VOICES

I haven't blogged yet this season on one of my guilty pleasures - the TV singing talent shows. There are three of them running concurrently at present: The Voice, The X-Factor and Sing-Off. We are nearing musical indigestion, and, thank goodness, finales of the first two. Below is a sample of my favourites this season from The Voice and The X-Factor. Both singers have made it through to the final rounds coming up this week.

From The Voice (Adam Levine's team (he of Maroon5):
Tesanne Chin, a young lady from Kingston, Jamaica. (born 20 September 1985. Virgo Sun, probably Sagittarius Moon) She sang Bridge over Troubled Water last week, it took her into this week's final where she'll compete against 16-year old Jaquie Lee and Will Champlin, son of rock band artist Bill Champlin of the band Chicago.






From The X Factor (Kelly Rowland's Over-25s team):
Jeff Gutt from Detroit (born 2 May 1976. Sun and Jupiter in Taurus, Moon(probably) and Mercury in Gemini) He'll compete with an indie-pop duo Alex & Sierra currently based in Orlando, Florida, and Carlito Olivero, Latino lad from Chicago. Jeff Gutt is, at heart, rock artist but can sing anything - great voice! The performance immediately below got him into the finals. In the second video he sings Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Both songs are, sadly, truncated to fit into the show's time allowance. I wish they'd allocate more time to the singing, making full versions of songs possible, and much less to judges' chat, manipulative "sob" stories, and general "padding". I realised long ago that it's not going to happen.








I feel more confident that Tesanne Chin will be this year's "Voice" winner than I do about Jeff Gutt winning X-Factor. Simon Cowell has been ramming Alex and Sierra down viewers' throats all season. They are good, if you like that kind of thing, but being of the generation able to recall Ike and Tina, Sonny and Cher.....do we really need a re-play of all that in 2013? Mr Cowell keeps saying, "there's a gap in the market for a duo". Yes - and there's a reason for that! We shall see.

Seasonal Thoughts

Thoughts on Christmas from four favourite writers of the past:

To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year.
~ E.B. White
"The Distant Music of the Hounds," (1954).

Poem by Ogden Nash for the Children's Aid Society of Maryland (1942). Ogden Nash was a former President and long time board member of the Children's Aid Society.

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat.
But how about the children, have you taken thought of that?
What about the little boy that lives down the lane,
Ragged in the snowstorm, whistling in the rain?
What about the little girl the other side of town?
There's no one she can run to, and her world is falling down.
Dead father, drunken father, father gone away,
Sick mother, no mother, think of them today.
These are the lost ones, little ones alone.
These too are Maryland, these are our own.
Christmas is coming, and shall they be dismayed?
Send a Merry Christmas check to the Children's Aid.

Poem by the brilliant, and usually acerbic, Dorothy Parker, here in gentler mood:

The Maid-Servant At The Inn

"It's queer," she said; "I see the light
As plain as I beheld it then,
All silver-like and calm and bright-
We've not had stars like that again!

"And she was such a gentle thing
To birth a baby in the cold.
The barn was dark and frightening-
This new one's better than the old.

"I mind my eyes were full of tears,
For I was young, and quick distressed,
But she was less than me in years
That held a son against her breast.

"I never saw a sweeter child-
The little one, the darling one!-
I mind I told her, when he smiled
You'd know he was his mother's son.

"It's queer that I should see them so-
The time they came to Bethlehem
Was more than thirty years ago;
I've prayed that all is well with them."

From a classic that never gets old:

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.

~ Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales

Finally, words about the author of, among other novels, Les Misérables:

Like all the other newspapers, we have previously reported that once a week M. Victor Hugo gives a large number of poor children an excellent dinner.This great apostle of humanity has just added to his good works. Not content with just feeding the body, he decided that it should be clothed, too, and that these unfortunate children have just as much right to the joys of childhood as their richer counterparts. Thus he has just given out to his thirty-two protégés the clothes they needed, and gave them the pleasure of a Christmas tree, decorated with presents suitable for their age. This family get-together took place on Wednesday [Christmas Eve] and was attended by several volunteers. Before handing out the clothes and toys, the poet gave the children a little speech couched in terms they could understand. He told them that it is every man’s duty to give their less well-off brothers some of what they have; that he was happy to do what he was doing for them; but that they should understand that they did not owe him anything, but should be grateful to the Father of all, and if they wanted to thank anyone it should not be him, but God, who makes all things well. He then spoke to them about the enormous importance of work, which is for everyone, depending upon their vocation and abilities. He said that work was the only means of making people happy, virtuous, and good.

'My dear children, amongst the toys I have just given you, you will find no guns, no cannon or swords, no murderous weapon that would make you think of war or destruction. War is a dreadful thing; the people of the world are made for loving one another, not killing each other. The girls will find dolls to play with, ideal for learning how to be mother, which will be their job later in life. For the boys there are little boats and little trains, in other words toys designed to encourage work, progress and the mind, and not destruction.'

The toys were then handed out to the children. It was lovely to see the joy on everyone’s faces, and it would be difficult to say who was happier, those who gave the presents, or those who received them. [From the French.] LINK

Arty Farty Friday ~ Xul Solar's draw to the Occult, Astrology and Language.

Casting around for an artist to feature - one born around this date - I discarded a couple, no doubt worthy ones too, but they didn't stir up sufficient enthusiasm for me to wade into preparing a post on either: Kenneth Patchen, from the Beat era and Roger Fry, one of the pretentious (my opinion) London Bloomsbury Set. Then I discovered Xul Solar.

Xul Solar (Oscar Agustín Alejandro Schulz Solari), born December 14, 1887 in San Fernando, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. He died in 1963.

From this Spamula link: ".....painter, sculptor, writer, and inventor; a visionary utopian; an occultist and astrologer who yet remained catholic; an accomplished musician who was fluent in seven languages, two of which were of his own devising...."

Some of Solar's paintings are shown at that link; lots of others appear in the video below, and for the best collection see: Taringa - El mejor post de Xul Solar

Considering the artist's list of diverse interests and accomplishments I decided this guy must surely have Gemini prominent in his natal chart as well as its opposite sign Sagittarius - where natal Sun and Moon lay (Moon would have been in Sagittarius whatever his time of birth). Or, I wondered, is this an instance where a person born in the southern hemisphere shows signs of "flipped" zodiac sign syndrome?

Clip from THIS WEBSITE

In order to fully understand the concepts within Xul Solar’s magical realist, baroque paintings, it is important to know specific details about his life. Xul solar happened to be a very curious man who studied Buddhism, the Jewish Cabbala, philosophy, anthropology, astrology and the duodecimal system. To top it off, he was fluent in Sanskrit, Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, English and Greek (Hommage). Given this information, it is clear that Solar was obsessed with knowledge and understanding the world around him in all of its diversities and complexities. Solar viewed a fusion of various irreconcilable worlds as the key to understanding the world around him. He would fuse these worlds through language. His love of knowledge and understanding of the importance of unity led him to create a language of his own. His emphasis on unity and language was even seen in his paintings that often contained words. One example of this is in his painting titled Façade Project. His emphasis on the importance of unity was shown in small-scale paintings that contained larger than life concepts in order to stress the importance that each small detail of life played in unifying to create and understand the whole. Solar’s use of language as a unifying force will be discussed throughout this essay.

Solar viewed language as the main vehicle for unity. Solar states, “I am the creator of a universal language ‘pan lengua’ based on numbers and astrological signs that will help people to know each other better(Solar).Solar’s newly invented language represented a fusion of various languages to invent one ambiguous and unifying language that crossed cultures, artistic genres, religious concepts, and sciences.........Solar’s intent was to create a new language that would erase boundaries existing between opposing worlds........something that all cultures were able to connect with.

Language = communication = Mercury = Gemini. A more clear indication of Gemini leading a person's nature would be hard to find, yet only generational Pluto and Chiron are in Gemini. With Sun, Moon and Mercury all in Sagittarius, the southern hemisphere zodiac flip would be a tempting theory in this case.

What particularly interested me, as well as trying to understand some of his paintings, was his gravitation to study the occult and feature it in his work. He designed a tarot deck, at least one painting represents the I-Ching, cabalistic symbols, and representations of zodiac signs can also be found here and there.

From here again:

".... the San Signos (Holy Signs), a collection of sixty-four visionary texts based on the hexagrams of the I Ching. These texts were written at the request of Aleister Crowley, after a series of meetings between the two men in Paris in 1924. In a letter he wrote to Xul five years later, Crowley reminded him that ‘you owe me a complete set of visions for the 64 Yi symbols’ and added ‘your record as the best seer I ever tested still stands today.’ "

Venus and Jupiter in Scorpio, with Jupiter linked by opposition to Neptune and Pluto in Taurus/Gemini could well be reflecting this draw to the occult.

There are lots of examples of this artist's work, at the links provided above, much of it really needs translation - not from foreign language - from his symbolism - but here are a few items which are very clearly related to the individual occult or astrological.

Solar's version of the Signs of the Zodiac

Desarrollo de Yi Ching, tempera on paper, by Xul Solar, 1953.

Designs from Solar's Tarot Deck - stays fairly close to traditional versions, I think.

Auntie Sagittarius

As the Sun visits each sign of the zodiac I often get to thinking about people I've known who either typify that sign or fly in the face of tradition and remain mavericks to their Sun sign. Sun is currently in Sagittarius. This is the sign of the eternal optimist, a sunny, happy-go-lucky individual given to excess of one kind or another, who will philosophise or take off travellin' at the drop of a hat, and can occasionally be found with foot in mouth, due to a tendency to be blunt. This is a favourite sign of mine, yet Sun Sagittarians I've known well can be counted on less than the fingers of one hand - on one finger, in fact! Maybe for some reason our paths just don't cross, or maybe it is that although I like the idea of Sagittarians, the feeling's not mutual and I don't appeal to them. I think I did appeal to this one though:

My mother's sister, my Aunt Lil' (Lilian) was a Sun Sagittarian, with Venus conjunct Sun. Perhaps I inherited my own Venus in Sag. from her. In her youth she had the Sagittarian draw towards adventure, left home as a teenager to join the ATS ( women's army) during World War2. She met and married a guy in the forces who hailed from her hometown. Curiously, for reasons I never understood, the marriage wasn't accepted happily by either set of parents. I suspect it was a matter of that demon "class" (or assumed class!) Though a rocky union, it did last until "death did them part" in the late 1990s.

I knew Aunt Lil' best during the early years of my life, then during the later years of hers, in between we didn't cross paths often. She and my mother had one of those strange sisterly love/hate relationships, which made for long periods of estrangement and a few affectionate interludes, mainly in their later years. Oddly, my two cousins, Aunt Lil's son and daughter, seem to have the same love/hate relationship going on as their mother and aunt did. Sometimes I'm glad I was an only child, it does at least avoid that kind of heartache.

Aunt Lil's Sagittarius-ness showed in her warmth and sense of fun, but it could often be drowned out by two personal planets in intense Scorpio: Mercury and Jupiter. I never did receive her negative side, because I think she loved me quite a bit. She often said I reminded her of herself! Others in the small towns where she spent all her years often saw her as a little eccentric - probably a reflection of her natal Mars in Aquarius. A Grand Trine in Water signs linked Uranus, Pluto and Jupiter natally. She did suffer, as she used to describe it, "with nerves", throughout her life. Now I can see that her warm Saggitarius Fire was in constant battle with Scorpio and a Watery circuit of the Grand Trine. Stereotypical Sagittarius she was not, yet its qualities shone through, especially in later life. Aunt Lil' died at Christmas, 2005, when thankfully her son and some of her grandkids were around her, but sadly I was 5,000 miles away.

Though my experience of this sign, apart from my own Venus in Sagittarius has been scanty, I do appreciate, from afar, some natives of the sign: the incomparable Frank Sinatra, and Tina Turner; the late lamented comedian, Bill Hicks; author Bill Bryson; writer/cartoonist James Thurber; and astrologer Jonathan Cainer populate my personal roll-call of long-time Sagittarius favourites.

Metaphoric Power

There's an interesting brief article by Tori Rodriguez at Scientific American: "Figurative Speech Sways Decisions - choose the right phrasing to convince people to take action". Metaphor is the figure of speech being considered.
Snip:

A study published in January in PLOS ONE examined how reading different metaphors—“crime is a virus” and “crime is a beast”—affected participants' reasoning when choosing solutions to a city's crime problem. Those who read the beast metaphor were more likely to opt for a direct approach emphasizing enforcement, whereas the virus metaphor elicited a preference for a systemic, reform-focused solution.

This is new information? Surely not.

“What a different result one gets by changing the metaphor!”
― George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860)

“The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man”
― José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955)

A comment from "sunnystrobe" beneath the linked article offers a chilling example of influence of a metaphor in action:

....Fifty years ago, at Munich University, we studied Prof. Wolfgang Clemen's (then) ground-breaking book : 'Shakespeare's Imagery', which was an eye opener as to HOW the power of configurative visualization works, creating in our brains something which could be aptly named our own in-brain 'home art / movie', good or bad...
(for evil abuse of this fanciful human trait, think how the Nazi propaganda machine of fear & terror was able to turn a nation into tolerating 'Kristallnacht' - and worse to come- just by using visual metaphors of vermin- that would hAVE to be exterminated for the greater benefit & survival of the German race.).....

The article goes on to say that scientists aren't clear exactly how the brain processes metaphor, but suspect that it triggers related concepts when processing a metaphor's meaning. That's not such a world shattering conclusion though, is it? Wouldn't we lay-persons, if we had stopped to think about it, have concluded the same? That's the purpose of a metaphor, surely, to encourage readers or listeners, or viewers to understand a difficult concept by relating it to something already understood.

The main point of the article is good though: choice of metaphor, especially when explaining issues of great importance, can be crucial. Ordinary mortals like us tend to use metaphor to make our conversations or scribbles more colourful or more relatable; there's little danger we'd cause any kind of havoc to break out. What we should train ourselves to recognise is how, and when politicians, salesmen, corporate-beholden journalists, and the "Powers That Be" employ metaphor, and note carefully which metaphor they choose to use.

GROUP-LOLTH

Vintage group photographs among the collection of husband, aka "anyjazz", are often easy targets for his and his Flickr commenters' sense of fun. Three of the many I've enjoyed are below, with a sample of comments:
(Clicking on the images will take you to bigger versions at Flickr).




anyjazz:

Sonja was found later, reading a Pottery Barn catalog and singing AC/DC melodies softly to herself.
Most people joked that Sonja just had her girdle laced a little too tight. Years later, her physician Dr. Barley Kornn, (Col. USP retired) discovered that her girdle was exactly the problem. Freed from her life-long affliction, Sonja changed her name to Candy and married the good doctor. And although her personality adjusted considerably after her cure, she retained her ability to discuss politics with the squirrels at the town park.

blairdashpb art:

and then came the visions....................

roz leibowitz:

Poor Sonya, born too early for ritalin. Or cognitive therapy. Let's just say she marched to her own drumstick.

blairdashpb art:

Dear Mister Jazz I suppose this is what you call 'ART' in your neck of the woods. Well let me tell you we don't go for these 'instillations' tomfoolery round here. My four year old daughter could do better. Yours sincerely Phillis Stein.

anyjazz:

Dear Phillis Stein: I am pleased to report that both Art and Tom are recovering fully from their unfortunate encounter with your umbrella. By late next year, they should be back to work at your tea tray factory, instilling carrot soup in cocoanut pillow packs. (And other meaningful work your fertile mind might devise for them.) I think your daughter could certainly do better too but alas, we can’t choose our parents. And that's "Doctor" Jazz in this neck of the woods. Yours sincerely Herb Essence.

No funny comments, but lots of scope for the imagination! An enlarged version (click) brings out a variety of expressions and emotions. These people could be the cast of some vintage daytime soap opera....."Home on the Strange"? Husband had added that it's a "unique family picture. Some of them are actually smiling" (unusual in vintage photos) "And somebody later on had scratched out the face of the woman near the center post. Must be a story there."

Caption:
We had all the kinfolk over fer Thanksgivins.
After dinner the parsnip wine went over well.

Music Monday ~ Garth Brooks is Back!

CBS recently featured a 2-hour (including commercials of course) recording of a version of Garth Brooks' one-man Las Vegas show which had been running in that glittering city for some time. He had previously been in semi-retirement for years, concentrating on bringing up his three daughters.

For me the TV show was a revelation. I've been a fan of Garth Brooks since he first shot to fame in the 1990s, even in the UK where country music was then very much a "fringe" interest, on the fringe as usual, it was one of mine. I had no idea, though, that Garth Brooks was such a bundle of infectious enthusiasm and humour!

Two hours flew past, with just the guy and a guitar taking us through his musical education, with tales of his mother's and father's input, snippets of classic songs from a variety of genres (rock, pop, blues, soul, singer/songwriter) from the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s with a few of his own early offerings. Great stuff it was, probably the best thing I shall watch on TV all holiday season!

The CBS TV programme was, no doubt, an advertising gig for GB's new 8-dic (six-CD and two-DVD ) box set marketed through Walmart for a very reasonable sum of just under $25. I might be persuaded to enter Hades (Walmart) to buy me that item - along with a couple of packets of McVitie's Digestives - English taste in cookies has to be fed, Hades or not!

If the TV show is repeated and any passing reader enjoys popular music from the 1950s onward, even if not a country music fan, do take a look - I could almost guarantee you'll enjoy!

All of which sent me digging around in my blog's archives for anything I'd written about Garth Brooks in the past, including some astrological thoughts. I found these:

The Palin/Brooks Phenomenon
and
4 Sons of Aquarius

Here's a brief recent interview with Garth Brooks, about the show.



Digging further - there's this: Brooks has something to say about politics in the USA.
Nice one Mr. B!




Cannot close without a song from him - one of my favourites "The Dance"

........And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end, the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain, but I'd have had to miss the dance

Thurber, Ben Bolt and Alice

James Thurber was born this day, December 8, in 1894. I've always loved his little drawings and his writing. His drawings could be something of an acquired taste. He said of them, "My drawings have been described as pre-intentionalist, meaning they were finished before the ideas for them had occurred to me. I shall not argue the point."

I had the thrill of actually touching the keys of his typewriter when we visited his house in Columbus, Ohio, back in 2007. There's an old and ragged post from 2006 (needs re-doing) about Thurber and his astrology, that post is linked in this 2007 post describing the Columbus visit.

Anyway, in a book of Thurber's I have, Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated, he illustrates with his quirky line drawings a few pieces of poetry written by others. One of them, Ben Bolt, by American poet and politician Thomas Dunn English (1819-1902). The poem was later set to music by Nelson Kneass (1823-1868) a composer from Philadelphia...a sweet rendition from YouTube is below. The song is often mistakenly titled "Alice Benbolt" - but the poem makes clear that the words are addressed to Ben Bolt, about "sweet Alice" - there's a comma after Alice.

Husband has scanned just three of Thurber's drawings from the book for me, I shall add them here and hope not to be hauled off by the copyright police.

In the poem two elderly guys are reminiscing about people and things long gone:

Ben Bolt

Don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt,-
Sweet Alice whose hair was so brown,
Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile,
And trembled with fear at your frown?

In the old church-yard in the valley, Ben Bolt,
In a corner obscure and alone,
They have fitted a slab of the granite so gray,
And Alice lies under the stone.

Under the hickory tree, Ben Bolt,
Which stood at the foot of the hill,
Together we've lain in the noonday shade,
And listened to Appleton's mill.
The mill-wheel has fallen to pieces, Ben Bolt,
The rafters have tumbled in,
And a quiet which crawls round the walls as you gaze
Has followed the olden din.

Do you mind of the cabin of logs, Ben Bolt,
At the edge of the pathless wood,
And the button-ball tree with its motley limbs,
Which nigh by the doorstep stood?
The cabin to ruin has gone, Ben Bolt,
The tree you would seek for in vain;
And where once the lords of the forest waved
Are grass and golden grain.

And don't you remember the school, Ben Bolt,
With the master so cruel and grim,
And the shaded nook in the running brook
Where the children went to swim?

Grass grows on the master's grave, Ben Bolt,
The spring of the brook is dry,
And of all the boys who were schoolmates then
There are only you and I.

There is a change in the things I loved, Ben Bolt,
They have changed from the old to the new;
But I feel in the deeps of my spirit the truth,
There never was change in you.

Twelve months twenty have past, Ben Bolt,
Since first we were friends-yet I hail
Your presence as a blessing, your friendship a truth,
Ben Bolt of the salt-sea gale.

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You Can't Have Everything......

I noticed a thread on the British Ex-pats forum (USA section) the other day titled "What do you miss about Britain?" Among things forum members sincerely missed were some expected food items (pork pies, fish and chips, etc), more cynical responses included snooty upper-class people who consider themselves superior, sullen customer service, sky-high price of petrol(gas), constant negativity about Britain by Brits themselves.

Expanding on the last point - negativity - a contributor "cluedweasel" wrote:

I was back home for a couple of weeks in September and that was the one thing that got on my nerves. I almost lost it with one kid who was working at a hotel we were staying at. He came with some crack about "at least you escaped this sh*thole". Yes sunshine. If you "escaped" [to the USA] you'd be working 80+ hours a week at 3 jobs, making minimum wage at least. You'd have no health insurance and wouldn't be able to go to the doctor or dentist, let alone afford any prescriptions. You could be sacked at any time for any reason with no notice or redundancy pay. You'd have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a degree to get a job you could do with GCSEs in the UK. You'd get 10 days a year vacation IF you're lucky. More likely you'd get zero.
Then again what do I know. His granny had taken him to Disney in Florida for his 18th (!) birthday and it was the best place EVER!!!

Well said!

As to what I miss about Britain myself, and some of these are possibly more a reflection of the area of the US where I live: good bread, good cheese, proper fish and chips, pubs, easily obtainable (i.e. no mailing cost) Heinz Salad Cream, mint sauce. NHS: free prescriptions for seniors. No constant emphasis on religion and church. And I still miss the peculiarly English sense of humour.

I guess I'd miss things from the USA too though, were I suddenly to be transported back to England. There'll always be something to miss: "You can't have everything", as Steven Wright once quipped, "Where would you put it?"

Arty Farty Friday ~ Signs of The Tree

Winter with a capital W has arrived already - freezing temperatures with ice and snow, in this usually fairly balmy (and barmy) corner of south-west Oklahoma. To brighten and warm things up a bit, here's something I first posted three years ago. It has gathered thousands of views since then, possibly been copied elsewhere - don't know - if so, you were welcome! I like it myself, so an encore here is in order, cleaned up (I hope) spacing-wise, Blogger's new interface had f'd up the original:

There's little that's more arty-farty than decorating the home for Christmas. Central to the seasonal decor, in most cases, will be "The Tree". Just for fun I've trawled Google Image to find a style of tree to match each zodiac sign's characteristics.








 


ARIES ~ Always on the run, impatient, no time to do arty-farty!
























TAURUS - traditional to the core.






















GEMINI ~ symbolised by "the twins" - so...
























CANCER ~ Soft and sentimental.

























LEO ~ Expensive!
Jeweler Steve Quick has created the world’s most expensive Christmas tree. On display at Steve Quick Jewelers in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, the tree is made out of five solid pounds of 18k yellow gold and decorated with 250 carats of round brilliant and briolette diamonds. The platinum star on top, set with a 4.52 carat diamond, is detachable so the owner can wear it as a pendant.






















VIRGO~ Practical, non-fussy.





















LIBRA ~ Beautifully balanced.





















 



SCORPIO ~ Gothic

SAGITTARIUS ~ Wonderfully overdone!












CAPRICORN ~ Structured.






















AQUARIUS ~ Unusual.


























PISCES~ Whimsical.

























After all of that.....we don't have a proper Christmas tree. I left mine back in the UK, have never replaced it.   Husband ?   He has Sun in Aries (see above). Say no more! We have this small, shiny, "pretend" tree - it looks pretty when the spotlight catches it though.

A Kind of Magic(k).....

Magick with a k - it's different from conjurors' magic. Magick aka sorcery resides in the deepest darkest corners of "woo", and is too vast a subject for a modest blog post; I'm simply skimming the surface of Western-type magick's background.

Astrology may play some part in the supposed workings of magick - the timing of spells or procedures, the preparation of a talisman, for instance. Mediaeval magicians would almost always need some level of astrological knowledge, for them astrology was part and parcel of occult practice. I see it as otherwise - but that's just me.

From relatively modern times, Aleister Crowley is the first name that springs to mind when contemplating magick. The name alone gives me the creeps. A predecessor by several centuries, John Dee, has a much better feel for me. Distance does indeed lend enchantment!

It's well nigh impossible now to get a true feel and understanding of what life was like in John Dee's time and place: 16th century England and Europe. Let's see, what was going on around then? Religious reformation, exploration of the globe, discovery and colonisation of new lands, plagues, The Renaissance, developments in philosophy, science, art, literature and politics continued apace. Magic(k) was an integral part of life in the 16th century. At times it must have been difficult to differentiate between magick and reality, living in the midst of such seemingly eccentric change.

Intellectuals used magick in their efforts to discover "the meaning of life". Men like John Dee, scholar, mathematician, alchemist, occultist, astronomer, and astrologer, had sincere aspirations. They often fell foul of religious leaders who sensed that the knowledge they were aiming to acquire could weaken religion's control of the masses. John Dee was fortunate to enjoy patronage and protection from Queen Elizabeth the First for many years, as her advisor. Lesser mortals, namely women - witches - who involved themselves in magic to help themselves, neighbours and friends, were ostracised at best, tortured and executed at worst.

There's an entertaining article on John Dee by astrologer Dr Z : Who's the Original 007?

Magick in the 16th century, and now, covers a varied range of occult activity, the focus of all: to cause change, material or otherwise. Rituals of various kinds play a major part in magickal preparation. These rituals (I'm guessing) could exert an effect of some abnormal kind upon the proponent's brain function. Sexual connections occasionally crop up too. Don't they always?

A broomstick, accessory of any respectable Hallowe'en witch, was thought, in reality to have been annointed with an ointment made from hallucinogenic plants, the ointment then being transferred to the mucous membrane of the broomstick "rider" for rapid absorption, with the result of...well, a feeling of flying I guess. I feel I should add "Don't try this at home!"

Sex sells - whether car, broomstick or magickal ideas. A sexual link does exist in magick. Some lines I had saved but have now, unhelpfully, lost the link:

The Anglo-Saxon k in Magick is a means of indicating the kind of magic which Crowley performed. K is the eleventh letter of several alphabets, and eleven is the principal number of magick, because it is the number attributed to the Qliphoth - the underworld of chaotic forces that have to be mentally conquered before magick can be performed. K has other magical implications: it corresponds to the power or shakti aspect of creative energy, for k is the ancient Egyptian khu, the magical power. Specifically, it stands for kteis (vagina), the complement to the wand (or phallus) which is used by the Magician in certain sexual magick aspects of the Great Work

The $64,000 question: does magick work? Is it possible to "cause" change? Some obviously think so, otherwise the idea wouldn't still be around. This desire to change things seems to be tightly woven into human nature. A favourite quote from Edward Fitzgerald's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:

Ah love! could you and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits -
And then Re-mold it nearer to the heart's desire!

A tale from personal experience. Many years ago, after a period of misfortune, ill health and downright bad luck, as a last resort I enlisted the assistance of a so-called magician to change circumstances, by removing what I sensed as a bad influence affecting myself and my late partner. To cut a long story short what he did (if he did anything at all other than take a lot of money from me) might have been instrumental in our losing everything we owned, almost lost our lives too, in a fire. I'll never be certain that there was a connection, but the timing was sinister to say the least.

My advice about magick: leave it alone. Better to be safe, meeting challenges in more usual ways, than sorry after trying to change things using occult means. Stick with the song....Queen:

It's a kind of magic
It's a kind of magic
A kind of magic
One dream one soul one prize one goal
One golden glance of what should be
It's a kind of magic
One shaft of light that shows the way
No mortal man can win this day
It's a kind of magic
The bell that rings inside your mind
Is challenging the doors of time
It's a kind of magic
The waiting seems eternity
The day will dawn of sanity
Is this a kind of magic
It's a kind of magic
There can be only one
This rage that lasts a thousand years
Will soon be done
This flame that burns inside of me
I'm here in secret harmonies
It's a kind of magic
The bell that rings inside your mind
Is challenging the doors of time
It's a kind of magic
It's a kind of magic............................

Hunger Games Catching Fire - but too slowly ?

We half-enjoyed the original Hunger Games movie (well, I did); a post about it is HERE. We saw the first sequel, Catching Fire, at the weekend. I was disappointed in it, yet glad to have seen it. At two and a half hours it was far too long. Much of the first third (maybe half) could have been condensed without losing a thing. In fact, I think that this part of the story could easily have been included in the first movie, perhaps making that a real epic-long presentation, to be followed by a sequel of one blockbusting climax movie incorporating the whole of the last novel of Susan Collins' trilogy. But I'm forgetting the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Hollywood has to, and does, spread the filthy-lucre-making material as thinly as possible. Why make two long movies when four will make double the dosh?

Without giving too much away, this sequel is set in Panem (USA in the far future) one year after the original film - time for the next Hunger Games. In intervening months downtrodden people of the districts, inspired by the defiance and bravery of heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), are themselves experiencing the first rumblings of defiance and contemplating resistance to the totalitarian Capitol. Panem's President Snow (Donald Sutherland) has been watching this development with concern. He declares that the coming 75th Hunger Games, rather than drawing new young "tributes" from the districts to fight each other, will involve instead all living victors of former Hunger Games. Naturally that includes Katniss and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), her Games partner. Snow is going to make sure Katniss, now a beacon of hope for the people, will not survive. He has ways....he also has a new manipulative Gamemaster named Plutarch Heavensbee. (Dang, but it sounds as though Susan Collins, author of the novels, picked her characters' names by drawing syllables out of a hat !) Plutarch Heavensbee is played with his usual class by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Woody Harrelson, I was happy to note, returns in the alcohol-sodden role of ex-victor and benign mentor Haymitch.

The 75th Games are followed in the movie in much the same way the 74th were followed in the original, though this time the competitors are older, thus removing some of the obscenity of seeing children being forced to destroy other children.

There's more in the way of techno-tricks and CGI this time around, a much bigger budget was available, obviously. I didn't find that additional expensive bells and whistles added much, more decent dialogue would have been better.

All in all, Catching Fire didn't move on far enough to make the movie satisfying for me. As I've mentioned already, I reckon most of its content could have somehow been incorporated into the first movie. The real and satisfying nitty-gritty will come next - a revolution proper, it will be I guess. It'll be 2 years before that hits our screens though, if reports are to be believed. By then, will we care?

My husband wasn't impressed by Catching Fire. He thought it too relentlessly dark, and found several continuity flaws in it. For instance, how come Katniss always had enough arrows? Did she have a magically replenishing supply? It seemed so. Perhaps this was explained in the first film - we can't recall it if so. The other two possible major flaws can't be explained without giving too much away. I did see one flaw myself (but am not sure whether it was explained and I missed it). At one point there's a plot element involving a clock; President Snow orders it be spun around, moving the crucial 12 noon point to a random position. But from the way the action proceeded it didn't seem to have made any difference.

There was a particularly cringe-worthy scene, outside of the games arena: at a celebratory reception at the Capitol. Elites were all decked out in ridiculously overdone outfits, wigs, makeup etc. like some nightmarish pantomime cast, with mountains of specially prepared exotic foods piled around the place. When encouraged to try a certain delicacy one of the victors declined saying he was already full to bursting point. An elite character then offered him a glass of liquid promising, "this will solve that problem". I can't remember the rest of the dialogue, but the liquid, on offer to all, was being used to bring about the urge to vomit, so that more food could be sampled and consumed. (I bet they did stuff like that in ancient Rome!) The true horror of that scene lay in the fact that out in the districts people were starving, and have, for 75 years, been forced annually to send their young out to compete to the death on the chance of obtaining extra food for their district during the coming year.

The whole thrust of this set of books/films is an old, old story of downtrodden masses finding their strength, inspired by some heroic figure or event. I haven't read the books, but from the two movies there is a clear intention to satirize 21st century life in the USA: our current way of life, feelings of disenfranchisement, analgesics such as reality TV, sports-madness, a tiny minority of the population holding all the wealth and all power over a majority kept in check by hunger and fear.

 The 3-finger salute of solidarity with the people - returned below

One oddity I've noticed in scanning a couple of comment threads following reviews of the movie: some right wingers seem to think the film is highlighting how bad life can be under a centralised state power; while lefties (including me) see it more as condemnation of what happens when 1% of the population holds the wealth of a vast nation, has bought the nation's powers of government for itself, and is drunk on its own (assumed) unassailability.

My take-away catchphrase from Catching Fire will be a line spoken by Haymitch. It'd be wise for all of us in the 21st century to keep it in mind too:

"Always remember who the real enemy is."