Fireworks Spectacular Diminished by the Music

I watched the Macy's Fourth of July fireworks on NBC last night. It was truly spectacular. Somewhere at the beginning, there were all kinds of "contemporary artists" providing the sound effects, so I turned off the volume and just watched the spectacle. I was more convinced, after this celebration of independence, that whites contribute truly spectacular things to our culture and society.

One of the "contemporary artists" was the one-name, black hip-hop star Usher, who had four songs included in the fireworks spectacle. Usher also got the prestigious title of "curator" of the fireworks. His curatory contribution involved some shameless self-promotion.



Usher says about his curatorial honors:

Me curating, it's far more than me just showing up and allowing my name to be on a bill. I wanted to represent America. I wanted people to understand something more about me artistically.

His full statement is:

Me curating, it’s far more than me just showing up and allowing my name to be on a bill. I wanted to represent America. I wanted people to understand something more about me artistically. It’s not just me being a dancer on a stage, but being able to recognize other incredible people and what they've done. To highlight incredible things we've overcome as people in America. Making an investment and being able to empathize and understand and give credence to some of the things we've had to overcome. And that right there is what I think creates a legendary artist, a legendary person, a legendary show.

His highlighting the "incredible things we've overcome as people in America" and giving "credence to some of the things we've had to overcome" is a jaded reference to black Americans, since everything about blacks is "overcoming" something. What? Slavery, of course, and discrimination and oppression. But now, there are no more grievances to cite, so it all he has is to reference a looming history, a past. And milk white guilt.

He says:

The 4th of July is a collective celebration of freedom and I hope that through the music and visuals, I’ve helped express the energy and passion of our nation.

In order to honor "some of the things we've had to overcome," and as "a collective celebration of freedom" Usher has selected an almost all-black group of performers for the fireworks' accompaniment, including four of his own, which amount to 30% of the line-up. And he selected the 1960s wild man Jimi Hendrix's The Star Spangled. Here is what Wikipedia says about Hendrix's version:

One of the most controversial renditions of the anthem was Jimi Hendrix's solo guitar performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival. Hendrix played the anthem with a number of distorted regressions (such as mimicking planes, bombs, and screams in reference to the Vietnam War)...Hendrix also recorded a studio version of The Star-Spangled Banner some time before Woodstock festival. That version features numerous guitar tracks played through octave shifting effects.

Usher chose the "tamer" version, which is still a grating rendition of the beautiful melody.

Why did Usher choose Hendrix? To be rebellious, and ultimately as a pro-black, which means anti-white, statement.

If he truly found America beautiful, he would have included one of the many black opera singers such as Leontyne Price, who has a powerful, heartfelt and sincere rendition of America the Beautiful.



Usher's own songs are repetitive monotones with limited melody, which promote violence and destruction. Yeah! was included in the pyrotechnics playlist. He sings Yeah! with a collection of aggressive rap and hip hop singers, who promote "a life of guns, violence, drugs and disrespect of women."



Here is Usher chosen play list for the fireworks accompaniment:
(* = White musicians)

- Star Spangled Banner - Jimi Hendrix

- All of ohe Lights - Kanye West

- *Levels - Avicii

A Swedish "electro-pop" group of white members, whose video is about a white man who goes crazy, and is being saved by blacks: doctors, nurses, secretaries, policemen, etc.

- *Save the World - Swedish House Mafia

A Swedish "electro" group of white members, whose video is about white thugs in hoodies and cute dogs.

It looks like Usher saw one "inclusive" video in Sweden (which is probably not surprising, given the equality road that country is taking) and picked two for his show. He could have gone to France, but probably most "inclusive" pop songs there are by Arabs.

- *Stronger - Kelly Clarkson

- Diamonds - Rihanna

- Euphoria - Usher

- Yeah! - Usher

- OMG - Usher

- Without You - Usher

Four songs by the self-promoting Usher

- *America the Beautiful - Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton (country music)

- *God Bless America

Choral arrangement by R. Ringwald

- *New York, New York - Frank Sinatra

- Empire State of Mind - Jay-Z and Alicia Keys

They did a hip hop "mash-up" of Sinatra's song, referencing his name and the lyrics to the song he made famous.

- A Change Is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke

And ode to Obama? Yes.

Usher was clever enough to include white country music stars to please the whites. They sang probably the most important song: America the Beautiful. But all the white performers can be "relateable" by blacks: The two Swedish groups and their inclusiveness; Kelly Clarkson with her belting, black style; And the old school Frank Sinatra who is a threat to no-one.

The show ended with Frank Sinatra's great melodious tribute to New York, New York, New York. But it was too late coming, and was ruined by a follow up with Jay-Z and Alicia Key's "Empire State of Mind," supposedly a tribute to both Sinatra and New York City.

The firework organizers could have done better to give justice to the show. There are many American classical composers, such as Charles Ives, Aaron Copeland, and Gerswhin (yes, that's as American as one can get, with the popular (pop song) elements of Broadway, but much more interesting than the current pop music). And of course, Frank Sinatra himself, without the hip-hop references.

How about Aaron Copland's atmospheric Our Town?



Or his more forceful An Outdoor Overture?



Or Charles Ives' Children's Day from his Symphony No. 3: The Camp Meeting?



And there's Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks. How spectacular would that have been!



And here's Sinatra's New York, New York.



New York, New York:

Start spreading the news
I am leaving today
I want to be a part of it
New York, New York

These vagabond shoes
They are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it
New York, New York

I want to wake up in that city
That doesn't sleep
And find I'm king of the hill
Top of the heap

My little town blues
They are melting away
I gonna make a brand new start of it
In old New York

If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you
New York, New York

New York, New York
I want to wake up in that city
That never sleeps
And find I'm king of the hill
Top of the list
Head of the heap
King of the hill

These are little town blues
They have all melted away
I am about to make a brand new start of it
Right there in old New York

And you bet [Incomprehensible] baby
If I can make it there
You know, I'm gonna make it just about anywhere
Come on, come through
New York, New York, New York
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Happy Fourth of July!

The Fourth of July 1916

By: Frederick Childe Hassam (1859–1935)
Painted: 1916
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 36 in. x 26.13 in.

Massed dozens of American flags on Fifth Avenue ripple in the wind of a fleecy blue-and-white day in The Fourth of July, 1916 (The Greatest Display of the American Flag Ever Seen in New York, Climax of the Preparedness Parade in May).

It was after Preparedness Day that Hassam, one of several American artists who supported the Allied cause with their art, began the approximately 30 flag paintings that exist.

They "became his most significant late work," according to Ilene Susan Fort, associate curator of American art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art...

During this period, did flags became as important a motif to Hassam as waterlilies were to Claude Monet?

"Yes, they are his last great statement, just as the waterlilies were with Monet."

[Text above excerpt from Louise Sweeney's report in The Christian Science Monitor, May 27 1988, reviewing the National Gallery of Art's Flag Paintings on View in National Capital exhibition.]

David Bentley Hart: The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth

Niagara Falls
[Photo By: KPA]

I came across David Bentley Hart’s The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (via Thomas F. Bertonneau's post "What are you reading" at the Orthosphere, where he linked to The University Bookman, a book review site in which he participates).

I went searching for the book in various bookstores. From what I understand, it is out of print, or out of stock. In any case, it is available on Amazon.com ($26 for a used book, from the original price of $40!).

I searched for online versions, and there is an almost complete Google Books version. There is a page missing every few pages, but until I get a hold of a hard copy, I will suffer through that.

This will be a great book to review as I work on my own modest contribution to beauty. One of the sections in my book Reclaiming Beauty is titled: Beauty in the Worship of God. I'm approaching this from the "human" angle, that one of the ways we worship God is through our creation of beauty, of which art plays a large part. But there is also the beauty in the perfect, or perfectible, logic of science. And beauty in the elegance in even the clumsiest of sports (wrestling or even boxing). The true worship of God includes our creation of beauty, as well as our appreciation, recognition and inclusion of beauty.

But Bentley's book has given me a different perspective, although I would have reached it at some point in my research and writing.

From Part 2 of the table of contents of The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (see the list of contents below), Bentley introduces us to the concept of beauty that comes from God, who is a God who would rather win us over through beauty, with "shared regard, delight, fellowship, feasting, and joy." I will venture to say that God created the world to fill it with beauty, to share this world with us, and to bring us closer to Him. We should delight in beauty, as He does, if only to show our appreciation as the chosen partakers of beauty.

I quote Pope Benedict XVI in my chapter Seek and Ye Shall Find (which I've reproduced here as one of a few select chapters to introduce my ideas):

Beauty, whether that of the natural universe or that expressed in art, precisely because it opens up and broadens the horizons of human awareness, pointing us beyond ourselves, bringing us face to face with the abyss of Infinity, can become a path towards the transcendent, towards the ultimate Mystery, towards God. [Meeting with Artists. Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI. Sistine Chapel. November 29, 2009. ]

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Ecclesiastes 3:

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time

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Here are the detailed table of contents of The Beauty Of The Infinite: The Aesthetics Of Christian Truth:

Introduction
The Question
Terms Employed
Beauty
Final Remarks

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Part 1: Dionysus against the Crucified

The Violence of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Violence

I. The City and the Wastes
II. The Veil of the Sublime
III. The Will to Power
IV. The Covenant of Light

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Part 2: The Beauty of the Infinite

A Dogmatica Minora

I. Trinity

1. The Christian understanding of beauty emerges not only naturally, but necessarily, from the Christian understanding of God as a perichoresis of love, a dynamic coinherence of the three divine persons, whose life is eternally one of shared regard, delight, fellowship, feasting, and joy
i. Divine Apatheia
ii. Divine Fellowship
iii. Divine Joy

2. The Christian understanding of difference and distance is shaped by the doctrine of the Trinity, where theology finds that the true form of difference is peace, of distance beauty
i. Divine Difference
ii. Divine Perfection

3. In the Christian God, the infinite is seen to be beautiful and so capable of being traversed by way of the beautiful
i. Desire's Flight
ii. Changeless Beauty
iii. The Mirror of the Infinite
iv. Infinite Peace

4. The infinite is beautiful because God is Trinity; and because all being belongs to God's infinity, a Christian ontology appears and properly belongs within a theological aesthetics
i. God and Being
ii. God beyond Being
iii. Analogia Entis

II. Creation

1. God's gracious action in creation belongs from the first to that delight, pleasure, and regard that the Trinity enjoys from eternity, as an outward and unnecessary expression of that love; and thus creation must be received before all else as gift and as beauty
i Analogia Delectationis
ii. The Gift
iii. Desire's Power

2. As God is Trinity, in whom all difference is possessed as perfect peace and unity, the divine life might be described as infinite music, and creation too might be described as a music whose intervals, transitions, and phrases are embraced within God's eternal, triune polyphony
i. The Divine Theme p. 275
ii. Divine Counterpoint p. 282

3. As God utters himself eternally in his Word, and possesses all the fullness of address and response, and as creation belongs to God's utterance of himself (as a further articulation, at an analogical remove, of the abundant "eloquence" of divine love), creation may be grasped by theology as language
i. Divine Expression
ii. Divine Rhetoric
iii. Analogia Verbi

III. Salvation

1. Salvation occurs by way of recapitulation, the restoration of the human image in Christ, the eternal image of the Father after whom humanity was created in the beginning; thus salvation consists in the recovery of a concrete form, and in the restoration of an original beauty
i. The Form of Distance
ii. Christ the Sign
iii. "What Is Truth?"
iv. The Practice of the Form

2. In Christ, totality's economy of violence is overcome by the infinity of God's peace, inasmuch as one order of sacrifice is overcome by another: sacrifice as the immolation of the beautiful is displaced by a sacrifice whose offering is one of infinite beauty
i. The Economy of Violence
ii. A Gift Exceeding Every Debt
iii. The Consolations of Tragedy, the Terrors of Easter

IV. Eschaton

Christian eschatology affirms the goodness of created difference, reveals divine truth to be inseparable from beauty, and exposes the totality as false and marked with a damnable finitude
i. Time's Surface, Eternity's Light
ii. The Last Adam

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Part 3. Rhetoric without Reserve

Persuasion, the Tyranny of Twilight, and the Language of Peace

I. The War of Persuasions
II. The Violence of Hermeneutics
III. The Optics of the Market
IV. The Gift of Martyrs
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Paula Deen: Guilty Until Proven Innocent for the Crime of the Century

Mammy protectively reprimanding Scarlett in Gone With the Wind

Paula Deen, the "Southern cook" is in a lot of trouble. She committed the Crime of the Century. She used the n-word. I am sure this was not in malice, as her apology videos repeatedly show. I think it is a traditional Southern thing, where the word simply means black, although with the connotation of a "black gone bad," as white trash, a term used both by blacks and whites, is for whites gone bad. In fact, nigger is used freely by blacks, who use it "endearingly" for a fellow black, usually of a lower class, and who may be involved in some kind of criminal behavior. Blacks have a whole hierarchy of words to classify each other by. They have a clear understanding of each other's limitations.

I think Deen also used the word to point out the limitation of these "nigger" blacks around her, yet towards whom she still feels paternal (or maternal, in her case). She feels close enough to blacks to call them out (by using the word nigger) on behaviors they could improve. I think she still lives psychologically in the Gone With the Wind era, where black slaves were affectionately, and paternalistically, taken care of by their white owners, and punished (some harshly and cruelly) when they breached these social expectations. And the slaves understood these contracts, and took affectionate care of their masters, as Mammy did of the rebellious Scarlett.

Deen says something similar:

Back then [when she was younger], black folk were such integral part of our lives, they were like our family, and for that reason, we didn't see ourselves as being prejudiced.

Blacks were generally grateful towards whites, not for some crumbs they received, but for the protective and familial way in which they were mostly treated. Now, what we have is begrudging, relentlessly accusatory, deeply dissatisfied black Americans, who have reaped the benefits of white America, and yet who are never satisfied, and will at every opportunity point a finger at whites.

I think that whites still feel have a protective attitude towards blacks, to keep them out of trouble, and to keep them American, which means following the rules and leadership of whites as their fellow countrymen, and the contracts of the country. Yet, blacks no longer have this affectionate, familial attitude towards whites. In fact 99% of blacks now think that whites are out to harm them, and they will always be vigilant and hostile towards whites.

But, it is still whites who are the arbitrators of justice for blacks. It is whites who are causing the demise of Deen's businesses, where major retailers are closing their doors on Deen's products for her "racist" behavior.

According to The Examiner:

Sears, Kmart, Walgreens and J.C. Penney are the latest retailers to end their business relationships with Paula Deen. In addition, Ballantine Books just called off a lucrative five-book deal. That makes a total of 11 business partners who have now distanced themselves from the controversial cook.

These partners included Target, Walmart, Novo Nordisk (a diabetes drug maker), The Food Network, QVC, Caesars Entertainment Corp (of casinos), Smithfield (which specializes in hams and pork products), and Home Depot.

And it is the news media, run and controlled by a white majority, which are demanding that she make a national apology for her behavior.


Deen with finger-pointing Matt Lauer on the Today Show, June 26, 2013

Now, the interesting thing here is that whites are once again protecting blacks! From the evils of the Crime of the Century - Racism. Paula Deen, in her candid way, spoke up about blacks and hurt their feelings. That's all she did: she didn't kill anyone; she didn't destroy any black's home or businesses; she didn't yell in public obscenities against blacks. She just used words to describe the black person in a way that is no longer acceptable to the do-gooder, black-saving whites of the twenty-first century version.

So, there it is: both parties (the "For Deen" and the "Against Deen") are protecting the ever-vulnerable blacks to this day.

Deen is making the apology circuit, after she posted her own apology videos on Youtube. The first Youtube video shows a confident, yet penitent Deen. I watched the second video with fascination, and a little horrified. She was disheveled and rambling. The last I could bear to watch is her Today Show interview with Matt Lauer on June 26. Deen sits like a reprimanded child next to the pinched-nosed, finger-pointing Lauer, who glares at her.

Is this what the modern world is making of its icons? There is no doubt that Deen was admired by many. Some may have even idolized her. Now, she has been reduced into an incoherent mess. To have a full society land on you like that must be devastating, especially after it had you on a pedestal for so long. I've never watched her full cooking show, but whenever I saw her, I liked her confidence. She seemed like a friendly, talented, enterprising Southern woman who was running a many-faceted business.

Here she is, with her photo on the Food Newtork, and the cute smiley she put after her name (a little adolescent, but charming):



Below is a video where she is demonstrating how to make peach cobbler. She is confident, playful and sure of her cooking:



Below is a screenshot of her from her first apology video, where is her confident, but shell-shocked:



Below is a screen shot of her rambling, second video. I think she looks like someone who has temporarily lost her sanity:



Like all celebrity women, her private life is a mess. She divorced her first husband in 1989 after twenty-four years of marriage. She married again in 2004. But her family photos (with both husbands, her sibling, and her two sons) show a jovial, happy woman, who may be running a food conglomerate, but who is still sociable and approachable.


At her prom with her first husband (to be) Jimmy Deen, in 1965.
She has been compared to Elizabeth Taylor


With her second husband, former tugboat pilot Michael Groover,
as Grand Marshall at the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, California, 2011.
Groover started a gourmet coffee line, Captain Michael's Coffee, in 2008.


With her two sons from her first marriage.
She has opened with them a restaurant, "The Lady & Sons" in Savannah Georgia


With her brother Bubba. He is accused of "sexual harrasment" and racism by employees.
Does he have the face of evil, as some would like to paint him?

So this what a white woman is reduced to in a culture that idolizes blacks. She may not fully realize what happened to her, or find a way to respond to all those "allegations," but people are watching, and especially white people. The idiots like Lauer will forever hold their indignant glare, but others will realize the demonization that is taking place, and will react to a country that is holding them guilty without any chance of showing their innocence.

Publishers are cancelling the publication of her new book, saying that it is a business decision:

When Walmart, Target and J. C. Penney all announced they are discontinuing their Paula Deen business, including books, it is awfully tough to stay the course of a publication. It was a business decision...

But ordinary white Americans brought her other cookbooks up to the #1 spot on Amazon.com after Deen hit the prime time news these past few weeks.

Mainstream publishers and retailers may be dropping her books and products, but her supporters will find new ways to promote her work, and continue her franchises. This may take time, and it may include much smaller venues. It looks like America may indeed eventually follow Lawrence Auster's idea of separation:

Those who identify with the former American nation and still want to be part of an American nation must separate themselves from the leftist USA and create new communities and new political expressions suitable for Americans. Until such communities are created, the separation can only be mental and spiritual. But that is the necessary starting point.

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Incrementally Changing Our Landscape

Left: Vera Wang Red Wedding Dress, Chinese Style. Spring 2013
Right: Amsale Wedding Dress. Spring 2013: Silhouette in White Lace

Wang has red wedding dresses for Spring 2013. Although she doesn't specifically come out and say it, it is clear that her influence is the red wedding clothes worn at Chinese weddings.

This blogger found out more information about the background to this all-red 2013 bridal collection by Wang:

Vera Wang’s collection was titled “Mei Meng” (with accompanying Chinese characters) which means, “Dream.” Per the notes in Wang’s spring 2013 lookbook:

Beautiful dream. The symbolism of Red. Boldly romantic, charming, protective, grand, seductive, sexy. From dahlia to scarlet, crimson and vermilion. A celebration of love.

Another thing that struck me is how unattractive (or unattractively made-up,
with dishevelled hair, etc) Wang's models look, compared to the well-styled Amsale models.
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I wrote to a correspondent about my posts on swimwear designer Jessica Rey (see below for links to posts on Rey):

I hate to say this, but this is how I find Asians. They have a certain level of intelligence and cleverness, but it gets lost in SOMETHING. What we end up getting, as a society which now seems to worship Asians, is things slightly below our standards, which we accept for now, but will eventually, incrementally, begin to notice the differences.

My posts on Rey:
- Modesty and Beauty
- More on Jessica Rey: The Modern 21st Century Woman
- Rey's Ambitious Post-Power Rangers Career: And It's Tiring Her Out
- The Practical Businesswoman: Sacrificing Femininity and Beauty
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Posted By Kidist P. Asrat
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The Practical Businesswoman: Sacrificing Femininity and Beauty

In the 1950s, when women entered the workforce in large numbers (albeit as secretaries) even the simpler dresses where high maintainance.

Below is a vintage 1950s dress from Etsy.



The seller calls it a "secretary dress." The 1950s secretary, even in her busy job, worried about the her dress: that the dress doesn't crease, that it covers her legs, that necklace isn't too tight and clunky, that the narrow skirt doesn't impede her movements too much. She would try to look as stylish and attractive as possible, but shouldn't overdo it for fear of getting unwanted attention from her boss and other male co-workers. But, if she is too dowdy, she would attract attention, although negative this time. She had to (and did) find time to carefully plan her outfits.

Compare the "secretary dress" with the fashionable, yet comfortable, suit of the 1950s businessman.



Now, we have the harried business woman. She has business meetings to attend, business trips that take her out of her city if not country, reports to write, strategies to plan, all while competing with that pariah: her male colleague. And at the end of the day, she makes plans to get her children from school (nannies and husbands come in handy), and perhaps out of guilt and her children still depend on her, runs errands for a tasty take-out meal (prepared just for families like hers). She NEEDS comfortable clothes and shoes.

But, since "She is Woman, Hear Her Roar," she cannot look feminine (that weak creature). She has to wear the pants. She is a working woman, after all.


The Diversity of Working Woman!
All have one thing in common: drabness. Drabness which pretends to stand for practicality, with
flat shoes, (mostly) loose skirts dresses - and pants to hide those extra pounds, (mostly) two pieces - that "business suit," (mostly) no color or pattern. And let's leave those tight, short skirts for the up and coming young ones.

But, there seems to be a strange backlash. Younger girls, who reject their dowdy mothers' outfits, but who have had the "girl power" message of their feminist elders drilled into them, want to look feminine and strong. What better than to accentuate their power through their sexuality? So we get girls in heavy make-up, wearing tremendously high heels, and clothes that cling to their body like a second skin.


Girl Power in Pretty Pink


Rey Swimwear Photo Shoot, 2012
How does one look like a business woman in front of swimwear models?
Look modestly practical, but wear the skirt a little above the knees, to fit in with all those half-naked bodies.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Rey's Ambitious Post-Power Rangers Career: And It's Tiring Her Out

Claire Stevens, commenting at Laura Wood's Thinking Housewife, writes:

To me, Jessica Rey looks like an Asian version of Jenna Lyons, the lesbian president and creative director of J.Crew. Perhaps Jessica did that on purpose? Saying you’re modest and fashionable while looking similar to one of the supposedly most influential women in fashion seems pretty business savvy to me.

I don't know if we should read conspiracy theories into Rey's life and designs, but I do agree that she's following some kind of general uniform that makes contemporary women look alike. So, in a sense, it is a savvy business strategy, to look like other women, and especially successful white women, in order not to look too alien or different from the main culture.

I've posted on Jenna Lyons. She has a chaotic and destructive personal life, which I've written about here, although her business of running J. Crew seems to be going perfectly OK. I commented on one of her appearances:

Lyons has on an attractive floral skirt (bottom left), yet she wears it with a masculine blazer and dark, thick tights, not the feminine stockings it calls for.

The masculine/feminine of Lyons' attire

Rey opted for bland and pretty with her dress. Given that she is a public figure, making speeches in different parts of the country, and that she makes her living as a designer of clothing (albeit swimwear), one would think she invest more in her own appearance.

I wrote earlier that Rey may not be interested in beauty. I think it is her harried life that subverts beauty, where the practical is preferred. Beautiful clothes, shoes, hairstyles, glasses all take time to put together. A beautiful dress is also often not very comfortable, or easy to manage. Rather the quick, practical dress, for the busy, and even chaotic, life of the modern career woman.

Like the one she's wearing below, at a Power Rangers convention in August 2012, where she's pitching her web series No Nerds Here with her former Power Rangers co-actors.



She looks tired and weak, and she's possibly wondering what she's doing leaving a young child and her husband behind.

Her co-stars are Nakia Burrise (far left), who looks alert and strong. She is also married, with two children, but her current activity is charity work planning field trips and excursions for the inner-city children she teaches. She may be busy, but the community charity work must give her renewed energy.

To Rey's right is Catherine Sutherland. Since she left Power Rangers around 2002, Sutherland has kept quiet, getting married and raising two children. Her work since has been minimal: voice overs, and a couple of acting roles.

So, it is Rey who has taken on an ambitious post-Power Rangers career of a business woman. And it shows.

She still manages to pep herself up with cool finger flicks, as she makes her pitch in this video:


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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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The Scent of the Marigold

I recently posted photos I took of marigolds here, in my post Marigolds: A Welcome Patch of Gold. They are a welcome patch of gold.

Botanical.com has some information on the marigold:

The Common Marigold is familiar to everyone, with its pale-green leaves and golden orange flowers. It is said to be in bloom on the calends of every month, hence its Latin name [Calendula officinalis]... It was not named after the Virgin, its name being a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon merso-meargealla, the Marsh Marigold. Old English authors called it Golds or Ruddes. It was, however, later associated with the Virgin Mary, and in the seventeenth century with Queen Mary.[More at the site]

I picked a flower, to look closely, and to smell its scent. As Wikipedia describes it, "Marigold foliage has a musky, pungent scent." Yes, it is strong, but not unpleasant. A kind of fresh, leafy scent, with a muskiness.

I then wondered if any perfumes use this scent. So I went to Fragrantica, the online perfume site, and searched under "marigold."

I got a long list! I wasn't wrong.

Estee Lauder uses it as a Top Note in Beautiful Spring Veil

Elizabeth Arden has it as a Top Note in Fifth Avenue Style

Ralph Lauren uses it as a Top Note in Safari

Givenchy's Extravagance D'Amarige puts it up there again with the Top Notes.

Ralph Lauren complex Escape gives it Top Note importance.

So, it is not hidden in the middle notes, or used as a supporting base note, but is right there at the top. I didn't expect that.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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More on Jessica Rey: The Modern 21st Century Woman

It's interesting, isn't it? People hate it when someone points out the flaws in the things they like.

I've recently been exposing Jessica Rey's swimwear designs, and for some reason, it looks like some commenters at Laura Wood's site had set their hearts on them.

So, rather than comment on the truth of my statements, they talk about my writing style.

I will now begin to dissect their comments, the ones which Laura has simply posted without adding her comments. I actually think this is worthy of my time, although I would much rather be researching on my book and article projects, or reading one of the eight books on my reading list (there is a new one I'll be getting - Jim Kalb's which just came out: Against Inclusiveness: How the Diversity Regime is Flattening America and the West and What to Do About It).



Above is video from photo shoot for a commercial for Rey's swimsuits, with plenty of half-naked models (male and female) in the skimpy Rey swimwear, and some in underwear.

Diana J. writes early on in the post at Laura's site:

What exactly is the jab about Catholicism at the end of Kidist’s post? ...[She is] saying that religion is not an appropriate alternative? How is embracing one’s commitment to God not reclaiming beauty?

I agree this is confusing, but I found Rey's bland, uninteresting style to be hypocritically puritanical. I think God wants beauty for us and for the world. Rey's dressed down style seems to say that she is a "good Catholic." Yet, she goes out of her way to design "beautiful" swimsuites. I will pick up on this at a later post, how "beauty" is misrepresented and misunderstood by today's modern, feminist women.

Diana J. continues:

It’s one thing to disagree, but the snide remarks almost make it seem like Kidist has some sort of personal vendetta against Rey.

Why would I have a personal vendetta against Rey? I just know of her through her various online and merchandising enterprises.

And Claire Stevens writes, in my defense:

I read with interest the comments from others concerning Kidist’s post on Jessica Rey, then I went and read Kidist’s post. From the comments on your site I was expecting a much harsher critique by Kidist than what I found.

And finally, here are some excerpts from Paul T.'s comment, who is the most vocal (or verbal) of the commenters. I have added my reactions to his comments in bold:

Paul T: [The] rambling, catty quality of [Kidist's] attacks on Rey weakens her persuasiveness and credibility.
KPA: Pure ad hominem

Then Paul T. proceeds to "describe" my case against Rey.

- Paul T.: Rey, though American-born, is an Asian invader of our culture
- KPA: I will not shy away from this one. I have observed, over and over, that Asians, even up to third generation immigrant Asians, identify ethnically with their culture. With the increased numbers we are seeing in Canada (and America), Asians will be a dominant group soon, influencing us with their own version of non-American, but American-created Aisanness.
- Paul T: She is running a for-profit enterprise, so her arguments on behalf of modesty are tainted with insincerity
- KPA: What I'm saying is that she is using her "modesty" angle to attract people who would be interested in modesty, which is much larger than we think - concerned parents, young girls who do not want to show their flesh (maybe they're overweight, underweight, generously endowed, etc.) . So yes, she is insincere, since she's using it to make money.
- Paul T.: Her swimsuits are overpriced in comparison with (Third-World-sweatshop-supplied) Wal-Mart’s — sorry, but Kidist raised Wal-Mart a second time, so it’s fair to mention it again
KPA: What's wrong with saying what is true? Walmart prices are lower, and the suites comparitivley attractive. China made? I've addressed that too, here and here. Walmart is working hard at contracting American designers.
- Paul T.: While some find her swimsuits beautiful, she herself dresses like a frump
- KPA: Again, no refutation with examples. "She dresses like a frump" is an objective statement. If Paul T. thinks it is subjective (i.e. opinionated), or wrong, the burden is on him to show us how and why.
- Paul T.: Her arms are too pumped-up from exercise, suggesting raised testosterone levels which probably make her still more aggressive in business
- KPA: I've provided a short, external, report to show the validity of this statement. I didn't make it. Paul T. again simply dismisses it.
- Paul T.: Clearly, she goes to the gym, which takes away time from the performance of her family responsibilities...
- KPA: I used to go to the gym two to three times a week. It takes weeks before any kind of moulding of muscles takes place. Once there, one has to go regularly to maintain them. Even a week away from the gym can change the muscle tone. These shapes don't come easy!
- Paul T.: She espouses [sic]
- KPA: Clever Paul T. is trying to catch me out on language.
- Paul T.: [Rey is following a ] puritanical’ Catholicism rather than a sincere regard for beauty, in fact she is out to “stifle beauty in our culture” (!)
- KPA: I will grant Paul T. that this is a little confusing. I think the reason Rey's swimsuits look better than her speech getup is because she knows that women will go for beautiful things. Yet, she deosn't reciprocate that belief with her own attire. So, her schtick for beauty is a marketing device, rather than a true belief in beauty. But, I will write more in this later, since beauty is my theme, and Rey use is sophisticated and deceptive.
- KPA: The Exclamation mark! In brackets, no less (!) He thinks he is speaking to an "in" crowd which will marvel at my stupidity as much as he does (!).
- Paul T.: As an actress she never rose above parts in forgettable TV shows.
- KPA: Well she didn't. Who watches Power Rangers and who watches day-time soap operas, unless it is bored housewives who should be getting their home in order? Does Paul T. watch these shows? No? I thought so. And who cares about soaps except for bored, unintelligent women who stay home (I won't call them housewives), while their husbands are out slogging away, and their children have been scuttled off to all-day schools?)

After the Power Rangers, Rey had one or two-episode parts in four television shows. This makes me think that she's waiting for the time her kids are grown (i.e. five, six and in school) before she takes on other acting roles.

Actually, she has started a "mockumentary web series" No Nerds Here "about fan conventions starring former Power Rangers."

Here is the the exhausted-looking Jessica Rey doing finger-clicking a la hip black culture, which looks charming when former black power ranger Nakia Burrise does it, but looks strained with Rey.



Paul T: Kidist's reasons are mostly piffling stuff and their scattershot, cobbled-together quality, taken all together, look more like attempts to justify a gut-level animosity than anything else. (Some might say that, at worst, many women do tend to argue that way).

KPA: So there we are. Since I criticize another woman, I must be envious. And not only that, I am of that sub-species of homo sapiens which is scatter-brained and incoherent. My arguments are invalid. My insights are useless. I may just as well stay at home and watch soap operas (!).

Paul T: By the way, I don’t know that anyone but Kidist has ever linked “Catholic” and “Puritanical.” It reminds me of the character in Philip Roth’s short story, “The Conversion of the Jews,” of whom Roth wrote: “Benny used the term “Catholic” in the broadest sense — to include the Protestants.” Ah well, Catholics, Protestants – they’re all white!

KPA: I will leave this to the Philip Roth aficionados. I have tried to read a couple of Roth's books. They are illegible for their utter promiscuity.

It's funny. I recently watched a PBS program on Roth, and was going to write about him comparing him to Rey. It seems that Roth had a profound hatred of his Jewish identity. But, he is still Jewish. So how to reconcile this hatred with himself? So he writes about Jews, but in the most basic, bare of identifications - sex.

Rey, with her rejection of her identity (her marriage to the white guy), provides us with a sexualized version of female attire - the swimsuit.

If anyone has any other ideas about this, or wishes to elaborate on in it in some psychological sense, please let me know.

And finally, Mary writes at the Thinking Housewife:

I blame Facebook for the popularity of the maternity photo shoot – I’m guessing most of these photos end up posted.

She is right to speculate. But Rey is too clever to post her children's photos online. I guess a baby photo in a "pregnancy and marital" photo shoot is OK. Plus, the baby is too young to be recognized. But, the clever Rey has nothing of her children (except for this on Facebook, where we cannot see the toddler's face, and this for an ad for children's footwear, where again the toddler's face is not clearly visible, and Rey seems to be using the child for a footwear ad, making money already...), and only the pregnancy photo of her husband, online.

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My blog is a daily account of how I see things. IT IS A BLOG, not a scientific journal or a literary anthology.

Plus, I like to write in a familiar style. I think it gets closer to "me" and closer to the reader.

I write as though I'm speaking, or as Larry Auster wrote to me in an email last January about my writing (blogging style):

There is something appealing about your semi flow-of-associations writing. Not everything needs to be big and important. What you provide is a feeling of your life, of yourself.

And Laura from Texas uncharitably writes (from Laura's post):

[Kidist's] posts are reminiscent of a middle school level book report, with a heavy dose of childish gossip thrown in.

Actually, I have taken on other endeavors besides blogging. I am in the process of writing a book, which I've called Reclaiming Beauty. That is what takes time. It will certainly not be in the casual style of my blog. It will be a researched, carefully constructed piece of writing. It will take time. I have already outlined the preliminary ideas here (which incudes a chapter on Rembrandt).

I have had articles published at various well-known sites. I have also a Masters in a scientific subject, Nutrition. And Here is my My PhD thesis proposal in Nutrion (pdf file).

Then Paul T. contradicts himself at the end of Laura's post by saying:

I’m sorry if Laura from Texas thought I believe that ‘all women argue as ineffectively as Kidist does;” in fact I don’t even think that Kidist typically argues as weakly as I think she does on the subject of Jessica Rey. Often she argues superbly. I meant only that there is a long-standing perception that when women don’t argue well, it’s often because they are less interested in sorting out questions logically according to abstract principles, than in rationalizing their emotional reactions with whatever comes to hand. I assume that there is probably some basis for this perception, as with most folk beliefs; but just how fair it is, I really couldn’t say; and it goes without saying that men can argue very poorly too when passionate emotions get the better of them.

I think that I touched a nerve for some reason. They all seem to really want to like Rey for some reason: She is a mother; she is a wife; she is a Christian; She is a business woman; She's non-white; Why She is Superwoman!

I think there is still an feminist-tinged admiration for a woman who "does it all" in this society, and especially if she's non-white. We seem to be conservatives, but we are all liberals at heart. And then comes along Jessica Rey, and who embodies all that we wish to see in a modern, twenty-first century woman.

She should be on Sarah Palin's team singing "I am woman, hear me roar!" But those gals from Sex and the City did that better, and they were prettier.


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The Amhara

Laura Wood at The Thinking Housewife asked me for more information on a comment by Alex on her discussion about Jessica Rey, the swimsuit designer I discuss here.

One reader (Diana) criticized my critical approach on Rey saying:

I feel that perhaps I haven’t made myself clear. I did not mean to suggest that Kidist was “preaching to whites” or that non-white people couldn’t weigh in on racial problems. My issue is with the fact that Kidist herself writes about both African and American blacks and doesn’t appear to believe that she is one, since she speaks with disdain not only about non-Western culture, but about “black culture,” as if she is not “part” of it. I believe that this is misleading and dishonest.

Alex replies:

As I was taught in middle school back in the U.S.S.R., Ethiopians do not belong to the negroid race (the scientific term for the black race). Their skin is relatively dark but the facial features are more Indo-European (the scientific term for the white race) than negroid. They have such a large admixture of Indo-European genes that many of them consider themselves white, as Haile Selassie did. In my opinion, if an Ethiopian identifies and behaves as a white and criticizes the destructive, antisocial black culture, we should commend him instead of pointing out that his skin is darker than ours.

I replied:

Alex is essentially right, although I’ve never said that Ethiopians were white, but that we are non-negroid. And it is a distinct culture, the Amhara, which claims this (as I do). We had a discussion about this at VFR.

I will find the VFR discussion, and also give you a more objective review.

Here are the articles, posted at Larry Auster's View from the Right. As I wrote in the email to Laura, when sending her these articles:

As usual, Larry asks astute, learned questions, fairly and with a desire to know more.

I give a cultural overview of Ethiopians and Somalis here:
- On the Racial Character of Ethiopians and Somalis

- At the bottom of this discussion "Making Africa" I discuss that Ethiopia is different from other African countries because of the Amhara.

- And here is an article that Larry posted on Islamic Jihad in Ethiopia at the VFR:
Ethiopian Christian Tolerance, Ethiopian Islamic Jihad

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Modesty and Beauty

Laura Wood at The Thinking Housewife has a post about the bikini. She has posted a video of a former television actress, Jessica Rey, who has started a movement on modesty, although this movement has been around for a while, so she's following rather than leading.

Now, first of all, the bikini is an American icon, however it may reflect on the culture. It has adorned songs, movies, photographs and movie stars. It is with this understanding, and this nostalgia, that bikini critiquing should take place, and with a little tongue in cheek. Rey does acknowledge the history of the bikini in American culture, but she doesn't acknowledge the nostalgia of the bikini.

The cute song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini" is in its own way about modesty, or how to manoeuvre around the immodesty of the bikini. Rey sites this song, and does state that this is about the young girl trying to protect her modesty. But again, she rams through the charm of the song, and the spirit and era of the America in which it appeared.

It was sung in the heydays of the 1960s by a teen pop idol Brian Hyland:

She was afraid to come out of the locker
she was as nervous as she could be
she was afraid to come out of the locker
she was afraid that somebody would see

Two three four
tell the people what she wore

It was an Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini
that she wore for the first time today
an Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini
so in the locker she wanted to stay. [The rest of the lyrics here].

Rey says that the alternative to immodesty should not be frumpy. Yet, she appears on stage giving her speech in a dull get up. Her hair is long and disheveled, she is wearing thick, unattractive, red glasses (so many to chose from, and that is what she found?), her skirt and blouse, despite some embellishment (the skirt has a ribbon, and the blouse patterned) have no interesting pattern or cut, and she's wearing black pumps - why not white, or even pale pink to contrast her skirt?

Also notice the ugly, pumped up upper arm muscles. This is a sign of prolonged "working out." What about the soft arms which are so much more feminine?

Women who work out a lot have increased levels of testosterone. And increased levels of testosterone can lead to more aggressive behavior.

I will speculate here and say that this high energy behavior by Rey - having a family, running a business, acting as a national spokesperson for "modesty" with long-distance travels away from her family, etc. - is partly signs of her increased testosterone levels.

Also, the more aggressively one behaves, the more testosterone levels increase, both affecting each other in a cycle.



As I wrote in an email to Laura:

A business, however small, takes up a lot of time. She has an infant and is according to some sites expecting another baby.

So how is she a dutiful wife, a mother to infants and a homemaker when she's got her own full-fledged career going? This is no home-based business working out of a kitchen.

I think it is this extra boost that she gets from exercising (yet another activity that takes her away from her family).

Rey talks about frumpiness in her speech:

I remember speaking to a group of teenagers in New York, and when I mentioned modesty this girl yelled from the back: "What am I supposed to dress like then, a grandma?"...But I have to admit, I saw the same thing when I first learned about modesty. I thought it meant I had to be frumpy and dumpy and out of fashion.

I don't know if it is a lack of fashion, or if it is her crew who gave her this advice. But, if the alternative to immodesty is to dress in a bland style, why should any woman listen to her?

She ends her speech with "We were all made beautiful, in His image."

It is then her Catholicism that she's espousing, rather than a search for a cultural alternative to the ugliness around us. I don't think she's interested in beauty. Or rather, she is interested in beauty as a way to expose its weaknesses, in a puritanical way, rather than to demonstrate its great life-affirming strength.

There is a zealous desire to stifle beauty in our culture, from all sides. It looks like Rey is part of that.

Yet, in the contradictory way that is common to purists, what she calls modesty is not that at all.

Laura writes: "I wouldn’t call [Rey's swim suites] modest, except by today’s aggressively revealing standards."

There are one or two pieces from Rey's collection which resemble 1920s style dress/swimsuit. The rest are standard one piece suits which can be found at any store (Sears, Walmart, etc.) for much lower prices.



So much for modesty. The above photo is of a very pregnant Rey, with her husband. The photo is posted at a public site of maternity and wedding photographs, for the whole world to see.

Again, I keep wondering if Rey is doing a publicity blitzkrieg, so that people will know her swimwear line, and start buying. The photo is in the "Galleries" section under "Celebrities." I guess a role in unknown, forgettable TV shows makes her a "celebrity."

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Conditionally Free

I've just had my Photobuckets (image storage) files suspended for "nineteen days." Photobuckets is a free service, like blogger, so I should expect these kinds of interruptions. But, there is almost never any warning with these "free" services, which will suspend an account based on, well, I don't know.

In this case, I think they're trying to get me to subscribe to the "premium" services for a fee of $2.99/month. So, their free service was conditional all along.

For now, I will use blogger's "free" photo uploading and posting service. As Reclaiming Beauty matures, I will be using a fee-paying, reliable service (somewhere where I can interact with some responsible party, if necessary).

For now, please bear with me as I upload the images that are missing from my other posts.

Kidist

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Unlearning the Errors of Our Secular Age

Jim Kalb is direct with the tags for his article Unlearning the Errors of Our Secular Age. He has labeled it as:

autonomy, Higher education, intelligence, liberal arts, Managerial State, Stupidity

I reprinted the article below, and I've simply opted for the tags:

Society, Culture, Desecration

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Unlearning the Errors of Our Secular Age
By Jim Kalb
Published at Crisis Magazine
May 8, 2013

I pointed out a month or two ago that the kind of meritocracy we have makes people stupid, mostly because it’s based on a technological attitude toward human life. Thought has an order, but not one we can fully grasp, so if it’s reduced to certified expertise and made a sort of industrial process it stops being thought. The more impressively it’s organized, after a certain point, the less like thought it becomes.

Since that’s so, intelligence needs to consider a counterattack: what should be done so our ways of thinking become more functional and attuned to reality? The most important point, it seems to me, is restoring an understanding of the world that has a place for intelligence and meaning. We orient ourselves toward reality, so if we think the world is mindless we become so ourselves. We can’t quite become mindless, and we can’t help but believe that the world makes sense of some kind, so to make our thought coherent with itself and with our own experience we must accept that the world is ordered by reason and meaning.

The Christian view enables us to do so, and thus to understand our actual situation. It tells us that the world includes not only atoms and the void, along with human skill and desire, but an array of other realities extending up to the absolute intelligence that is God. So technology is not everything, but leaves out what concerns us most. That view explains better than any other how thought can exist, why it applies to the world, and why it has an order we can participate in but can’t fully grasp.

In itself, though, the view is rather abstract. To be usable in a cosmopolitan and argumentative age, it has to be made concrete enough to give determinate results, and include a way of settling disruptive questions. Otherwise it won’t be able to keep itself together or tell us much that’s helpful.

That is where Catholics have an advantage. Our faith has distinct teachings, a structure of authority, a philosophical tradition, and other resources that make it possible to discuss and resolve disruptive issues. The result is that Catholicism is able to deal with new intellectual and social developments while retaining coherence and integrity. That is why Catholic civilization invented the university and fostered the sciences and liberal arts, and it is also why the Church has been able to come back repeatedly from catastrophic weakness and corruption.

Keeping the whole of thought together can be a lot of work, and cutting corners is always a temptation. The easiest way to do so, if new developments in the secular world are strong and the Church is weak, is simply to conform the Faith to the new developments. That is what Catholics have done in recent times, at least at the practical everyday level.

The civilization of the West was once Catholic Christendom, and until quite recently the Church remained a respected presence within it. That is not true any more, but we do not notice how profoundly the understandings now established are at odds with the ones we claim as Christians. The failure is made easier, of course, by the growing stupidity that affects all of us, and makes us unable to imagine any understandings other than those by which we are surrounded.

So to regain a way of thought that gives thought and meaning a place in the world, and so makes it possible for intelligence to function without defeating itself, we have a huge labor of intellectual reconstruction before us. We have to reconnect to our heritage, and that means unlearning many of the basic principles we’ve been taught by the world around us, such as the technological standard for life and thought, and putting what is good and true in that world on a different, more Catholic, and more adequate foundation.

Beyond that basic and necessary but somewhat daunting task, a move away from an industrial to a more human and more functional understanding of thought and knowledge would include more specific and immediately practical changes that rely less on Catholicism than on ordinary good sense that should be available to all.

First, most demands for educational and professional certification should be eliminated. The multiplication of such demands is based on the belief that people can’t do anything without special training, because the only knowledge that counts is organized technical knowledge. If we cut back on those requirements people will get back into the habit of doing things as a matter of common sense and everyday human functioning.

Secondly, we should get rid of the idea that everyone has to go to college. Only a minority have the talent and inclination to profit from higher liberal education. If people accept that point, higher education won’t be dumbed down and young people will be freer to develop the particular abilities they have in a way that makes sense. That will be good for everyone.

Our leaders have a variety of reasons for their insistence that everyone go to college. It means more years of thought reform. It means more of life gets absorbed by the formal technocratic structures our rulers dominate. It means jobs, status, and influence for the academically successful that dominate a meritocracy. And it means such people are the model for human worth, since their kind of education and the life it points to is treated as the only one worth having.

There is also a more basic philosophical reason. Technological society has no idea of the good, so it makes individual autonomy the highest goal. To advance that goal, an education is needed that emphasizes critical thinking directed toward informed autonomous decision, and that is what liberal education is now thought to be. To say that some people are limited in their ability to absorb such an education is to say, it is thought, that they are innately less autonomous and more subject to nature or to social categories than other people are. Since nature is now understood as a mindless force, and social categories as arbitrary and oppressive, the result is that such people would have to be considered slavish and even subhuman compared to others. Such a view is morally unacceptable.

In fact, of course, we are all limited in our ability to engage in abstract critical thought and make radically autonomous decisions. The world can’t be reduced to formulas and general principles, however useful they may be as a complement to skill and common sense, so we live more by intuition, imitation, experience, tradition, and the development of good habits than by abstract speculation or formal expertise. The result is that apprenticeship and similar methods of passing down the tradition of an occupation are likely to be more useful than academic study in most connections.

Academic study itself is less a matter of pure critical thinking oriented toward radically autonomous decision than the transmission of a tradition of inquiry and understanding directed on the one hand toward the good, beautiful, and true, and on the other toward leadership and wisdom. Education is always education into a community based on an understanding of man and the world, so it should always have a religious component and emphasize substantive cultural content. For that reason, liberal education should see itself as fundamentally religious, and emphasize something very much like study of the classics. A religious setting makes it possible to make sense of all else, while classical studies provide the discipline of close attention to extremely high-quality texts that present the viewpoint of free and active men capable of handling whatever comes their way. It is hard to imagine a better school for leadership and wisdom, or for the search for truth.
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Re-Working the Chapters in Reclaiming Beauty

I have removed some chapter titles from the list (here are the chapters last updated in April 2013). They distract from the theme of the book. The chapter titles I have removed are from Chapter Four: Beauty in Culture and Society.

The removed chapters are:

- Islam
- Politics
- Immigration
- Multiculturalism

From the original list of:

- Religion
- Christianity
- Islam
- Myths and Legends
- History
- Traditions
- Conservatism
- Politics
- Immigration
- Multiculturalism

I have also added a chapter in Chapter Two: Beauty in Art.

This new chapter is Gastronomy, and will include the art of food and drink (both consuming and creating).

I have recently posted several articles on wine and beer:
- Dionysus' Fury
- The God Of Wine
- Nectar For The Gods

And on food:
- McDonalds' Aesthetics
- And a brief paragraph on French cuisine - or the presentation of French food, here.

So it makes sense to incorporate these ideas in the book, as well as other topics on food and drink.

Here are the latest working chapter titles for Reclaiming Beauty:

Chapter One
An Introduction to Beauty
- Seek and Ye Shall Find
- Beauty, Truth and Goodness
- Synthesis of Beauty
- Beauty in the Worship of God
- Beauty and the Transcendent
- Beauty and Humanity
- Beauty and Femininity
- Beauty and Masculinity
- How to be a Beautiful Movie Star
- Beauty: I will be your mirror
- Rejecting Beauty
- Elimination of Beauty

Chapter Two
Beauty in Art
- Architecture
- Painting
- Drawing and Illustrations
- Film
- Photography
- Dance
- Design and Fashion
- Gastronomy
- Art Criticism

Chapter Three
Beauty in Language
- Literature
- Poetry
- Writing
- Books
- Blogging
- Humor

Chapter Four
Beauty in Culture and Society
- Myths and Legends
- Religion
- Christianity
- History
- Traditions
- Conservatism

Chapter Five
Beauty in Nature

Chapter Six
Beauty in Science

Chapter Seven
Desecration of Beauty

Chapter Eight
Reclaiming Beauty

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A Blush of Rose

Perfume bottle for D'Extase
I have photoshopped the image to give the bottle a rose hue.
Otherwise, it looks a bland colorless crystal.

It's time I posted on a perfume.

Marchesa has a perfume out. It is their first one. About time!

I went to Sephora's to look around for what's new, and I found D'Extase sitting on the shelf. I had seen it before, had smelt it, and wasn't overly impressed by it. I decided to give it another try.

The salesgirl was pleasant. She said she's "In love with the perfume." I'm now used to the word "love" being thrown around for all kinds of things: "I loved the movie!" "I love how you do your hair!" "I love [fill in the actress/celebrity of the month here]!"

"I'm in love with [fill in some fashion item like a dress, shoes, lipstick, nail polish color, perfume]!"

I simply went off and sprayed the perfume on those sample strips of paper they have provided for us. Again, nothing impressive.

I went to the Sephora data base, and looked it up.

These are the notes for D'Extase:

Iris Flower, Freesia, Black Current, Young Violet Leaves, Lotus Flower, Night Blooming Jasmine, Bulgarian Rose Water, Orange Blossom, Iris Root, Ambrox, Captive Musks.

Rose water, jasmine and musk? These are my favorite ("I LOVE jasmine and rose together!").

Then I thought I should give it some time to settle and for the notes to combine together.

Sure enough, after about five minutes, it became something very different. After about fifteen, it had reached its peak and stayed that way for several hours.

The scent is floral, but not insipid. Musky, but not overwhelming. Slightly sweet from the jasmine but not clingy.

These Marchesa ladies are smart.

I asked the salesgirl to give me a sample. At $72 for 30ml, it will not be a purchase I will make any time soon, but I will keep the scent alive with the tiny (5ml) sample I have.

The perfumer (the nose, in perfume technical language) is Annie Buzantian, who has created a long list of perfumes with well-known designers.

I wonder if she chose perfume composition because of her long nose?


Annie Buzantian

The designer of the bottle is Malin Ericson, who appears to work for Calvin Klein and Nina Ricci. The bottle isn't that special. They could have added a blush of pink to it, or lavender, and designed the crystals around that. Here is the beautiful bottle for Violet Eyes by the aesthete Elizabeth Taylor:


Violet Eyes
by Elizabeth Taylor

I've reviewed Violet Eyes here. It has that combination of rose and violet. The cedar gives it a lighter quality, which while musk would have made it too heavy. Elizabeth Taylor's choices
are perfect.


The beautiful Georgina Chapman, of Marchesa,
with her multi-millionaire husband film mogul Harvey Weinstein
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