herself was molested, by unidentified male family member, when she was also a very young girl.

This molestation was known by the family at large, including Abu's wife, but was kept hidden, and quiet, to prevent public humiliations of these seemingly upstanding members of the Pakistani community. 

I wrote of Mahomod's strange paintings, with unidentifiable figures, their faces muted and "hidden."

Surely, this is a reaction to her trauma.

And I wonder in what other ways this trauma manifests itself, besides her frenzied activities to bring "art" to Mississauga: the art and culture she left behind in the country that betrayed her.

This multi-culti depository that Canada has become brings us such people as Mahmood, whose inner turmoils we can only begin to fathom as they are (may be) revealed in discreet confessionals meant for minuscule audiences. I happened to be on of the tiny percentage who caught her words.

I was not wrong about my assessment of her paintings:

Mahmood's paintings are ephemeral sketches of barely-there people.

 

3. Asma Arshad Mahmood: Art Gallery of Mississauga Curator Contender (April 3, 2022) - Article Excerpt:

The Art Gallery of Mississauga has sent out a memo to advertise that they are looking for a new curator of contemporary art.

 

The Art Gallery of Mississauga has tried for years now to present the wishful thinking multiculturalism in its programming, and all it has really done is to showcase individual cultures. 

One would think by now that multiculturalism would really be that, multiculturalism: a blend of cultures.

Of course this is not possible. How do blend together Indian, Chinese, various African cultures, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, etc., etc.?

The fact is that multiculturalism is really appendages onto a historical, traditional culture of the country. There is no blending, but a tenuous coexistence.

There seems to be one contender for this position. 

 

The CBC recently interviewed Asma Arshad Mahmood (which aired in mid-March 2022). Mahmood curated a series of exhibitions which just wrapped at the Art Gallery of Mississauga. The interviewer introduces Mahmood as: "Celebrated Mississauga curator."

Mahmood's four-part exhibition which she titled "...till all are healed," is  on now at the AGM, and works in the series Flowing River, Lotus of Thanks are by local artists whom she asked to paint thanking frontline workers. These works were up for auction to raise money for the pandemic's frontline workers: "to both say a broader thanks and provide income for local artists." 

[...]

The majority of the entries, 20 of the 27 (74%), of the works exhibited were by South Asians, with two white women who have South Asian last names - and are South Asian by extension.

"Lotus of Thanks" is an odd choice for a title. But while Mahmood is Muslim, she interacts with the Indian subcontinent's general culture, where the lotus flower is important (here is a photo of her and her husband after the Hindu festival Holi). 

[...] 

 

So, Mahmood's affiliation to the lotus flower could be for a number of reasons, including to cleverly use its pronunciation to create her message: "Lots of Thanks." 

4. Asma Arshad Mahmood: Art Gallery of Mississauga Curator Contender Staking Out the Territory - (April 8, 2022) - Article Excerpt:

I went to the 2018 Fine Arts Auction in Mississauga, before the big auction gala (I wasn't willing to pay $80 just to attend). Square One was the locale where the AGM attempted to bring art to the masses (if you have $80, that is), but they cleverly had the works on display about a week before the event, and you could bid online.

I took photos of some works, and also downloaded all the artists' works from various sites (the AGM Facebook page, the auction's ticket purchase page, the auction site, etc.).

Mahmood presented her work Whispers in Theatre, and was also part of the literati that attended the gala.

The going price for Whispers in Theatre was $800-900, but it doesn't appear to have sold at the auction.

Whsipers in Theatre has that same ephemeral quality that I described in another of Mahmood's piece here as  "an ephemera, a wisp of unidentified/unidentifiable human forms."

But that is neither here nor there. Mahmood has been staking out her territory in Mississauga from way back. She was Board of Director of the Mississauga Arts Council in 2012, but her main activity has been to promote ethnic-based art and culture events which focus on her own background from the Indian sub-continent, going as far back as 2003. 

Mahmood is not new at this. And Mississauga's arts culture is part of her stake out.

5. Recent Developments: The Art Gallery of Mississauga's Annual Benefit Auction - From the Art Gallery of Mississauga's Facebook page:

From the AGM Facebook page:

 

LOT 08

ASMA MAHMOUD (KPA - Spelling?]

Water carriers of Sindh, 2018 Oil on paper

61 x 76.2 cm

Estimate: $800.00 CDN

Have your chance to bid on this piece at the Art Gallery of Mississauga's Annual Benefit Auction

October 26, 2022 | 6:30pm | Small Arms Inspection Building

Buy your tickets now at  bit.ly/AGM35 (link in bio)

 

The same "an ephemera, a wisp of unidentified/unidentifiable human forms," that I described another of Mahmood's work here (also linked to in post 4 above).

And another of the AGM's "...wishful thinking multiculturalism in its programming, and all it has really done is to showcase individual cultures." which I write in post 3 above, with link to article posted here).

This piece is especially evolved. There are no discernible faces, but blobs of oval/circles - eye-openings and niqabed women covering their mouths and noses.

This is certainly part of the reason that Mahmood revived this 4-year-old piece for this auction, since Mississauga's multi-culti residents are all about covering up for this fake-demic, and why not through "art?"

The niqab, which these women are certainly wearing, is described thus:

...a veil for covering the hair and face except for the eyes that is worn by some Muslim women [Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary]

And the Sindh (administrative unit) in Pakistan:

...the historical home to the Sindhi people is the second most populated administrative unit of Pakistan after Punjab...Sindh is known as Bab-ul-Islam (the gateway of Islam), as it saw the first spread of Islam into South Asia. It has...its roots in one of the world's oldest civilizations, the Indus Valley Civilisation...

Sindh is endowed with coastal access, and is a major centre of economic activity in Pakistan. Karachi, the country's largest city at the southwestern tip of Sindh, is the main financial hub of the country as well one of the most populous cities in the world and has both the country's largest airport and largest seaport. [Source: Wikivoyage]

Mahmood doesn't shy away from updating her Facebook and Twitter pages with the various Islamic holidays that she celebrates (although, with the multi-culti magnanimity of one who have nothing to lose (and has indeed gained a lot) she will reference Christmas with a shiny Christmas Tree and "Happy Holidays." Never Easter, though, that unconditional Christian event. How do you Happy Holidays the cross? Once in a while, the paint-splashing Diwali Hindu holiday appears on her tweets.

And Mahmood is serious about Islam.

Here, in the final installment of this update (below), I discuss Mahmood's connections with her native Pakistan, and where she cleverly uses her influence (it is not as extensive as she and media/cultural outlets make out to be), to program events and collaborations with Pakistan.

This was posted in Mahmood's Facebook page on October 12, 2022:

Call For Applications:

BNU MDSVAD, in collaboration with Canadian Community Arts Initiative, presents Be(Coming) the Museum, a research-based project that aims to build stronger relationships between creative practitioners and museums in Pakistan. The project is envisioned as a catalyst to inspire emerging artists to build a sense of connection with museums and their historical collections of art and artifacts.

We will also consider the question, "What is the museum of the future?"

Seminar Dates: 5th and 6th November 2022

Deadline to Apply: 26th October 2022

This open call is open to emerging creative practitioners across Pakistan.

For full application details: Link in Bio

Project Partners: BNU SVAD, CCAI, Lord Cultural Resources and Lahore Museum.

This project is lead by @asmamahmood and @shellybahl

About the institutions cited in this announcement:

- Lord Cultural Resources [link]:

Lord Cultural Resources is the global practice leader in cultural sector planning. Since 1981, we have helped to create, plan, and operate cultural spaces and places in more than 460 cities, in 57 countries and six continents. [Source: Lord.ca]

Gail Dexter Lord...co-founded Lord Cultural Resources with her husband Barry Lord in 1981. [Source - Gail Lord LinkedIn]  

Lord Cultural Resources is a Canadian organization, but they are opaque about their financial arrangements. My conclusion is that museums and other cultural organizations obtain governmental funds, which they then use to pay for the museum consultations services provided by Lord Cultural Resources.
- Canadian Community Arts Initiative [link]:
The clever (or finely tuned "multiculturalist") Mahmood the Canadian Cultural Arts Initiative's Board Member and Senior Artistic Director where she "represents the organization on various international forums."

Canadian Community Arts Initiative regularly presents visual arts, literary, dance, theatre, film and other artistic events for the enjoyment and education of the community. CCAI regularly collaborates with artists and organizations to support artistic activities in and around Mississauga and GTA. 

A more interesting description is [link]:

CCAI is a not for profit organization registered under the laws of the province of Ontario to promote effective role of arts and artists in Canadian community.

 

And especially this part:

CCAI aims to enhance the community's awareness of the many arts and cultural practices in Canada and encourages expansion of the arts by creating opportunities for practicing local artists.

 

What does "local artists" mean? What are "the many arts and cultural practices in Canada"?

These are code words for "multiculturalism."  Mahmood uses her Pakistani influence in Canada, as well as expanding it ("expansion" from her CCAI description) to her native Pakistan. Conveniently, she identifies herself as Canadian/Pakistani. But Pakistan is the core of her activities.

   

And all this leads to:

- BNU MDSVAD - Beaconhouse National University Mariam Dawood School of Visual Arts & Design - Lahore Pakistan, Mahmood's current, perhaps most important, project in Pakistan (and in Canada), where a variety of Canadian monies are used to fund a project, a NATIONAL, Pakistani, project, in Lahore Pakistan.

This might yet be Mahmood's Swan Song. I thought previously she was vying for the AGM's director position in the future. But I doubt it. She is too old to scuffle with the multi-culti-literati of Mississauga, young or youngish hyphenated-Canadians; Arabs, Chinese, Blacks, and her fellow non-Muslim Indians.

She has come full circle, getting the best of all worlds: living in a Western society, with all its moneys, expertise, modern systems, and creativity, to shuttle back and forth to her native Pakistan to assist in building its institutions. All at her schedule, and all fees paid.

Lahore Museum, Lahore, Pakistan

This image is also on the Facebook page "Asma Mahmood" which Mahmood has used for the poster to announce the "open call" for applicants for this grant. 

-----------------------

This is the original article posted here, as well as linked to via Asmamahmood.com

Apart from the usual "Canada is multiculturalism" and "We're Canadians," non-White immigrants have spent their residence in Canada adapting Canada to the lands they left behind. They were never "home."

And, these many years later, they realize that they have FAILED in building this "home."

So what are they going to do about it?

Here is a "South Asian" couple which lives a seemingly "westernized" life in the Mississauga area. But they never mentioned the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday this past October 8th on their otherwise prolific Facebook sites.


Arshad and Asma Mahmood
Celebration Square, before of the Mississauga City Hall
TD (Toronto Dominion Bank) Mosaic Outdoor Festival, August 2018
Posted in Facebook

The couple posts extensively on Mosaic - The South Asian Festival of Mississauga, and in the photo above, they are in front of Mississauga's City Hall, before a full crowd which came out for the Mosaic festival on the Celebration Square mall, in August 2018.

The Mosaic Festival of Mississauga, with a major sponsorship by the Toronto Dominion Bank of Canada,

brings together South Asian and Fusion dance, music, and art performances in a mosaic of culture and talent. The two-day event features both local and international acts...

Here's what Arshad Mahmood posted this past October 8 (Thanksgiving):


And Asma Mahmood, an artist who participated in the April 2018 Fine Art Auction by The Art Gallery of Mississauga, and not as prolific a Facebook poster as her husband, also made no mention of Thanksgiving. But she did "update" her Facebook photo a couple of days later, on October 11.




Asma Mahmood
Whispers in theatre, 2018
Acrylic on canvas board
29.9 ins x 24 ins 76 cms x 61 cms
Auction work
Estimate: $800–900

Below is an excerpt from an interview in View the Vibe of the couple, and how they founded the Mosaic festival in 2006.

This year's event took place on August 3 and August 4, 2018

...Arshad and Asma Mahmood decided it was high time Mississauga had more high-profile arts and cultural events that reflected the backgrounds and interests of the city’s inhabitants. Along with a group of like minded friends they established the Canadian Community Arts Initiative (CCAI), and, soon after, Mosaic, a SouthAsian multidisciplinary arts festival, was born [in 2006].
[Source: Tastemakers: Ashad and Asma Mahmood, View the Vibe Magazine, July 21, 2014

From TD Mosaic web page:

Mosaic is supported by the City of Mississauga and has received funding from Department of Canadian Heritage, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Province of Ontario, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Tourism.

Beauty and Aesthetics Matter Quite a Bit

Church of the Holy Innocents
128 West 37th Street
New York

---

Ms. Asrat,

I really enjoy your blog. It’s changed how I think and that doesn’t happen
every day. I’ve begun drawing and pl[a]ying music again after a long hiatus
because you’ve convinced me that beauty and aesthetics do matter, and they
matter quite a bit. I’ve been back in school for civil engineering for a
year now, I was hoping to find out what makes these people tick, these
people who make these hideous things, and to see if there was anything I
could do about it.

[...]

Have you been to a traditional Latin high mass at the Church of the Holy
Innocents in Midtown Manhattan?

Thanks for making so much grist for the mill,

D...

------------

Dear D...

Thanks so much for your encouraging words. Yes beauty and aesthetics matter quite a bit!

[...]

I haven't been to the Church of the Holy Innocents, although I am sure I have walked past it. I'm sure I remember seeing the beautiful exterior and walking up to have a closer look. And the name sounds very familiar.

[...]

Keep up the studies. Despite all the ugly buildings, there is a wealth of information available through schools and libraries, and we can make our own creations. Don't be discouraged by the direction your professors will undoubtedly take, which is to teach you how to build those ugly buildings (you might even get some Fs!). But once you're done, you can forge ahead and build those beautiful buildings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kidist

Non-Festive Copper

Simons Department Store, Mississauga
Main Entrance With Christmas Decorations
[Photo By: KPA]

The Square One Mall is slowly getting its X-Mas decorations up. So far, there is plenty of gold and yellow and red and green.

But there is a trend in dark copper.

I've never seen a full-on copper only decoration. Even when mixed with other metallic colors, it is usually very subdued (and minimal), and with a tint of gold rather than the red I'm seeing.

Here's someone who purposefully decorated in copper, but toned it down wth gold and silver.


Why the dark copper in Simons' display window? And notice the burgundy background, and the mannequins in non-festive drab metal grey, lusterless white, and black.

The contemporary world started off by denouncing Christmas ("holiday" became the go-to word). But now Christmas is back.You cannot change the calendar. December 25 is still Christmas. But what contemporary culture has done is to remove as much of the religious and christian celebration that surrounds Christmas to make it into another event, another "holiday," on the calendar.

And who can refuse a glass of eggnog, or a twinkling Christmas tree, or carols about snow and sleighs (or even baby Jesus)?

But the importance of Christmas is still viscerally felt, and it is palpable wherever we go. Christ doesn't disappear by a wave of a wand (or the ordinance of City Hall). We will feel his presence even if the mall decides to give us dark copper instead of shining gold.

And besides, not ALL the mall is doom and gloom. There are still plenty of places to get the spirit of the holiday. And a beautiful carol does sneak through the censors and programmers, and we can hear "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" on the speakers, which we can hum to as we go through shops drinking a Starbucks eggnog latte.

It came upon a midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
“Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,
From heaven’s all-gracious King.”
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O’er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o’er its Babel sounds
The blessèd angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!

For lo!, the days are hastening on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the age of gold
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

Clock Tower

Mississauga City Hall Clock Tower
(9am November 20, 2018)
[Photo By: KPA]

Entry Into Winter

Glass wall at the entrance to the Jubilee Garden, Mississauga
November 20, 2018
[Photo By: KPA]

Winter Entrance

Glass wall at the entrance to the Jubilee Garden, Mississauga
November, 20 2018
[Photo By: KPA]

"Help Ethiopia in her renaissance"

Addis Ababa

An email I sent to my brother who is now visiting Ethiopia along with my parents:

M---, you should observe and study very carefully what the Chinese are up to. Their economy is on shaky grounds. They are using Ethiopia as launching ground for their cheap labour and cheap manufacturing plans into the African continent. They are militarily threatening nearby Asian countries which don't follow their lead. We mustn't let Ethiopia, and its intelligent and industrious people, become one of the "satellite" countries from where they build their African manufacturing and geopolitical base.

Here in Mississauga (and of course in Toronto) they have their "billionaires" (from cheap goods manufactured in countries like Ethiopia) invest in the condo real estate market at million-dollar auctions, and thereby artificially skewing (up) housing prices.

There are other allies Ethiopia can pursue and establish: Germans, French, Americans, Canadians. The possibilities are endless.

Help Ethiopia in her renaissance.

K---

French Patisserie

I finished baking these late last night. It didn't take long: about 20 minutes for preparation and another 15 for baking. They are supposed to be turnovers but I can't quite get the shape right so I just "turn over" the pastry to adequately cover the mixture inside.

And the inside is:
- Thinly sliced pears
- Lindt hazelnut chocolate
- Liqueur St-Germain, an elderflower liqueur from France.
I got a 50ml bottle at the liquor store for about $5. They often put items at 50-60% sale which they want to get rid off (sitting in their stock room for too long?) In any case it has a slightly pear/citrusy taste.
- The juice of one clementine
- Sugar

I mixed the pears, clementine juice, two teaspoons of the liquor and the chocolate and the sugar in a bowl and heated the mixture for about 1 minute in the microwave.

I mixed the heated mixture well and put about a tablespoon in a triangular piece of puff pastry and "turned over" the dough to cover the mixture. Then into the oven for 15 minutes (until golden brown).

The house smells like a French patisserie!

And the pastry? Delicious!

It's OK to Say "Christmas" Now

[Photo By: KPA]

The Christmas tree was going up at the Mississauga Celebration Square on Saturday.

They are now calling it a "Christmas Tree" and not a holiday tree or other such name.

I guess it is safe to have Christmas now since all the holiday elements have been squeezed out of it. There is no Mary, no Jesus, no Nativity, and not even a donkey.

We'll just Have Fun!

Now you can have some some of this Winter Fun and

Get in the Holiday spirit with seasonal fun the whole family can enjoy.

Lace up your skates and hit the ice for the first time this holiday season
Stop by The Cabin to rent your skates and sip on some hot chocolate on the heated patio
Explore the twists and turns of the Candy Cane Forest
Enjoy festive fun from photos with Santa, the Spark Busker Stage, featuring the Jack Frost Snowball Juggling show and Snowflake Kid - Hula Hoop LED Show.
Make a stop at Winter Wonderland and explore kids' fun from roaming entertainment, face painting to our Blinky Lights, light painting photo booth or take in a performance by the Culture Dance Pak.

And in true Santa Spirit, Mayor Bonnie Crombie will hold her very own:

Mayor Crombie's Holiday Food Drive

This year, Mayor Bonnie Crombie will be on-hand at Light Up the Square to officially launch her annual city-wide Holiday Food Drive in support of the Mississauga Food Bank. Get in the festive spirit and help feed a hungry neighbour by bringing along a non-perishable food item for donation. Drop off your donation at the Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services big red truck! For other ways to give, please visit: www.mississaugafoodbank.org

Rup Sidhu of Rup Loops will be there, who is:

an interactive, live looping show, using vocal percussion, rhythmic rhymes and an arsenal of eclectic instruments. Rup utilizes his diverse skills as a musician to create a pulsating, entertaining and engaging musical experience. He is a gifted educator and performer and has a deep passion for intercultural work and intercultural sounds. Through this show he hopes students will gain an understanding and appreciation of our universal language: music.

And The Free Label:

[a] 5-piece blue-suited Pop/RnB band from Toronto, Canada...known for the diversity of their repertoire. Whether it be a prince-inspired funk jam, a stank-face inducing hip hop beat, a pop banger, jazz ballad, or a country anthem - The Free Label can play it all and never stop sounding exactly like The Free Label.

The 5-piece blue suits MIGHT sing some Christmas songs.

Meet you at the Square?

Death Art at the AGM

The banner for Humza Mian's twitter page. Of course, as per the practice of 21st century artists, there is no reference to the image source.

@AGMengage
Nov 16

Want to beat the winter blues? Come warm up tomorrow, Sat 17th Nov 1-3:30 pm with @erumnazk @HumzaMian two LGBTQ artists from Mississauga who will be sharing their brilliance!

And more!

SOUTH ASIAN LGBTQ MEMBERS TO MARCH LOUD AND PROUD IN TORONTO’S 2018 PRIDE PARADE

Haran Vijayanathan (L) and Humza Mian (not partners) are both members of the South Asian LGBTQ community in Toronto. The two recently participated in a photo shoot directed and styled by Saira Hussain from Breath of Henna & The Sai Lens. The initiative was a joint collaboration with Must be Kismet Bridal Show & Magazine. Photo by Banga studios

Read the rest of the twitter theater here

"He Shall Cover Thee With His Feathers"

How Do Buds Survive Winter?

The bud scales of magnolia trees are...covered with soft, silver hairs
that look a little bit like a fur coat and help insulate the buds from the cold.

Winter Protection
"He shall cover thee with his feathers"

[Photos By: KPA]
Jubilee Garden, Mississauga
November 17, 2018

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Psalm 91:

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
4 He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
8 Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.
9 Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
10 There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
12 They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
14 Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.
16 With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

Dawn in a Snowstorm

[Photo By: KPA]

The Truth Shall Be Revealed (Hopefully)

Michelle Obama has written her memoir. I won't buy it, but I will certainly read/watch the commentary around it. And there is plenty of that!

What I could glean from an interview I watched is that MO had a miscarriage then the two Obama girls were obtained through IVF

Here's what I wrote to a correspondent:

Have you heard about Michelle Obama's memoir that just came out? The fascinating thing is that their (hers and Barack's) two daughters were born via IVF. Remember Larry's theory that Michelle was some kind of transvestite/transgender male with a sex change to be female? And the running story that Obama is gay?

Michelle, in a recent interview I watched (I saw her memoir in the bookstore), talks about her "miscarriage" before having the two daughters. She can say whatever she wants and there are enough (paid and implicated) people who will corroborate with this story. But the IVF part is fascinating. You can't hide that, especially with TWO results.

And here's a funny (and at times tongue in cheek) post on MO at Larry Auster's View from the Right (I've posted the article and the dialogue below).

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Looking at that photo of Michelle (from the website StyleList), I’m reminded of a line from Bernard Shaw’s one-act play about Shakespeare, The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, in which Shakespeare says, “There are two sorts of women—those with excellent voices, sweet and low, and cackling hens that cannot make me dream.”
Well, Michelle in that photo not only cannot make me dream, she’s like a figure in a nightmare—or a horror movie, Michelle, Part VI.

View From the Right - end of initial entry -

Comments:

Roger G. writes:

What do you have against vicious, hulking, Marxist monsters?

LA replies:

They scare me, man.

Roger replies:

You’re just jealous of her delts.

Daniel H. writes:

I don’t find Michelle Obama unattractive at all. For her age, she looks pretty good. Correct, she is a bit muscular about the shoulders and neck, but she has a pleasant mien and is not grossly overweight. And she dresses well. More importantly, by all appearances she is a dutiful, faithful wife and mother. If she were not a leftist with racial grievances she would make a fine first lady.

LA replies:

A bit muscular around the shoulders and neck? She has the musculature of a male body builder.
And what about that powerful right hip and thigh, lurching forward menacingly in that tight skirt? She looks like Yeats’s rough beast, moving its slow thighs, slouching toward Bethlehem, while all about it reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

She has this large, disconcertingly masculine body, but instead of covering it up with feminine clothes, she wears tight outfits that bring out her oversized musculature. It’s unnatural and freaky. She is to womanhood what her husband’s presidency is to America.

Patrick H. writes:

I agree with Daniel H. that Michelle O. is not unattractive or ugly in any obvious sense. But she is a great big hulking muscular being, really quite imposing in some ways, and in no way feminine. What troubles me about Michelle O. is that she is so graceless and clumsy-looking, with a kind of heavy, intrusive, arm-swinging massiveness about her. Since I am a fascistic global-warming-denying racist sexist homophobic conservative, I can say that black women, while usually far too large for my tastes, can sometimes exhibit a kind of feline lightness in their movements, a graceful sensuous presence in the way they hold themselves. But Michelle O is utterly lacking in lightness, grace or poise and seems to me curiously sexless and physically unappealing. She deserves to be called a “handsome woman,” not a beautiful one.

And surly looking or what? Man … she seems ready to tackle you, or maybe knee you in the groin. One expects the next words out of her mouth to be, “Hey, whachoo lookinat?”

In an earlier communication with you, I called her the First Linebacker, and shared an anticipatory wince with you at the prospect of four years of having her hyped as a new ideal of beauty, Michelle O. to replace our old ideal First Lady Jackie (later O.). I can say that Michelle seems to have been downgraded in the glamour sweepstakes, perhaps because of the emergence of Carla Bruni, whom Michelle seems to detest and fear and envy. In any case, no one seems any more to be hammering at us that we have to think that Michelle is beautiful and desirable and feminine or else be considered hopelessly racist. Perhaps there’s hope for us yet. Perhaps the reign of plasticized fake-breasted porno-chicks on the one hand and over-exercised muscular Amazonian behemoths on the other is finally, blessedly coming to an end.

Maybe we’ll be able to say again, “Cherchez la femme!” without laughing. I have a dream!

LA replies:

For this great comment, you get a standing “O.” (pun intended).

Michael Mc writes:

I must say that I find your denunciation of Michelle Obama’s appearance spectacularly ugly and untraditional.

Would this have appeared in an Edwardian paper? In an American paper from 1950?

LA replies:

I’m doing what I always do, which is try to find words to convey the truth of things as I see them, within the bounds of decency. Do you seriously expect me in the year 2010, responding to the spectacle of weird hostile aliens in the White House and the government, to write about it as would an Edwardian in 1910 or an American newspaper in 1950? I’m not in general an admirer of the journalism of invective, but anything I write along those lines at this site is extremely mild compared to styles of invective that have been common in the West for centuries.

LA continues:

Also, there is a place in traditionalism for the vigorous and the rude, as long as it’s kept in its place. How did comedy begin in ancient Athens, but as pretty raw stuff? And that’s part of our tradition too. (Not that VFR does anything raw—this is not a Game site, after all.) But there is a place for the expression of such emotions as disgust and ridicule, especially when directed at “leaders” who are involved in a hostile takeover of this country. The Psalms have every kind of emotion including hatred and hoping for the ruin of enemies. Those are not the most elevated emotions, but they are part of what we are, and there is a place for them to be expressed, within bounds.

Michael Mc replies:

I did think for a minute, before writing what I did, that the western tradition of political invective is far more developed than the current cries for “bipartisanship” let on—but I stuck with my criticism because of the following suspicion:

As the culture continues to coarsen and decline, as the murky water sinks, let us say, dragging the fronds and foam down with it, one island that will begin appear more prominent will be that of the traditionalists, and one of our most conspicuous qualities will be a comparative lack of sexual coarseness, or rather, of coarseness between the sexes.

While your comments are nothing compared to current standards, neither do they make this difference as conspicuous as I might prefer.

LA replies:

Interesting point, but, just to make sure we’re on the same page, how have I expressed sexual coarseness in the Michelle discussion?

Michael Mc replies:

You wrote:

Also, there is a place in traditionalism for the vigorous and the rude, as long as it’s kept in its place. How did comedy begin in ancient Athens, but as pretty raw stuff? And that’s part of our tradition too.

Point taken—one mustn’t mistake traditionalism for mere fussiness. I still, however, think that commenting on this woman’s appearance in this manner doesn’t make much of a point, at least when considered next to the possible charges it opens us up to.

LA replies:

This is an issue that has come up from time to time. While some people disagree with me on this, I and others think that commenting on the physical appearance of public figures is legitimate. A society expresses itself through the personae, the manners, the dress, of its members, particularly its leading public figures who are the models that others follow. A conservatism that declines to comment on that dimension of human society is not looking at the whole. A major problem with American conservatism is its abstractness, treating society as though it were a collection of principles. But a society is a living, organic thing, and right now the living organic thing that is our society is very sick and distorted, but conservatives are largely blind to this cultural and life-style dimension of liberal society because they themselves are a part of it.

Gary Moe writes:

Michelle Obama as one of the “Three First Ladies of the West?” More like the third Williams sister (as in Venus and Serena), if you ask me.

Michael Mc replies:

You wrote:

“how have I expressed sexual coarseness in the Michelle discussion?”

The idea that Michelle is too masculine or unattractive to be considered a “First Lady” in the sense of Carla or Samantha, and must rather be treated as an abberant form relating to cultural collapse (as the Yeats quote implies) is, to my eyes, an over-the-bounds speculation into the sexual and married life of the current President.

LA replies:

I did not intend any speculation into the private married life of the president and his wife. That wasn’t part of my thought. I was commenting on the public persona and the physicality of Michelle O., and particularly on its impact on me, not on the impact of her private persona and physicality on her husband, which is something I would rather not think about.

Michael Mc replies:

Fair enough. This is certainly one of the more interesting boundaries and discussions that a traditional stance will introduce and engender.

Roger G. writes:

My apology to Michael Mc - I’m sorry that Michelle Obama is a vicious, hulking, Marxist monster.

Roger G. writes:

And if I’m going to keep reading your site, you’ll have to censor all hints of the Obamas’ sexual activity. The flapping ears, the trapezius rhythmically flexing and unflexing - it’s like contemplating Charles Johnson’s modern art.

LA replies:

Roger is referring to this entry: The profound thought process of Charles Johnson; and a discussion of H.R. Giger

Richard O. writes:

I just don’t see what someone’s appearance has to do with anything. To me, Michele looks quite elegant and has nice lines and a nice smile. Chacun a son gout, and all that.
I have my doubts about where her and her husband’s hearts lie and long for the day for them to be gone but I think a simple line to draw is between public conduct and speech one side and appearance and private life on the other.

I check your site five times a day to see what new insights you come up with. I just don’t think I learn anything useful from a discussion about appearance.

LA replies:

For the most part, we’re not talking here simply about a person’s physical features and body type, but the person, how that person is presenting herself to the world. Michelle doesn’t just happen to be disconcertingly large and muscular, she dresses and moves in a way that pushes those qualities forward. And because she is the most visible woman in America and setting trends and so on, that is a legitimate topic.

But even if we were talking only about physical appearance, people’s physical appearance is part of what they are, and is naturally of interest when we’re talking of public people who are being put before us every day.

At the same time, you are right. It’s subjective. Your reaction to Michelle—she’s elegant—will be different from my reaction—she’s threatening-looking—and therefore the meaning I find in that photo will not be the meaning that you find, and no argument can bridge that gap. So I acknowledge that this is a lower-level discussion than a purely intellectual discussion. However, those who have more or less the same subjective reaction to Michelle that I have will find my comments meaningful.

Richard O. replies:

Fair enough. She seems to have an odd walk, I admit. Merely to look at either of those freaks is to be reminded of the morons who voted them there.