You're so nice to come home to

Paul Emile Becat, (1885-1960). Image from A World History of Art

More Tagore

Gitanjali 35
by Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Text from Poetry Foundation

Nude Girl Seated in Profile, Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919). Image from BYU Museum of Art Collection.

Following up yesterday's screed...

I've got a review in the Scene this week of a show by a Nashville artist that's all about conceptions of the female body in contemporary culture. I don't usually link to my articles when they're this local, but the artist, Lauren Kalman, has a website where you can see photos of the exhibit. You'll find them here, and my review is up at the Scene's website here. I thought Kalman worked out some intriguing ideas in this show. She has a remarkable ability to incorporate varied, contradictory images of "femaleness" into a single object. The decontextualizing I mention in the review is problematic, especially in a show such as this, which is essentially a social critique. Still, there's some powerful stuff in this woman's work.

Your ass is yours

I ran across this post at Shakesville today--in case you don't feel like clicking, it's a love letter from Melissa McEwan to Emma Thompson, lauding Ms. Emma for protecting her young co-stars from pressure to become sylphs. In fact, Emma goes all Mama Bear and makes them eat, according to Hayley Atwell. Now, I'm pretty keen on Emma Thompson myself, and I certainly respect Melissa McEwan, but the idea that poundage fosters female self-worth is as ridiculous--and anti-feminist--as the endless quest for size zero.

Yes, it's disturbing to see actresses and models who look like walking skeletons presented as beauty icons. It probably does encourage unhealthy dieting in young women, though it certainly is not the primary cause of anorexia and other eating disorders. I was an anorexic for nearly ten years. I'm lucky to be alive, and if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that nobody ever starved herself to death because she wanted to be pretty. It's a lot more complicated than that. Trust me.

I'm all for defying the beauty burden placed on women in a consumer culture, but you don't do that by defining yourself in opposition to it and demanding that other women do the same. That's just another form of control, another distraction from the things in this world that ought to matter. It's galling to me to see this fake notion of owning the body pop up so often in female discourse. It gets lip service all along the feminist spectrum: from suburban mommies (from whom, frankly, it seems a lot like camouflaged envy), to Goddess girls who like to sit around on their abundance and declare it sacred.

The truly radical act is to claim your body as your own and do with it what you will, independent of imposed notions of beauty--and yes, health. If you want to fast until you look like a greyhound, go ahead. Get as fat as you please. Pierce anything you like. If you're really certain you'd still want them if you were stranded on a desert island, get the fucking breast implants. Whatever. But do it because it is what you want to do. Take charge of your body and leave other women alone to do the same.


Chloé, Jules Joseph Lefebvre, 1875. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

"Hell hath no fury like a modern liberal."

So, Ralph Nader is running for president again, and apparently some Dems are all spluttery about it. I voted for Ralph Nader in 1996 as a write-in candidate, and I voted for him again in 2000--a vote for which I feel not the slightest shame, although I have taken plenty of shit for it from people who think Ralph robbed Prince Al of his birthright. I won't vote for Ralph this year, in part because the reign of George Bush seems to have driven him slightly batty, but I do think he has every right to run. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I'm glad he's running. Somebody has to carry the flag of genuine democracy, even if it's an old crusader teetering on the edge of senility. Click here for a nice column by Michael Colby at Counterpunch on what's right with Ralph, and what's wrong with his critics.

UPDATE: Just ran across this, which seems like a perfect example of the kind of knee-jerk reaction Colby is talking about.

Malachi is not forgotten

Dave sent me the link to this clip from a recent Al Jazeera English piece about Malachi Ritscher. If you are not familiar with Malachi's story, see my previous post about him here. You'll find a blog post here by one of the interview subjects in the video.

This story is hopelessly sad and frustrating, and I thought twice before posting the video. I might have decided against it if I hadn't heard a story on the radio this afternoon that included the sound of a Turkish mother wailing over the coffin of her son, who had been killed in the fighting with the PKK.

It's essential to remember how horrible war is. Malachi knew.

BitterGrace is taking a little break

I'll be back to blogging in a day or two. Y'all have a happy Monday.



Cupid and Psyche, Jacques-Louis David, 1817. Image via Web Gallery of Art.

Dinah sings Bessie

One of my musical goddesses, channeling another. Can't do better than that.




Click here for an NPR story on Dinah Washington.

"The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes"

Hurt Hawks
by Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)

I.

The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in defeat,
No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.
He stands under the oak-bush and waits
The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom
And flies in a dream, the dawns ruin it.
He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.
The curs of the day come and torment him
At distance, no one but death the redeemer will humble that head,
The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.
The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those
That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant.
You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him;
Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him;
Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, remember him. (more)


From The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers (2001). Text via Poetry Foundation.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

A Scene article, not my own

I can't resist sending you all over to the Scene to read Jack Silverman's article about The Cherry Blossoms and their European tour, which Dave joined in Glasgow. Jack's piece may give you a better sense of what the band's all about than their own website does, and hey, I like seeing Dave's name in print. Click here to read it.

The painting above, as well as the one with the article, is by Peggy Snow, whose vocals are the heart and soul of the Cherry Blossoms. Peggy makes it her mission to memorialize doomed buildings, racing out to demolition sites even as the bulldozers move in. You can see more of her paintings here.