War Games installation displaying
"Surrealist, Conceptualist and Minimalist works by 12 artists,
including Anders Ruhwald, Hannah Perry, Simon Denny and Yngve Holden." [source]
I've said for a long time that modern men are doubters. They will acknowledge in some civilizational manner the presence of God, or at least the tradition of God, but waiver around their committment to God.
Of course, it starts with the requisite "Auster was prickly" introduction. Why bother with that? And, in reality, who isn't prickly, some more so than others?
But the crunch of the article is here:
Auster counters that without a “publicly authoritative moral understanding,” individuals have no way to understand their social role. Nations are unable to define, defend, or preserve themselves. Thus, he makes the startling claim that “the grounding of rights in nothing beyond the whim of the individual leads directly to open borders and multiculturalism.”
And a little later on:
Auster argues that, while there may be conceivable “non-Christian ways of rebuilding a normal sense of peoplehood and racial identity among whites,” it can only really happen through the “rediscovery of the classical and Christian understanding that we Westerners have lost.” He argues that a Western worldview, which he attempts to define, gives us a way to “see reality whole,” placing values into their “natural rank and order” instead of destroying ourselves by trying to make “human values into gods.”
In other words, Auster says that without the underlying morality of God, a cohesive Western worldview is not possible.
But James Kirkpatrick, the author of the VDare article, subtly disclaims this by adding other doubters in the mix:
Of course, others like Oswald Spengler have argued Christianity itself inevitably led to the kind of liberalism Auster decries. Tom Holland’s recent book Dominion makes the same case from a more positive perspective. Auster doesn’t really confront this possibility.
No, because Auster has recognized the inherent difficulties Christians have when following the words of Christ, having critiqued the two major bodies of Christianity, Catholicism and Protestanism, as Kirkpatrick himself writes in his article:
Besides attacking liberal Protestantism, Auster accuses the Roman Catholic Church (to which he nevertheless converted shortly before his death) of adopting “the very heresy of modernism” it had once condemned, putting “man’s well-being” and the “dignity of man” at the center of the Faith. Instead of recognizing man’s basic sinfulness, it celebrates the “cult of man,” symbolized by the post-Vatican II practice of the priest facing the congregation than the altar when he consecrates the host.
I wrote this as one of my many proposals (and still going) from my book project Reclaiming Beauty: Saving Our Western Civilization
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.
When nations practice true Christianity, they are not at war with God, and will not let the horrors of ugliness fill their world, as I write later in the article, by
...putting “man’s well-being” and the “dignity of man” at the center of the Faith. [Auster]
Without God, there is no dignity, and the "dignity of man" crumbles into dust, sooner or later. Man's well-being becomes the be-all of existence. And what does this mean? Gourmet dinners? Vacations to Paris? Extra large popcorn at the movies? Churches converted into museums?
Here is a post I wrote in Larry Auster's VFR, commenting on a discussion on beauty and ugliness:
There is something holy about beauty. We react to it in a reverential manner. We attribute it, at our best, to God. We realize when we see someone beautiful, it is not necessarily what the person did, but some preferred state he is in. A truly beautiful person, or thing, is a little frightening, a little other-worldly. Beautiful works of art are also hard to achieve. It takes time, training, skill, talent and some mysterious spirit to create a beautiful work of art. Not any ordinary person can create something beautiful. An ugly painting is immediately recognized for its slovenly quality. Also artists can create beautifully ugly pieces, but the beauty is a channel to alleviate the ugly story, incident, or place. That is why people have such a hard time with beautifully made horror films, for example. A beautifully made horror film is like the work of the devil (i.e. it is evil), as though the devil is using the tools of beauty to lure us into his world.
War Games installation displaying
"Surrealist, Conceptualist and Minimalist works by 12 artists,
including Anders Ruhwald, Hannah Perry, Simon Denny and Yngve Holden." [source]
I've said for a long time that modern men are doubters. They will acknowledge in some civilizational manner the presence of God, or at least the tradition of God, but waiver around their committment to God.
Of course, it starts with the requisite "Auster was prickly" introduction. Why bother with that? And, in reality, who isn't prickly, some more so than others?
But the crunch of the article is here:
Auster counters that without a “publicly authoritative moral understanding,” individuals have no way to understand their social role. Nations are unable to define, defend, or preserve themselves. Thus, he makes the startling claim that “the grounding of rights in nothing beyond the whim of the individual leads directly to open borders and multiculturalism.”
And a little later on:
Auster argues that, while there may be conceivable “non-Christian ways of rebuilding a normal sense of peoplehood and racial identity among whites,” it can only really happen through the “rediscovery of the classical and Christian understanding that we Westerners have lost.” He argues that a Western worldview, which he attempts to define, gives us a way to “see reality whole,” placing values into their “natural rank and order” instead of destroying ourselves by trying to make “human values into gods.”
In other words, Auster says that without the underlying morality of God, a cohesive Western worldview is not possible.
But James Kirkpatrick, the author of the VDare article, subtly disclaims this by adding other doubters in the mix:
Of course, others like Oswald Spengler have argued Christianity itself inevitably led to the kind of liberalism Auster decries. Tom Holland’s recent book Dominion makes the same case from a more positive perspective. Auster doesn’t really confront this possibility.
No, because Auster has recognized the inherent difficulties Christians have when following the words of Christ, having critiqued the two major bodies of Christianity, Catholicism and Protestanism, as Kirkpatrick himself writes in his article:
Besides attacking liberal Protestantism, Auster accuses the Roman Catholic Church (to which he nevertheless converted shortly before his death) of adopting “the very heresy of modernism” it had once condemned, putting “man’s well-being” and the “dignity of man” at the center of the Faith. Instead of recognizing man’s basic sinfulness, it celebrates the “cult of man,” symbolized by the post-Vatican II practice of the priest facing the congregation than the altar when he consecrates the host.
I wrote this as one of my many proposals (and still going) from my book project Reclaiming Beauty: Saving Our Western Civilization
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.
When nations practice true Christianity, they are not at war with God, and will not let the horrors of ugliness fill their world, as I write later in the article, by
...putting “man’s well-being” and the “dignity of man” at the center of the Faith. [Auster]
Without God, there is no dignity, and the "dignity of man" crumbles into dust, sooner or later. Man's well-being becomes the be-all of existence. And what does this mean? Gourmet dinners? Vacations to Paris? Extra large popcorn at the movies? Churches converted into museums?
Here is a post I wrote in Larry Auster's VFR, commenting on a discussion on beauty and ugliness:
There is something holy about beauty. We react to it in a reverential manner. We attribute it, at our best, to God. We realize when we see someone beautiful, it is not necessarily what the person did, but some preferred state he is in. A truly beautiful person, or thing, is a little frightening, a little other-worldly. Beautiful works of art are also hard to achieve. It takes time, training, skill, talent and some mysterious spirit to create a beautiful work of art. Not any ordinary person can create something beautiful. An ugly painting is immediately recognized for its slovenly quality. Also artists can create beautifully ugly pieces, but the beauty is a channel to alleviate the ugly story, incident, or place. That is why people have such a hard time with beautifully made horror films, for example. A beautifully made horror film is like the work of the devil (i.e. it is evil), as though the devil is using the tools of beauty to lure us into his world.
I finished taking a series of photographs of this man doing his spiritual thing in front of Lake Ontario, walked around and took some photographs of geese and seagulls, and was walking off, when he followed me as I left the park into the parking area.
I said "Hello" and asked him if he was doing yoga.
"No. Shi Gong." he replied pleasantly.
"Is that Korean?"
"No it is a form of Chinese meditation."
"Great. Have a good day."
He was in his element. Social Distancing gives him all the time in the world (now that he's most likely not working) to spiritualize before nature, with foreign gods as his reference.
I typed "Shi Gong" as phonetically as I could, and I got Qiqong, and here is what I found (I've separated the paragraph into points for easier reading):
- Qigong (/ˈtʃiːˈɡɒŋ/),[1] qi gong, chi kung, or chi gung (simplified Chinese: 气功; traditional Chinese: 氣功; pinyin: qìgōng; Wade–Giles: ch‘i kung; literally: 'life-energy cultivation') is a centuries-old system of coordinated body-posture and movement, breathing, and meditation used for the purposes of health, spirituality, and martial-arts training.
- With roots in Chinese medicine, philosophy, and martial arts, qigong is traditionally viewed by the Chinese and throughout Asia as a practice to cultivate and balance qi (pronounced approximately as "chi"), translated as "life energy".
- Qigong practice typically involves moving meditation, coordinating slow-flowing movement, deep rhythmic breathing, and a calm meditative state of mind.
- People practice qigong throughout China and worldwide for recreation, exercise, relaxation, preventive medicine, self-healing, alternative medicine, meditation, self-cultivation, and training for martial arts.
- Because clinical research on qigong for its potential benefit in treating various diseases – such as hypertension, pain, and cancer – has been inconclusive due to poor quality, there remains no evidence that qigong has any therapeutic effect, as of 2016.
- Qi means "breath" or "air" and is considered the "vital-life-force" or "life-force energy."
- Qigong practitioners believe that this vital-life-force penetrates and permeates everything in the universe.
- It corresponds to the Greek "pneuma," the Sanskrit "prana," or the Western medical conception of "bioelectricity."
- Gong means "work" or "effort" and is the commitment an individual puts into any practice or skill that requires time, patience, and repetition to perfect.
- Through study, the individual aims to develop the ability to manipulate Qi in order to promote self-healing, prevent disease, and increase longevity.
Fantastic, I can promote "self-heling, prevent disease and increase longevity" in this time of the COVID simply by breathing strategically. COVID, at this rate, will be gone in no time!
Now that churches have been closed, what better way to invoke those spiritual forces than with a "calm meditative state of mind," to "promote self-healing, prevent disease, and increase longevity."
The COVID-SCARE is doing a great job of alienating people from God. And it is doing a fantastic job of exposing those that work towards that alienation. This particular man, in his skull cap and dark gear, standing before the beautiful Lake Ontario, is one such.
Our task, our mission, is to absolutely refuse this removal of God, internally and spiritually. We cannot let God be separated from us. We must watch, observe and understand what the greater objective is, besides impoverishing us materially. It is the far more important, and deadly, one of impoverishing us spiritually.
Going to the Other Side
(Lanvin's Spring/Summer fashion ad)
[Notice that the image on the right looks like a mirror image of that on the left (or vice versa)], but it isn't. I tried to do a mirror image match of the woman in pink with photoshop, but couldn't. And the light reflecting on the snake's head on the right isn't on the snake's head on the left.
Lanvin is literally taking us to the "other side," the alternate reality, where things look the same, but aren't.]
Eve seems to be a recurring theme in fashion magazines (and fashion) these days. Recently, I blogged about the fashion house Blumarine, and its use of a female model in close association with a snake, from the snake skin attire that she was wearing to a strange conversion of her persona into that of a snake.
Lanvin seems to be on a zealous mission to bring Eve and the snake to the forefront, even more so than Blumarine. The March 2012 Vogue issue has a three-page Lanvin fashion ad where snakes are everywhere. Some (a few) are cleverly incorporated into the women's clothing and accessories, not as patterns nor their skin as the material for the clothing, but as sculpted three dimensional forms, almost alive in their sinewy presence. Most of the snakes, though, are crawling through the pages.
The writhing snakes are always in close proximity to a woman, and their relation to the males seems to be dictated by the women. For example, the complete version of the Eve/Snake shoots, available online here, has a sado-masochistic bondage scene. A man is lying down with his hand tied down with a snake while a woman threateningly brings a snake close to his face, as though to release the snake's poison on the man.
Where the man is holding a snake, he seems to have less control over it. Some snakes wrap themselves around a man's wrist or arm, acting as handcuffs or ropes to tie him down. Others slither across men's bodies (shoulders, arms, legs).
The women are sinewy and active, while the men are sitting or standing stiffly, like lifeless mannequins (a role reversal, since we are used to seeing female mannequins). And the men are often positioned lower than the women, reinforcing the female dominance.
The women's faces in all the photos are fully exposed. And despite their similar looks, with sleeked back hair (to resemble the snake), they still have distinct, strong personalities. The men have stunned expressions, and their hardened features are not as strong or as confident as the women's. In the image at the beginning of the post, the men are anonymous, their faces covered with masks to erase their identity and individuality.
[Close-up of the top image, showing men's masked faces]
The women are not interested in seducing the men, despite their provocative, aggressively female dress and posture, but in subduing them.
The sinewy, domineering women seem to have become snakes themselves. And having stunned the men into wooden passivity, they crawl all over them at their pleasure.
The snake has made woman his ultimate accomplice. And she has taken her complicity to the final level, where she is renouncing herself to become like, or be one with, the snake.
The Lanvin ads, with their clever associations, have made woman the protagonist in their images. This is easy to accept since women are always dominant in fashion shoots, fashion is about women. In the imagination of fashion photography, and in women’s fashion fantasies, modern sex relations can resume where the Garden of Eden ended. Eve finally does take over.
Celebration Square Skating Rink
Photo By KPA
January 13. 2019
The skating rink at the Celebration Square in Mississauga blasts music which can be heard a distance away.
And now that the Christmas Season is officially over, the music that the skaters can move to has turned to heavy metal rock music. Even during the holiday season, there were no Christmas songs (how about Jingle Bells) or other less sacred music, but which still have the holiday spirit? We had contemporary pop music of endless "love songs" with sexual and even pornographc conotations, which is now the norm for such music.
But this heavy metal is sinister and evil, where little children innocently move along the ice while the Devil's voice is blasted through the speakers.
I tuned into the Golden Globes yesterday, not for the awards but for what the awardees would do and say. At one time, I would tune in to watch the fashion, but it is no longer so interesting. What has happened is that all these "equality now" "feminists" are hypocrites. They parade around in ten-thousand-dollar ball gowns by star designers as they mouth out their #MeToo proclamations. I can learn about fashion by going to my local department store and reading my monthly Elle.
I wasn't disappointed.
The most fascinating was Sandra Oh.
Sandra Oh in Killing Eve
She is currently starring in a television production called Killing Eve. Just the name of the series alone is disconcerting. Everyone, even the non-Christians, know that Eve is the name given to Adam's mate in the Genesis account. Eve of course betrays Adam and disobeys God with her complicity with the serpent.
God never killed Eve, but rather he banished her, along wth her foolish conspirator Adam, to life outside of paradise, a life of hardship, nothing like the life they led in His Holy Garden.
What exactly is Killing Eve and what is Oh doing in it?
Killing Eve follows the intertwining lives of two women – Eve (Sandra Oh), a quick-witted but bored MI5 security services operative whose desk job conflicts with her ambitions of being a spy, and Villanelle (Jodie Comer), a polished, highly skilled killer-for-hire, who enjoys the rich benefits that come from her violent career. As the two fiercely intelligent women go head to head, they become equally obsessed and entangled with one another in a combination of brutal mischief making, sharp humour, and high-stakes action. [Source: Bravo.ca]
Since I haven't watched nor plan to watch this latest installment in evil TV programming, I will reference a viewer who wrote:
Not dramatic or thrilling. I thought after Sandra Oh was nominated for an Emmy that this show would be worth watching. Not the case. The plot started out Ok but quickly went downhill. The production was awful. Comedic for no good reason. Horrible soundtrack of hip and rock music for no good reason. Lesbian love scenes for no good reason. Sandra Oh as a sorta-spy in non-Asian countries-totally stupid. The script was just horrible. Every character is over the top for no good reason. The only things good about this show were the location scenes. Otherwise. It's a dud and a total waste of time waiting for it to "get good." And the ending?? Ugh. Just a ploy to make another boring season. I think this show must have been created to find a way to use Sandra Oh. Keep looking! She's a very tired looking spy. Not at all compelling or interesting in this genre. Seems that only France, Israel, the Uk, and the Nordic Noir folks can make dramatic and thrilling spy/crime/political shows that keep you on the edge of your seat. [From: bjnordin-828-626007 commenting on IMBD]
And another:
There is no message, no meaning this a l'art pour l'art thing. Except romanticizing senseless human suffering and bloodshed is in no way an original, exciting or even acceptable form or art. If this were a satire, some black comedy that would be entirely different but the show is just too serious to be perceived as such. Humour here is just part of the makers' plot to try and manipulate the viewers' sense of ethics and decency into seeing monstrosity when mixed with aesthetics as something cool. Well it's not. [From: gabor_nb]
And another:
People wake up screaming at the top of their lungs. Targets of low budget assassinations ask "Why me?" and the star of the show says "I don't know." Shock for the sake of shock.
This show is about vapid, soul-less, sickening characters, and the cynical concept that if there is nothing to show, the audience will try to figure out the mystery. The joke here is that there is nothing behind the curtain. The characters have no human values. Pointless cruelty and death are the focus of this show. Killing Eve is degrading to the human spirit. This is just crass and trash.
The main writer for this show said that they do not do backgrounds for each character. That is lazy writing. This is an incredibly awful series about characters that nobody should care about, and stupid situations that end badly.[From: Johnny_West]
And another:
Men begging for their lives. men brutally murdered. men are stupid and amount to nothing. this series is a feminist wetdream. btw, the assassin isnt psychotic, she is a mary sue [From battever]
And what is a "mary sue?"
Mary Sue is a negative term used in fanfiction and literary criticism to describe an original character that is often overly idealized or assumed to be a projection of the author. When used by a male author, the character is referred to as a Gary Stu or Marty Stu. [From: Know Your Meme]
And another definition of a "mary sue:"
‘Mary Sue’ protagonist are hotly debated. What can be agreed is that it started its life in fan fiction circles, where it was used to suggest that a protagonist was a thinly veiled version of the author, allowing them to insert an idealized self into the story. [From: Standout Books]
That captures Oh perfectly, and especially her performance at the Globes last night.
Firstly Oh is the one "killing Eve," the Western, Christian Biblical female. She usurps God's role to do it for Him, but with a particular reference to her own non-Christian, non-Western background.
All non-Westerners are now openly antagonistic towards Western culture, and whites. They of course are led by the traitorous whites themselves who hate their own people, their own culture, and their own country. The parasites are from within. And non-Western immigrants and the children of these non-Western immigrants born within these Western shores are simply following this lead. If whites were not so intent on destroying themselves, these others wouldn't have the cracks in the system to enter and continue with the havoc (or the agenda).
One powerful and fundamental way to destroy destroy Western Civilization is by destroying Christianity.
"We (non-Christians, non-Westerners) will destroy the myths and stories that built Western society, and lets start with the first female herself.
We like Eve because she disobeyed God. But she didn't go far enough. She is still part of that legend. We have to remove her entirely, by showcasing her violent nature which we can use to our advantage for her to wreck more havoc.
We will kill her off and install our own gods and goddesses, but with her spirit in mind, her betrayal.
We will kill Eve to resurrect her with our own image."
Forget Oh's "#MeToo" moment, and her "look at us now in all these hues and colors" rhetoric while receiving the golden award. She doesn't really care about feminism (that western-produced ideology), nor about multiculturalism, nor really about other cultures other than their usefulness to her agenda. She was married to white man after all, that race she purports to disdain. But marrying white still pays dividends for an immigrant's offspring, and she seems to date only white men. She has bigger agenda, a bigger mission, a bigger world to conquer. She wants to rid of the whites, the true enemy.
Boyfriend, Indie Musician Andrew Featherston in 2007
Current boyfriend, Russian immigrant (came as a child to the US) artist Lev Rukhin
And finally, she can establish her own Korea-Away-Form-Korea land, where she can bow to her parents and her gods with impunity. And where she can be more Korean than even her own Catholic parents, which is exactly what her parents desired, and subtly instilled in her when they packed their bags and came to Canada: "Our Children will not forget our ancestors, our ways."
Welcome to a glimpse at the Brave New World of America and Canada.
Invocation of the gods
What happened?
Image Source: From Article: "Why Sandra Oh Meditates on Mindful.Org
[Oh] practices Vipassana, a Buddhist form of meditation that’s interpreted as “seeing deeply.”
And Oh sees all of it — acting, meditating, waiting, even this very conversation between us
— as an extension of the same practice, an attempt to operate from a place
where you’re fully grounded within yourself, of “finding that authentic kernel.” [Source: "The Protagonist After decades in supporting parts, Emmy nominee Sandra Oh plays the hero in Killing Eve." Vulture Magazine]
If we are to save our civilization we have to put a higher standard to the words we use.
Words are the outward manifestation of our thoughts (and feelings) and sometimes (and more often than not) display our own particular truths, how we see the world.
Wars have started because of words. Unions have been broken because of words, and sometimes even just one word. And as my google spell check tells me, unions have been "born" (a clumsy effort at correcting my misspelt bron "broken") because of words .
At a recent entry at the Orthosphere, Kristor writes: Be Not Afraid.
And proceeds with a long article on how God is there for us.
But somewhere in the middle he slips:
If God exists, the battle is won already.
If
If God exists.
God's wrath is palpable in this time of those who deign to doubt.
He that is not with me is against me
Matthew 12:30
In my most recent post, Paris Would Show Me Her Beauty, I quote Theodore Dalrymple as well as post a full article by him, surprised that someone should understand how my 9-year-old self felt about the looping peripheral roads that surround Paris.
I was trying to illustrate my impressions (and feelings) as we arrived in Paris and traveled through the strands of autoroutes to get to our apartment in the center of Paris.
I had googled 'peripherique' and got to Dalrymple's article somehow. I used to read his on City Journal, but soon tired of his prison stories. I haven't read any of his articles for years now.
Well if I am to post a full article by him on my blog, I should really know more about him, and one way to do so would be to buy one of his (many) books.
And why not his most recent, which is a co-authorship with Kenneth Francis titled: The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd, and just came out on December 10, 2018?
There is not really much about the authors other than their literary achievements on these book-selling sites, so I went to good old reliable Wikipedia to find out more.
There is a lot there, but here's what caught my attention:
[Dalrymple] is an atheist, but has criticised anti-theism and says that "to regret religion [...] is to regret our civilisation and its monuments, its achievements, and its legacy". Raised in a non-religious Jewish home, he began doubting the existence of a God at age nine. He became an atheist in response to a moment in a school assembly.
Here he writes (at City Journal once again) about that incident:
I first doubted God’s existence at about the age of nine. It was at the school assembly that I lost my faith. We had been given to understand that if we opened our eyes during prayers God would depart the assembly hall. I wanted to test this hypothesis. Surely, if I opened my eyes suddenly, I would glimpse the fleeing God? What I saw instead, it turned out, was the headmaster, Mr. Clinton, intoning the prayer with one eye closed and the other open, with which he beadily surveyed the children below for transgressions. I quickly concluded that Mr. Clinton did not believe what he said about the need to keep our eyes shut. And if he did not believe that, why should I believe in his God? In such illogical leaps do our beliefs often originate, to be disciplined later in life (if we receive enough education) by elaborate rationalization.
That moment in school assembly - AT AGE NINE! - is when he peeked from a closed-eye school prayer session and saw the Headmaster also peeking!
What intelligent nine-year-old doesn't clumsily confront God because of another clumsy transgression by an adult?
By age 30 this should be simply a "childish transgression" caused by irresponsible (and even perhaps non-believing) adults, and the belief, or non-belief, in God is based on more lofty matters.
But Dalrymple writes this article in 2007 at age fifty-nine! What fifty-nine-old, at the brink of his final meeting with God, makes his nine-year-old experience a pivotal moment in his life regarding his assessment on the presence (or absence) of God? What fifty-nine-old self-acclaimed philosopher does so? The intuition of little children, I suppose, reverse quoting Jesus' "Suffer the Little Children" to the level of blasphemy, and Dalrymple has blasphemed countless of times in his City Journal article.
But being an expert in philosophy, he knows that his non-belief cannot remove God, so wouldn't that make it a reason, the reason, to BELIEVE in God? What Dalrymple does is to leave a small crack for this momentous Being to somehow prove to him that He exists and thus to be worthy of belief. The arrogance of the atheist!
Since my posts are about beauty and art, I was interested in Dalrymple views on beauty and art. But he writes as though beauty appeared out of nowhere, as does his whole premise about life: it came out of nothing.
The arrogance of the atheist!
But it is more than arrogance now. We can ignore arrogance, or cram it into some ivory tower of an Ivy League. But many, ordinary, people read City Journal. And the language is not overly intellectual that many young people (smart school students, for example) can read it too. And there isn't time to go through texts of philosophical discourse, which the likes of Dalrymple spend decades deciphering, so what Dalrymple gives us is it.
Unless, that is, we start printing our own journals, far away from these postmodern centres of thought (and residence) to refute every single word that writers like Dalrymple conjure up, and make his sound like the seasoned wordwizard he is.
After I wrote (re-wrote) this post on Dalrymple, I googled his name further and found that Lawrence Auster of The View from the Right couldn't let pass Dalrymple's nihilistic (I would say Godless) view of our universe, and in one short phrase (amidst several comments by VFR readers related to atheists in general) he writes:
Which is what I say. A sliver of a comment adds to other slivers of comments, and then a whole anti-God thesis is drafted, by people we trust to be our allies.
Which is why we should we start printing our own journals, far away from these postmodern centres of thought (and residence).
"Holiday" Event at Square One: Merry and Bright Holiday Market
[Photo By: KPA]
The Square One Mall retailers refuse to use the word Christmas in the way that it was intentioned.
They've now come up with a "pop up" "market" which consists of various stalls, which they've called a "Holiday Market," which is "Merry and Bright." Yay!
I've been inside, twice, to see if maybe I was missing something.
The last time I was there, I went to some stall (I forget which) and saw a "South Asian" woman, clearly a lesbian, with cropped hair and tattoos all the way down her arms and on her bare breasts (bare upper breasts, but who knows what's going on in the non-visible parts of the rest of her body). I saw all this as she started to talk to me, and I just walked away.
The sponsors of the "market" are listed on the photo above at their site, but the most curious is KIND®, which purports to sell "healthy snacks." But KIND® is still a prepackaged and processed food, and there are no numerical values for the "30% less sugar" (30% less sugar compared to what?) and "low sodium" (see sugar example) on their website.
And KIND® has a "KINDness Tree" in that merry pop-up market where you can "hang a wish" if you so desire. We can do it (be kind and gift-giving, that is) without Jesus and Mary and Joseph and that godforsaken donkey, those nuisance characters in that myth who tend to taken over OUR Holidays. All we need is to OWN it all: The Christmas Tree® and The Christmas Feeling™, and we can enjoy a time of kindness and gift-giving for ALL.
"Be kind" is the motto of our age, and God help you if you're not!
[Note: Partly because of the length of this article and partly that I have other notes to make regarding the topic (ethnic art) for another post, I missed out on some small - mostly typo - errors in the last update. This should be it! Although you will not have missed the point, and message, of the article.]
Meena Chopra, a poet and artist, officially launched her book of poetry and art SHE! The Restless Streak on August 26 at the Mississauga Central Library with Mayor Bonnie Crombie making the introductory presentation.
Above is a view drawings by artist Meena Chopra's She! The Relentless Streak art exhibit on now at the Mississauga Central Library
Below is Meena Chopra with Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie at the book launch for She! The Relentless Streak, a collection of poems and drawings, on Saturday, September 22, 2018
"My art is my search for the moments beyond the ones of self knowledge. It is the rhythmic fantasy; a restless streak which looks for its own fulfillment! A stillness that moves within! An intense search for my origin and ultimate identity". Source: Meena Chopra's Art World
Below is the completed article from my May 25, 2015 draft Meena Chopra's Ephemera: Art in the Multicultural Era
Meena Chopra is the Indian, Third World Goddess that has evoked Mississauga's awe and wonder.
Chopra knows this.
And she and her world are systematically undermining and curtailing the white West's civilization. She says so, clearly, in this presentation:
World is transitioning into a global village where English language is taking the front seat but not in a traditional British, American or any other way. [KPA Note: I suspect the grammatical deficiency might be because these are the notes she was reading at the lecture, but submitting that for publication is lax and lazy.]
She then continues to talk of the "visual" importance of modern-day communications, neglecting to mention the small fact, or covering it up, that she is reciting her poetry in English words, and much more often than her native country's Hindi words.
But, rather than talk about this usurpation of the English language by non-Anglo worlds, and discussing their variations on the English language, including the addition of many non-English words, she deviates from this by writing:
The biggest influence on new English is of the technological culture and the dynamism of the young who are the creative compelling users of technology.
(I should add here that Chopra's written text is probably the notes she was reading from at the presentation. And for a literary person, one would expect the final, public, version of her transcript not to include so many errors).
She says that now, since the English language has become this universal world language, and where the Third World has appropriated it to suit its cultural needs, a new generation is using it in a very different, visual way, and casting aside the scripted, textual language.
Chopra's thesis that language is getting more "visual" is badly developed. She seems to support at times the linguistic idea and at others the visual one. She exemplifies the intellectual laxness of these non-Western sophisticates. But it could be more astute than mere laziness. Her Hindi culture, despite its very well evolved written language, is still a culture of visuals. And with large parts of the population illiterate, or close to illiterate, only the elite educated would be able to read her books. And it is probably the same elite which is educated in advanced English and which could also read her books in English. And there is the major problem in India of the myriad of competing "national" languages. Not all (elite) Indians can speak Hindi fluently, but all elite Indians can speak English fluently (or with close to fluency).
And many elite Indians, including her, have travelled the thousands of miles across oceans to arrive at Canadian shores, manipulating all the tricks in the immigration how-to book, and with full assistance from Canadians themselves.
But these immigrants have come to invade and take over a country which let them in through peaceful acquiescence. Which is the more incredible: that they came at all, abandoning country, culture, peoples and ancestors, for opportunistic gains, or that they were let in without a single fight?
And once here, since their agenda, implicit, complicit, deliberate or instinctive, is a take-over and a transformation of this country so it resembles the one they left behind, they wll be incessant critics of everything Canadian, until things start to change according to their prescriptions. Until things start to look like them.
But what happens when this world does begin to change, and it beings to resemble their native lands? What happens when the sophistications they expect began to erode? What happens, for example, when first-class libraries as the Mississauga Central Library, which shelves their multicultural prize-winning books, is no longer the efficient and organized entity which we all unquestioningly expect it to be, and the literary sophisticates, Indians and whites, can no longer find where their books are stacked, since although the computerized system says "it is there" the book is conspicuously absent from the shelves?
What will they do with their criticisms then, their multicultural agendas, their dismissal and eradication of the culture for which they traveled thousands of miles to make sure that their books were shelved on the right spot in the public library so that people, they, could read them.
The literary textual world, the subject of Chopra's flippant verses, may not come to her rescue. But she is ready for that. She already has her faithful, complicit, visuals ready.
Chopra with at the launch of her book of poems and drawings SHE! The Restless Streak
on September 22 2018 at the Mississauga Central Library,
with the display of the drawings on the background wall
[Image source: Mississauga Library Twitter page]
Marian Kutarna with Chopra, holding Chopra's book of poems Ignited Lines.
Chopra's 2010 poetry reading and book launch
where she recited in Hindi and in English "Adieu to the Dawn" at her book launch
on February 2010 at a Mississauga Central Library event.
Marian Kutarna, then manager of the History & Art department (now manager of library circulation), says, after Chopra read one of her poems in Hindi:
"The sound of a language is poetry. The human heart is the same heart in all of us."
Followed by a round of applause.
Below is the more complete video from which Kutarna's excerpt (from 1:45 min - 3:30 min) is taken:
Glimpses of the Setting Sun - A multilingual poetry celebration
Book Launch and Art Exhibition
Sunday February 28, 2010, 2 pm - 4 pm
Mississauga Central Library, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
But I find Chopra uncomfortable with the Kutarna's effusive admiration. Chopra make subtle and begrudging jabs at the English and American civilizations and language (which she posts at her blog - I've posted the full article at the end of this blog as well as a bref excerpt above) to whom she owes everything for her highly lucrative and esteemed literary life in Canada.
Chopra is of course a seasoned ethnicist, who has used Canada's infrastructure to its maximum. She is "Friend of the Library" at its most opportunistic.
Below is Chopra reading a poem with those special sounds that Kutarna found so compelling (and incomprehensible!).
I saw a collection of Chopra's paintings and drawings at the Living Arts Centre here in Mississauga. The center is trying to promote the various arts, and has a full-scale concert hall, a gallery, and various artists' workshops. It is quite a formidable building. I saw Chopra's work hanging somewhere in the gallery, and looking online, I realized it was at the LIVE Restaurant, which is mostly used for after-concert meals and refreshments.
Art and Gastronomie
Chopra's works hanging above wine glasses and folded napkins: the epitome of Western sophistication,
but with the Eastern content
Hanging here are oil paintings "Hope" and "Afloat"
and selling for $285
The center, including the restaurant, is partially funded by government grants, and is losing money, and is accepting all kinds of events to cover its costs. One recent one was a body builders' gathering, where strange, inflated humans were circling around the hallway. Anothers is to hold various ethnic festivals, and their programs includes a recent presentation by a Chinese circus and an Indian religious event to celebrate one of their gods. Chopra's program fits that bill.
Chopra's works at LIVE were:
"SHE: A Restless Streak" Art Show by Meena Chopra
CELEBRATING THE SPIRIT OF WOMANHOOD
At:
"Live Cuisine" at Living Arts Centre Mississauga from March 9, 2015 until May 25, 2015.
4141 Living Arts Drive, Mississauga, Ontario
Mississauga, Ontario L5B
9th to 25th May
10:30am to 5:30pm everyday
Below is a drawing hanging at the LIVE restaurant, but which I also found online. The photograph of her paintings hanging in the restaurant is what I took, as well as the view of the LIVE restaurant's entrance.
Drawing:
Meena Chopra
Pastel on paper 11'x8"
From Chopra's series: She: A Restless Streak
Poem
Excerpt from Chopra's poem Iconoclast (full poem below)
The real in her
longs to be
revealed through layers
seeking identifications
undraped
in a figureless
formless existence.
Iconoclast
Is she a vase
or a statue on a pedestal ?
She is no icon!
Her feet strong
firm on ground.
The earth supports her.
The real in her
longs to be
revealed through layers
seeking identifications
undraped
in a figureless
formless existence.
In vain,
she searches - an iconoclast,
beyond the turbidity of love.
Will she find one in you ?
Is this the forceful Hindu Goddess, the statue on a pedestal, that Kutarna is looking for? Will she find this figureless, formless, elusive creature?
Chopra may present herself as a modern, progressive oriental with Western ideas. But, as we look deeper into her thoughts, she remains much more Indian than Western. And she is not forthright with Kutarna, whom she will surely abandon when her authentic "identity" trumps pleasantries, leaving Kutarna with nothing but those incomprehensible sounds.
An Indian Woman at the LIVE Restaurant
At one time (about a year ago) the restaurant had changed its buffet style menu from an exclusively European menu and had added one or two Indian dishes. I asked recently about booking the restaurant, and found out that one of the chefs was Indian. When I looked at the buffet, the menu included only one Indian dish, and that was a simple chickpea dip. I asked to meet the chef to inquire about group rates, and was introduced to what looked like a cook. "You can order anything you want. Yes, we can do Indian dishes, butter chicken, anything."
My conclusion was that the attempt to turn this wonderful little place into an Indian/ethnic restaurant didn't work. How many folk festivals are there going to be, and how many are "inclusive" enough to attract a wider audience than just Indians?
Chopra's work is hardly that of the goddess/artist of Kutarna's eulogy. She has managed to convince the ethnicist Indians who still require the admiration of white Canadians - and they got one at least via Kutarna, and those multi-culti whites who still run the organizations - that she is worthy of their attention. And, following the multi-culti/ethnicist recipe, that is not hard to do. I don't doubt that Chopra has artistic ability, but she wouldn't have reached such a level of recognition hadn't she had all these underlying "qualities," and all that "support."
Chopra with her painting Eyes of Time, with a snake-like sign on her forehead [Image Source: The Hamilton Spectator, Sept. 2017]
Chopra eschews the bindi, a traditional decorative red dot painted on the forehead. Instead, she paints a bold black snake figure in its place. Like the bold images of her paintings, it has what she calls her “artistic signature.“ It is me,” she said. “It is a part of who I am.” [Image and text source: Toronto Star, August 9, 2010]
Note: "Celebrating 150 years of Canada" was a nationwide observance of many types of events and festivals commemorating the 150th anniversary of the country's Confederation
“Aankhen uthin to dekha kaynaat jal rahi thi
jab ye jhukin to tum the aur kuchh bhi nahin”
Roughly translated from Hindi:
When the eyes rose outwardly they saw the entire universe aflame.
When they opened inwards, it was you (the one reality of life) and nothing but you.
(From Chopra's Hindi poem And Nothing Else)
Art Exhibition: EYES OF TIME - The eye as a channel into the new dimensions of life.
By Artist and Author Meena Chopra
(Celebrating 150 years of Canada)
“Eyes wear the wings of time to fly beyond the cry of human desires, reveries and the realities,
penetrating the boundaries of the visible universe into the unknown, invisible realms".
Exhibition is on view from 8th August to 15th September 2017
Venue: Heritage Mississauga 1921 Dundas St W, Mississauga
Below is text from Chopra's writing from her blog page written in 2013. I tried to shorten it, but I think it should be read in its full, error-filled (for a wordmonger! but she does tell us of her Hindi bias) totality to understand in the scope of its message:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One World, One English, The Many Languages of the Imagination
World is transitioning into a global village where English language is taking the front seat but not in a traditional British, American or any other way. It is evolving with variety of different realistic cultural influences. The biggest influence on new English is of the technological culture and the dynamism of the young who are the creative compelling users of technology. The idiom and syntax are changing fast.
Manifestation of the subtle thought imaging is taking over directly from the mental sound vibrations in a language where we have started expressing in symbols like smilyes, pictograms and info-graphics etc. This visual expression of subtle thought is the immediate outer expression of our mental imagery perhaps descended on us from that one ultimate sound vibration (Shabd Brahm). The entire generation is on the thresh hold of being more and more visual in their expression of thought.
Underneath this visual explosion, English, with its new tools of expression is threading the beads of different languages so to speak, where the images of mind in their visual expression have started taking the lead.
What language does imagination has? It is a question that eludes many of us. Whatever way our creativity gets stimulated, according to the researchers, as humans our thinking is mostly in images and is visual. To add, from generations, powerful imagery has always been an intrinsic part of any creative writing which actually surpasses the barriers of language and language becomes a medium of creative expression.
Einstein said that he always thought in images, in his words, "I very rarely think in words. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards,"
So what we have observed with any of our senses, we can imagine; what we imagine, we image.
Traditionally in a country like Canada with its English predominance, linguistic diversity definitely breaks down the barriers to intercultural dialogue and promotes multilingualism as a fundamental tool for the prosperity of literature. Linguistic diversity also contributes to enhancing creativity and innovation at all levels of education and learning. There is a clear link between multilingualism and creativity because knowledge of languages gives access to other ways of thinking and to other cultures as well, reinforcing our creative capacities. This in turn has a positive impact on innovation.
In the changing environment where English is the predominant world language, Hindi like many other languages of the world is also transforming. It is becoming richer because of cultural influences for both in its usage, vocabulary and expressiveness. English language definitely has a major influence on Hindi as well as it has on many other languages in many ways.
There are many remarkable Hindi literary blogs on the net. It is adapting very well to the transition and the idiom. This change is inevitable with technological progression where English is predominant.
Some facts and observations about Hindi language:
- After Chinese, Hindi is the maximum spoken language of the world.
- Hindi has been one of the first languages which was picked up by Google when they started adding and introducing languages to the net for a wider usage of technology with languages.
- Instant Google translations are available at hand for all languages.
Hindi Writers' Guild, the organization I represent here, was formed in June 2008. It is the first of its kind multi-faceted organization in Canada. Its prime objective is to educate and increase public understanding of Hindi literature and the language, also to develop the writing skills in Hindi language. Organization promotes South Asian writers and literature through seminars, lectures and conferences etc. Computer literacy and promotion of book publication in Canada are the main intents of Hindi Writers’ Guild.
To elaborate the organization is involved in the following:
- GUIDANCE IN THE ART OF HINDI WRITING AND HINDI LITERATURE
- FACILITATION OF COMPUTER LITERACY IN HINDI WRITING
- FACILITATION OF EDITING AND PUBLICATION OF HINDI BOOKS
- TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF NON - HINDI LITERATURE IN HINDI
- ARRANGING LECTURES BY EMINENT LAUREATES ON HINDI LITERATURE, BUSINESS, ENVIRONMENT AND PHILOSOPHY
- HOLDING BOOK EXHIBITIONS, PUBLIC SEMINARS AND CONFERENCES TO PROMOTE HINDI LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
- PROVIDE TRANSLATION SERVICES FOR HOSPITALS AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS WHOSE MOTHER TONGUE IS NOT ENGLISH
- LIAISON AND COLLABORATION WITH CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS, NON-PROFIT COMMUNITY, GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROGRAMS RELATING TO HINDI LANGUAGE AND HINDI LITERATURE
- HELPING IMMIGRANTS ASSIMILATE INTO CANADIAN SOCIETY BY DEVELOPING HINDI INDO-CANADIAN LITERATURE IN CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE
- MAINTAINING HINDI WEB-SITE FOR E-MAGAZINE AND E-LIBRARY FOR MEMBERS
[Note: Partly because of the length of this article and partly that I have other notes to make regarding the topic (ethnic art) for another post, I missed out on some small - mostly typo - errors in the last update. This should be it! Although you will not have missed the point, and message, of the article.]
Meena Chopra, a poet and artist, officially launched her book of poetry and art SHE! The Restless Streak on August 26 at the Mississauga Central Library with Mayor Bonnie Crombie making the introductory presentation.
Above is a view drawings by artist Meena Chopra's She! The Relentless Streak art exhibit on now at the Mississauga Central Library
Below is Meena Chopra with Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie at the book launch for She! The Relentless Streak, a collection of poems and drawings, on Saturday, September 22, 2018
"My art is my search for the moments beyond the ones of self knowledge. It is the rhythmic fantasy; a restless streak which looks for its own fulfillment! A stillness that moves within! An intense search for my origin and ultimate identity". Source: Meena Chopra's Art World
Below is the completed article from my May 25, 2015 draft Meena Chopra's Ephemera: Art in the Multicultural Era
Meena Chopra is the Indian, Third World Goddess that has evoked Mississauga's awe and wonder.
Chopra knows this.
And she and her world are systematically undermining and curtailing the white West's civilization. She says so, clearly, in this presentation:
World is transitioning into a global village where English language is taking the front seat but not in a traditional British, American or any other way. [KPA Note: I suspect the grammatical deficiency might be because these are the notes she was reading at the lecture, but submitting that for publication is lax and lazy.]
She then continues to talk of the "visual" importance of modern-day communications, neglecting to mention the small fact, or covering it up, that she is reciting her poetry in English words, and much more often than her native country's Hindi words.
But, rather than talk about this usurpation of the English language by non-Anglo worlds, and discussing their variations on the English language, including the addition of many non-English words, she deviates from this by writing:
The biggest influence on new English is of the technological culture and the dynamism of the young who are the creative compelling users of technology.
(I should add here that Chopra's written text is probably the notes she was reading from at the presentation. And for a literary person, one would expect the final, public, version of her transcript not to include so many errors).
She says that now, since the English language has become this universal world language, and where the Third World has appropriated it to suit its cultural needs, a new generation is using it in a very different, visual way, and casting aside the scripted, textual language.
Chopra's thesis that language is getting more "visual" is badly developed. She seems to support at times the linguistic idea and at others the visual one. She exemplifies the intellectual laxness of these non-Western sophisticates. But it could be more astute than mere laziness. Her Hindi culture, despite its very well evolved written language, is still a culture of visuals. And with large parts of the population illiterate, or close to illiterate, only the elite educated would be able to read her books. And it is probably the same elite which is educated in advanced English and which could also read her books in English. And there is the major problem in India of the myriad of competing "national" languages. Not all (elite) Indians can speak Hindi fluently, but all elite Indians can speak English fluently (or with close to fluency).
And many elite Indians, including her, have travelled the thousands of miles across oceans to arrive at Canadian shores, manipulating all the tricks in the immigration how-to book, and with full assistance from Canadians themselves.
But these immigrants have come to invade and take over a country which let them in through peaceful acquiescence. Which is the more incredible: that they came at all, abandoning country, culture, peoples and ancestors, for opportunistic gains, or that they were let in without a single fight?
And once here, since their agenda, implicit, complicit, deliberate or instinctive, is a take-over and a transformation of this country so it resembles the one they left behind, they wll be incessant critics of everything Canadian, until things start to change according to their prescriptions. Until things start to look like them.
But what happens when this world does begin to change, and it beings to resemble their native lands? What happens when the sophistications they expect began to erode? What happens, for example, when first-class libraries as the Mississauga Central Library, which shelves their multicultural prize-winning books, is no longer the efficient and organized entity which we all unquestioningly expect it to be, and the literary sophisticates, Indians and whites, can no longer find where their books are stacked, since although the computerized system says "it is there" the book is conspicuously absent from the shelves?
What will they do with their criticisms then, their multicultural agendas, their dismissal and eradication of the culture for which they traveled thousands of miles to make sure that their books were shelved on the right spot in the public library so that people, they, could read them.
The literary textual world, the subject of Chopra's flippant verses, may not come to her rescue. But she is ready for that. She already has her faithful, complicit, visuals ready.
Chopra with at the launch of her book of poems and drawings SHE! The Restless Streak
on September 22 2018 at the Mississauga Central Library,
with the display of the drawings on the background wall
[Image source: Mississauga Library Twitter page]
Marian Kutarna with Chopra, holding Chopra's book of poems Ignited Lines.
Chopra's 2010 poetry reading and book launch
where she recited in Hindi and in English "Adieu to the Dawn" at her book launch
on February 2010 at a Mississauga Central Library event.
Marian Kutarna, then manager of the History & Art department (now manager of library circulation), says, after Chopra read one of her poems in Hindi:
"The sound of a language is poetry. The human heart is the same heart in all of us."
Followed by a round of applause.
Below is the more complete video from which Kutarna's excerpt (from 1:45 min - 3:30 min) is taken:
Glimpses of the Setting Sun - A multilingual poetry celebration
Book Launch and Art Exhibition
Sunday February 28, 2010, 2 pm - 4 pm
Mississauga Central Library, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
But I find Chopra uncomfortable with the Kutarna's effusive admiration. Chopra make subtle and begrudging jabs at the English and American civilizations and language (which she posts at her blog - I've posted the full article at the end of this blog as well as a bref excerpt above) to whom she owes everything for her highly lucrative and esteemed literary life in Canada.
Chopra is of course a seasoned ethnicist, who has used Canada's infrastructure to its maximum. She is "Friend of the Library" at its most opportunistic.
Below is Chopra reading a poem with those special sounds that Kutarna found so compelling (and incomprehensible!).
I saw a collection of Chopra's paintings and drawings at the Living Arts Centre here in Mississauga. The center is trying to promote the various arts, and has a full-scale concert hall, a gallery, and various artists' workshops. It is quite a formidable building. I saw Chopra's work hanging somewhere in the gallery, and looking online, I realized it was at the LIVE Restaurant, which is mostly used for after-concert meals and refreshments.
Art and Gastronomie
Chopra's works hanging above wine glasses and folded napkins: the epitome of Western sophistication,
but with the Eastern content
Hanging here are oil paintings "Hope" and "Afloat"
and selling for $285
The center, including the restaurant, is partially funded by government grants, and is losing money, and is accepting all kinds of events to cover its costs. One recent one was a body builders' gathering, where strange, inflated humans were circling around the hallway. Anothers is to hold various ethnic festivals, and their programs includes a recent presentation by a Chinese circus and an Indian religious event to celebrate one of their gods. Chopra's program fits that bill.
Chopra's works at LIVE were:
"SHE: A Restless Streak" Art Show by Meena Chopra
CELEBRATING THE SPIRIT OF WOMANHOOD
At:
"Live Cuisine" at Living Arts Centre Mississauga from March 9, 2015 until May 25, 2015.
4141 Living Arts Drive, Mississauga, Ontario
Mississauga, Ontario L5B
9th to 25th May
10:30am to 5:30pm everyday
Below is a drawing hanging at the LIVE restaurant, but which I also found online. The photograph of her paintings hanging in the restaurant is what I took, as well as the view of the LIVE restaurant's entrance.
Drawing:
Meena Chopra
Pastel on paper 11'x8"
From Chopra's series: She: A Restless Streak
Poem
Excerpt from Chopra's poem Iconoclast (full poem below)
The real in her
longs to be
revealed through layers
seeking identifications
undraped
in a figureless
formless existence.
Iconoclast
Is she a vase
or a statue on a pedestal ?
She is no icon!
Her feet strong
firm on ground.
The earth supports her.
The real in her
longs to be
revealed through layers
seeking identifications
undraped
in a figureless
formless existence.
In vain,
she searches - an iconoclast,
beyond the turbidity of love.
Will she find one in you ?
Is this the forceful Hindu Goddess, the statue on a pedestal, that Kutarna is looking for? Will she find this figureless, formless, elusive creature?
Chopra may present herself as a modern, progressive oriental with Western ideas. But, as we look deeper into her thoughts, she remains much more Indian than Western. And she is not forthright with Kutarna, whom she will surely abandon when her authentic "identity" trumps pleasantries, leaving Kutarna with nothing but those incomprehensible sounds.
An Indian Woman at the LIVE Restaurant
At one time (about a year ago) the restaurant had changed its buffet style menu from an exclusively European menu and had added one or two Indian dishes. I asked recently about booking the restaurant, and found out that one of the chefs was Indian. When I looked at the buffet, the menu included only one Indian dish, and that was a simple chickpea dip. I asked to meet the chef to inquire about group rates, and was introduced to what looked like a cook. "You can order anything you want. Yes, we can do Indian dishes, butter chicken, anything."
My conclusion was that the attempt to turn this wonderful little place into an Indian/ethnic restaurant didn't work. How many folk festivals are there going to be, and how many are "inclusive" enough to attract a wider audience than just Indians?
Chopra's work is hardly that of the goddess/artist of Kutarna's eulogy. She has managed to convince the ethnicist Indians who still require the admiration of white Canadians - and they got one at least via Kutarna, and those multi-culti whites who still run the organizations - that she is worthy of their attention. And, following the multi-culti/ethnicist recipe, that is not hard to do. I don't doubt that Chopra has artistic ability, but she wouldn't have reached such a level of recognition hadn't she had all these underlying "qualities," and all that "support."
Chopra with her painting Eyes of Time, with a snake-like sign on her forehead [Image Source: The Hamilton Spectator, Sept. 2017]
Chopra eschews the bindi, a traditional decorative red dot painted on the forehead. Instead, she paints a bold black snake figure in its place. Like the bold images of her paintings, it has what she calls her “artistic signature.“ It is me,” she said. “It is a part of who I am.” [Image and text source: Toronto Star, August 9, 2010]
Note: "Celebrating 150 years of Canada" was a nationwide observance of many types of events and festivals commemorating the 150th anniversary of the country's Confederation
“Aankhen uthin to dekha kaynaat jal rahi thi
jab ye jhukin to tum the aur kuchh bhi nahin”
Roughly translated from Hindi:
When the eyes rose outwardly they saw the entire universe aflame.
When they opened inwards, it was you (the one reality of life) and nothing but you.
(From Chopra's Hindi poem And Nothing Else)
Art Exhibition: EYES OF TIME - The eye as a channel into the new dimensions of life.
By Artist and Author Meena Chopra
(Celebrating 150 years of Canada)
“Eyes wear the wings of time to fly beyond the cry of human desires, reveries and the realities,
penetrating the boundaries of the visible universe into the unknown, invisible realms".
Exhibition is on view from 8th August to 15th September 2017
Venue: Heritage Mississauga 1921 Dundas St W, Mississauga
Below is text from Chopra's writing from her blog page written in 2013. I tried to shorten it, but I think it should be read in its full, error-filled (for a wordmonger! but she does tell us of her Hindi bias) totality to understand in the scope of its message:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One World, One English, The Many Languages of the Imagination
World is transitioning into a global village where English language is taking the front seat but not in a traditional British, American or any other way. It is evolving with variety of different realistic cultural influences. The biggest influence on new English is of the technological culture and the dynamism of the young who are the creative compelling users of technology. The idiom and syntax are changing fast.
Manifestation of the subtle thought imaging is taking over directly from the mental sound vibrations in a language where we have started expressing in symbols like smilyes, pictograms and info-graphics etc. This visual expression of subtle thought is the immediate outer expression of our mental imagery perhaps descended on us from that one ultimate sound vibration (Shabd Brahm). The entire generation is on the thresh hold of being more and more visual in their expression of thought.
Underneath this visual explosion, English, with its new tools of expression is threading the beads of different languages so to speak, where the images of mind in their visual expression have started taking the lead.
What language does imagination has? It is a question that eludes many of us. Whatever way our creativity gets stimulated, according to the researchers, as humans our thinking is mostly in images and is visual. To add, from generations, powerful imagery has always been an intrinsic part of any creative writing which actually surpasses the barriers of language and language becomes a medium of creative expression.
Einstein said that he always thought in images, in his words, "I very rarely think in words. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards,"
So what we have observed with any of our senses, we can imagine; what we imagine, we image.
Traditionally in a country like Canada with its English predominance, linguistic diversity definitely breaks down the barriers to intercultural dialogue and promotes multilingualism as a fundamental tool for the prosperity of literature. Linguistic diversity also contributes to enhancing creativity and innovation at all levels of education and learning. There is a clear link between multilingualism and creativity because knowledge of languages gives access to other ways of thinking and to other cultures as well, reinforcing our creative capacities. This in turn has a positive impact on innovation.
In the changing environment where English is the predominant world language, Hindi like many other languages of the world is also transforming. It is becoming richer because of cultural influences for both in its usage, vocabulary and expressiveness. English language definitely has a major influence on Hindi as well as it has on many other languages in many ways.
There are many remarkable Hindi literary blogs on the net. It is adapting very well to the transition and the idiom. This change is inevitable with technological progression where English is predominant.
Some facts and observations about Hindi language:
- After Chinese, Hindi is the maximum spoken language of the world.
- Hindi has been one of the first languages which was picked up by Google when they started adding and introducing languages to the net for a wider usage of technology with languages.
- Instant Google translations are available at hand for all languages.
Hindi Writers' Guild, the organization I represent here, was formed in June 2008. It is the first of its kind multi-faceted organization in Canada. Its prime objective is to educate and increase public understanding of Hindi literature and the language, also to develop the writing skills in Hindi language. Organization promotes South Asian writers and literature through seminars, lectures and conferences etc. Computer literacy and promotion of book publication in Canada are the main intents of Hindi Writers’ Guild.
To elaborate the organization is involved in the following:
- GUIDANCE IN THE ART OF HINDI WRITING AND HINDI LITERATURE
- FACILITATION OF COMPUTER LITERACY IN HINDI WRITING
- FACILITATION OF EDITING AND PUBLICATION OF HINDI BOOKS
- TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF NON - HINDI LITERATURE IN HINDI
- ARRANGING LECTURES BY EMINENT LAUREATES ON HINDI LITERATURE, BUSINESS, ENVIRONMENT AND PHILOSOPHY
- HOLDING BOOK EXHIBITIONS, PUBLIC SEMINARS AND CONFERENCES TO PROMOTE HINDI LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
- PROVIDE TRANSLATION SERVICES FOR HOSPITALS AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS WHOSE MOTHER TONGUE IS NOT ENGLISH
- LIAISON AND COLLABORATION WITH CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS, NON-PROFIT COMMUNITY, GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROGRAMS RELATING TO HINDI LANGUAGE AND HINDI LITERATURE
- HELPING IMMIGRANTS ASSIMILATE INTO CANADIAN SOCIETY BY DEVELOPING HINDI INDO-CANADIAN LITERATURE IN CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE
- MAINTAINING HINDI WEB-SITE FOR E-MAGAZINE AND E-LIBRARY FOR MEMBERS
