"Each man is 3 men" - Triple Trump

In September of 2011 I wrote a post titled "Each Man is 3 Men" - President Obama's 3 Men. For my next trick I'm going to try to apply the same treatment to our current President (hilarity could ensue!)

Opening, as before ["man" here ought to be read as "human"]: "As Fontaine says somewhere, 'Each man is three men: What he thinks he is, what others think he is and what he really is.'" Those lines are spoken by Christopher Leiningen (Charlton Heston) in the movie Naked Jungle. He purports to quote from Jean de la Fontaine, but I've been unable to pinpoint exactly where Jean de la Fontaine, a famous 17th century French poet who specialised in writing fables, actually wrote that sentence. A much later individual, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808-1890), French critic journalist and novelist is quoted as follows:

Every man has three characters - that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.

Whether Karr was inspired by Fontaine, parodied something he found within a Fontaine fable, or whether Fontaine has been wrongly credited remains a mystery (to me).

Anyway, here goes with a Triple Trump. Bear in mind, please, that I'm not stating my own opinion of "what others think, what he thinks, what actually is" - or what I glean from reading around the internet - but only what astrology has to say on the matter. If what astrology sees fits, then that's a feather in astrology's cap.


What others think he is:

I try to keep this blog fairly free of profanity and bad feeling...what others really think President Donald Trump is depends heavily on their political leanings; I'm going for a neutral astro-view. Astrologically, the "lens" through which a person is seen/and sees the world is represented by the sign and degree appearing over the horizon at time of birth. If Astrodatabank has the accurate time of birth for Donald Trump, 29.58 Leo was on the ascendant. As mentioned in my President Obama piece (he has Sun in Leo) Leo represents a person of well-developed ego, sometimes tending towards narcissism or egocentricity. Leo can also trend towards childishness, arrogance, overbearing, even, sometimes, cruel behaviour. There's an expectation and need to "be the best" at whatever's attempted, with a need for validation, and a strong urge to lead or be prominent in some sphere. There's often kindliness, warmth and general brightness in the Leo personality, and Leo's link to children/family (via the 5th house connection) can mean that his children represent, to him, an extension of himself.




What he actually is

The core of the man is represented by the sign in which Sun was found at time of birth. President Trump's natal Sun was in Gemini. Gemini is the great communicator of the zodiac, but also the archetypal Trickster. Trump's Twittering instinct - his innate urge to communicate, is part of his astrological DNA - that's just who he is and always will be. Whether he has the background and character sufficient to link his need to communicate with communicating reasonably, diplomatically and relevantly is another matter - but communicate he will! The Trickster, shadow of Geminian nature, can emerge in lying, white lies and lies of a different hue; or in ignoring normal rules and conventional behaviour. All of that, in Donald Trump, is doubly underlined, because it is blended with Uranian eccentricity, as Trump's Sun is conjunct Uranus.



What HE thinks he is
If Astrodatabank's time of birth for Donald Trump is accurate, his natal Moon (his inner self) was in Sagittarius at 21 degrees...LOL! It's conjunct my natal Venus, which could account for the fact that I cannot bring myself to hate him in the way most people on the internet hate him. He should NOT be president of the USA though - on that I do agree! Anyway, what he thinks he is: how do I determine that using astrology? Is it related to position of natal Moon? When I posted in this vein on President Obama, my old friend and commenter Gian Paul wrote:

GP: (Gian Paul)I wonder if it is the Moon placement in a person's map which "fixes" what that person him/herself believes to be. Accepting the notion that the Moon represents one's "inner self" - be that because of representing sensibility, versatility or instability or all of that, I have come to another idea of accommodating astrologically La Fontaines' No. 3 part of a person: People have mostly received an education teaching them to present their best qualities to the outside. A form of lying but highly priced these days. That being the case, we build and project an "imaginary virtous persona" based on our skills of hiding what are our week spots, defects and handicaps. This projected persona is exactly what a person is not really (Sun determining that), but wishes to show and ends up believing to be himself.

To which I responded:

I did puzzle over a similar issue myself, GP - not in exactly the same way as you are doing. I wasn't totally convinced that Moon position is the key to "who a person thinks he/she is"....but perhaps what that person thinks he/she ought to be. Which is not far from what you are proposing. It's a tricky one, isn't it? Mercury might be heavily involved in this too = the way his mind works.... I like your version...I think mine could bear a little more thought, still, though.

Trump's natal Moon in expansive fire sign Sagittarius is harmonious with his ascendant in Leo - he knows for sure, and in no uncertain terms, that he's leadership material. However, if Mercury does have any say in who he thinks he is, and because natal Mercury is in Cancer (along with Venus and Saturn) there's a snag! A big one! The biggest! Cancer is the ultra-sensitive, needy and self-protective sign of the zodiac. While feeling confident in his own leadership abilities he is always unduly sensitive to criticism, and will protect himself (and his family - Cancer also relates to the family circle) in any way he can. Whether Trump acknowledges this side of his nature to himself is questionable. The Cancerian side of his nature really fits into all three of these "Who he is" sections. In other words, the three natal planets in Cancer, in President Trump's natal chart, are the enormous buzzy fly in the Trump ointment - in my opinion.

A Decade Later...Earth Matters!

Ten years ago, 2007, I was regularly blogging about the dangers of global warming/climate change. In April of that year I wrote:

The future seems to me the most uncertain it has been since I was a young child in Hull, England during World War 2, when that city suffered horrendous bombing. The morrow, never mind the future, was uncertain for many at that time. When I first arrived in the USA at the end of 2004, global warming was looked on as something of a joke here. I despaired. I can see, now, the enormous difference Al Gore has single-handedly made, in a short time. When "An Inconvenient Truth" first arrived in cinemas in Oklahoma, it was shown only in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. We travelled to Oklahoma City, about 75 miles away, to see it. The number of people in the theatre could have been counted on two hands, but that sparse audience rose to their feet as one at the end of the film, applauded, and uplifted my hopes.

Back then, in the run up to the 2008 presidential election I was an avid supporter of Al Gore, "Run, Al...run!!" frequently appeared in my posts, or on my sidebar. I finished the 2007 post thus:

The American government is still dragging its feet, and appears to be lagging well behind public opinion, but in 2008 that government is guaranteed to change. I hope that its successor will be strong enough to do what's needed, however unpopular it makes them. We may not get to the stage of being uncertain about the morrow in the next few years, but those who come after will have that to face, if we don't insist that something is done by world governments soon.

Ten years on, nothing has changed, in fact the situation has grown worse. The Bush and Obama administrations did nothing, or next to nothing to address climate change; anything seemingly helpful proved to be lip service only. The current administration is openly opposed to addressing climate change. The horrendous storms, floods, fires and losses of Fall 2017 could prove to be the opening act of a new and far more dangerous stage in our journey to temperate climate destruction. People of the USA have not yet vociferously demanded action on this. They loudly demand action on race and gender issues, important in their own ways of course, yet without a habitable planet on which to live, what will those issues matter? Why have there been no huge marches, sit-ins, protests on behalf of planet Earth? Where are the the "Earth Matters" Warriors?

“If your house is on fire, you don't comfort yourself with the thought that houses have been catching fire for thousands of years. You don't sit idly back and think, "Oh well, that is the way of nature." You get going, immediately. And you don't spring into action because of an idealistic notion that houses deserve to be saved. You do it because if you don't, you won't have a place to live.”
― Bill Nye

Music Monday ~ Tulsa to France

I was sorry to read of the death of country singer Don Williams at the weekend. Years ago, in Harrogate, Yorkshire, we saw him perform with his band. Back then, little did I imagine or dream that one day I'd actually be "Living in Tulsa Time".

Vale Don - and thanks for all those country pleasures!

I was obliquely reminded of the following song by a news item last week. Fellow-blogger, David, at The Oligarch Kings covered it in a very good post on the topic: Whole foods Mon Dieu!


(Yeah - you might groan, but I couldn't find a decent song about cheese!)

Saturday & Sundry Thoughts on Social Justice Warriors

I've recently been wandering around Quora, it can be a strange place at times, absorbing and interesting at other times - in common with the rest of cyber-land. One question which kept coming up in my "feed" thingie, day after day was: Why are there so many people now openly hostile toward “Social Justice Warriors”?

The term Social Justice Warriors (SJW) hadn't, until Quora, joined my personal vocabulary. I'd have referred to the kinds of people involved as being mainly interested in, and advocating on behalf of, identity politics. SJW is an easier mouthful. Anyway, I trundled through well over 100 answers to the question. Many were long, detailed and fell into the tl;dr category (too long didn't read). From others I've picked out a few which made some good points, earning an "upvote" from yours truly.


From Desmond Ng

Because of the negative connotations to the word.

Borrowing from Ryan J Farrick’s answer, an SJW is an individual who promotes socially progressive views, such as “feminism, civil rights, multiculturalism, political correctness, and identity politics.”. This is a good thing, hoping to make every human being equal, and in fact the term used to be used positively.

Sadly, the word has negative connotations due to the so “extremists” of the bunch. There are three types of SJWs. The first are the ones who fight to make a difference, the ones who hold rallies, get beaten up by police, who confront presidents with petitions demanding change. The ones who brave firehoses, tanks, chemical weapons and more to ensure that group A is treated like group B. These are people like Martin Luther King Jr, who stake a lot to change the world. The second are the passive types, the ones who sit at home and click on online petitions, who share Facebook posts and whatnot. These are the people who, while not making much of a difference, are not doing the world any harm. (other than spamming up Facebook pages)

But the third are the extremists. These are the ones who call critics ‘misogynists’ for not liking Ghostbusters 2016, the ones who complain about movie posters not displaying at least three different races, the ones who look at the X-Men Apocalypse poster and say it is oppression. These are the ones who harass those with even slightly different views, the people who insult everyone and accuse anyone who insults them back as hating all of their cause.

From Caelan Casa with a response from Richard Warner:

Social justice activist: Wow, the city forgot to place a ramp next to this staircase. Those poor handicapped people will have to go around. Let's build a ramp or start a fundraiser for one!

Social justice warrior: Wow, this xenophobic city didn't even try to put a ramp on this staircase! Those poor handicapped people will have to go around! Let's shame everyone who has legs and assault them if they don't boycott the stairs.

I try so hard not to roll my eyes. They'll beat me if I do.

Response

Don’t forget that after the Social Justice Activist builds the ramp, the Social Justice Warrior who works in the government fines the Activist for building a ramp without the proper permits or union labor, then tears down the perfectly good $550 ramp and replaces it with one that will cost about $65,000 to $150,000 and will take about a year or two to complete. (This actually happened in Toronto, Canada: City says steps will cost $65,000-$150,000; man builds them for $550). (Richard Warner)

Peter Hand said:

I have only one thing against Social Justice Warriors.

They lose elections.

The issues that concern them most are of no interest to the majority of voters. In fact, a good percentage of the electorate is opposed to much of what they stand for. The SJWs are aware of this, but instead of holding their peace at election time and keeping their contentious issues out of the public face, they become louder and more strident, incidentally (and perhaps deliberately) getting more air time on television and more in the faces of people who just don’t fecking care about their issues and don’t want to hear about them. It doesn’t change anyone’s mind - the result is that independents, conservatives and (I suspect) many liberals are motivated to vote against the party associated with SJWs.

The SJWs, in which group I include the “Hillary’s Turn” feminists in the DNC, gave us Donald Trump.

Last of this nap selection, Zbigniew Łobocki said (counting the ways):

Let’s see:

Arrogant, “holier than thou” attitude
Cherrypicking facts, using false information as basis
Blowing things out of proportion
No sense of humor, sterile political correctness
Inquistorial zeal, witch hunts
Seeing only one side of the coin (amazingly, ALL people are discriminated against in some places and in some ways. For example - in many countries guy in divorce proceedings + child custody battle is a lost cause. Wife cheats on you -> court awards her custody of your children -> you have to pay her money (on top of child support). I know stories of people who loved their children dearly, and lost custody pretty much ended their lives, either literally or just by derailing them)
Totalitarian mentality, want to control words, thoughts, gestures, etc.
Failing to notice reality if it does not support their views
Doing actual damage to the progressive cause with their obnoxious, caricatural stances and behaviors

My own thoughts are in line with what James A. Baker III and Andrew Young wrote in the Wall St. Journal on 30 August in a piece headed:
Identity Politics Are Tearing America Apart

A brief snip:

The divisions in society are real. So are national legacies of injustice. All can and must be addressed. Those who preach hatred should be called out for their odious beliefs. But even as extremism is condemned, Americans of good will need to keep up lines of civil, constructive conversation.

The country faces a stark choice. Its citizens can continue screaming at each other, sometimes over largely symbolic issues. Or they can again do what the citizens of this country have done best in the past—work together on the real problems that confront everyone.

Another, more direct way of saying it as commenter "Suzie Bee" did, in one of the threads I've been perusing:

Good God, y'all, get over yourselves!

Arty Farty Friday ~ Beryl Cook - Virgo Variation

Beryl Cook was born on 10 September 1926 in Egham, Surrey, England. She had Sun and Mercury in Virgo. Her art style is quite different from a trio of other Sun Virgo painters featured in a past posting: Ralston Crawford, Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre. They, in different ways, reflected the precision, neatness and clarity of typical Virgo. Beryl Cook's work, on the other hand, at first sight has more in common with an expansive Jupitarian nature. Ms Cook's work is great fun - not seriously "arty" or pretentious - just fun. Her natal chart could reveal a reason.

Video from YouTube : an accompanied tour of a UK exhibition of the late Beryl Cook's painting.



A 2008 obituary in The Telegraph has some interesting detail on the lady and her life.


A 12 noon chart is the best I can do, as no birth time is available.

Regarding my Jupiter-related comment, I was happy to find a Yod (Finger of Fate) linking her sextiled natal Sun and Pluto to Jupiter in Aquarius by two scratchy 150 degree angles. For me this, astrologically, describes her art style. Her fairly buttoned-up Virgo Sun is already loosened somewhat by the helpful sextile to erotic, sexy Pluto, then amazingly two otherwise iffy aspects draw into her nature an ebullient Jupiter in quirky Aquarius. While these elements didn't show in her outward personality, they certainly appeared in her artworks!


See how these extracts from HERE and HERE describe something of the personality shown in her natal chart.

 Self portrait

Beryl Cook found fame as a painter by accident in her late 40s, after buying her young son a box of paints. The flamboyant fun-loving characters featured in her work were largely inspired by the people of Plymouth. Beryl has lived in Plymouth ( on England's south coast) for over 25 years and remains fascinated by life in this lively naval port which is full of pubs, fishermen and sailors.

Having left school at 14, Beryl worked in a variety of jobs (splash-like chart pattern) but at that age showed very little talent for painting. ....At one time she was a showgirl in a touring production of 'The Gypsy Princess'.... She also worked in the fashion industry, which inspired her life-long interest in the way people dress and how they look. (Her Leo planets)

Beryl’s personality though is in great contrast to her paintings. She is a shy and private person, (Virgo Sun and Mercury) often depicting the flamboyant and extrovert characters she would love to be (Venus and Neptune conjunct in Leo). She prefers to observe a crowd of people, her acute eye missing nothing. She records in minute detail scenes of everyday life and has an almost photographic memory (all Virgo!).

Beryl Cook died aged 81 in May 2008.

Americanisms - Frustrating but Unexciting

There was an interesting piece on the BBC website the other day:

How Americanisms are Killing the English Language

A book released this year claims that Americanisms will have completely absorbed the English language by 2120. Hephzibah Anderson takes a look.

The piece begins:

So it turns out I can no longer speak English. This was the alarming realisation foisted upon me by Matthew Engel’s witty, cantankerous yet nonetheless persuasive polemic That’s the Way it Crumbles: The American Conquest of English. Because by English, I mean British English.

Despite having been born, raised and educated on British shores, it seems my mother tongue has been irreparably corrupted by the linguistic equivalent of the grey squirrel. And I’m not alone. Whether you’re a lover or a loather of phrases like “Can I get a decaf soy latte to go?”, chances are your vocabulary has been similarly colonised.

As a British ex-pat myself, living in the USA since 2004, I've been through the scratchy phases of having to accept, without question, what has been done to The Queen's English over here. I refuse to change my written English, continue to use 's' rather than 'z' in certain words, and insert the 'u' in colour, flavour etc. I will never, ever, while there's breath in my body utter "gotten"; and yet, and yet, as is told later in the linked piece, "When Dr Johnson compiled his seminal 1755 dictionary, ‘gotten’ was still in use as a past participle of ‘get’. But as Engel points out, good old English is not good new English."

I was mildly amused to note that Ms Anderson had slipped into what I see as an Americanism herself, and possibly without realising it. Here:

I was excited to find out how it would read after it had been ‘Americanized’, but I’ve noticed it’s fast becoming the norm for American works to make it into print over here without so much as having a ‘z’ switched for an ‘s’ or a ‘u’ tacked on to an ‘o’.

Americans use "excited to" in this way, I notice it a lot, and I do believe that a British English speaker would not be likely to use "excited" in that context - unless, of course, what they were looking forward to was something actually capable of bringing forth excitement: the flushed cheeks, the sweaty palms, the speeded-up heartbeat. What people mean in the American use, translated, is really just: "I'm looking forward to..." As in so many instances, in this star spangled, oft thought to be exceptional, nation, hyperbole rules.

Let us all, though, whether American or British, devoutly hope that the current American President's Americanisms will never find their way into widely accepted English: "bigly" is a case in point, or that fumble-fingered f-up: "covfefe".

Jots & Tittles

Jot and tittle? Both jot and tittle refer to tiny quantities. The phrase passed into English via William Tindale's translation of the New Testament in 1526 (Matthew 5:18:). Better is the
more familiar language of the King James Version, 1611:

"For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

More from phrases.org.uk

A jot is the name of the least letter of an alphabet or the smallest part of a piece of writing. It is the Anglicized version of the Greek iota - the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet, which corresponds to the Roman 'i'. This, in turn, was derived from the Hebrew word jod, or yodr, which is the the smallest letter of the square Hebrew alphabet. Apart from its specialist typographical meaning, we still use the word jot more generally to mean 'a tiny amount'. Hence, when we have a brief note to make, we 'jot it down'.

A tittle, rather appropriately for a word which sounds like a combination of tiny and little, is smaller still. It refers to a small stroke or point in writing or printing. In classical Latin this applied to any accent over a letter, but is now most commonly used as the name for the dot over the letter 'i'. It is also the name of the dots on dice. In medieval calligraphy the tittle was written as quite large relative to the stem of the 'i'. Since fixed typeface printing was introduced in the 15th century the tittle has been rendered smaller.

The use of the word 'dot' as a small written mark didn't begin until the 18th century. We may have been told at school to dot our i's; Chaucer and Shakespeare would have been told to tittle them.

If a passing reader is fond of internet jousting with person or persons whose opinions differ from those held dear, these "commandments" are well worth keeping in mind. There's more detail at the linked website: Relatively Interesting

The 10 Commandments of Rational Debate

Personally, I've grown ever more wary of impulsively stepping, willy-nilly into any internet debate, preferring to follow Sir Terry Pratchett's line from The Light Fantastic:

"… there was no real point in trying to understand anything Twoflower said, and that all anyone could do was run alongside the conversation and hope to jump on as it turned a corner."

For any who are partial to a nice love story, with a bit of a twist, I'd recommend (with some petty reservations) the 1997/8 movie Déjà Vu. We saw it on (I think)Amazon Prime last week. This version of the film sometimes has "(A Love Story)" tacked onto the title to differentiate it from other movies of the same name. It's the tale of one of those "I've been here before" experiences. You know - the feeling put to music by Rodgers & Hart in Where or When



My reservations about the movie Déjà Vu stem from the director, Henry Jaglom's penchant for using improvised dialogue. Actors need to be skilled enough at improvisation to make this style work well. One or two actors in this movie were improvisationally challenged, tended to keep repeating the same lines/thoughts over and over, making for rather uncomfortable viewing. Also, and husband and I both commented on this: one particular segment of the story seemed to be totally out of place in the theme. Roger Ebert's review HERE attempts to explain a possible reason, but we still didn't see it that way. The film did, though, provide a pleasing change from police procedurals, medical dramas, and long drawn-out detective tales about serial killers.

"'Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone."
- Thomas Moore, The Last Rose of Summer (1830)

Well...this isn't a rose and it isn't strictly the last, but our Crepe Myrtle bush in the back yard is well past its best, though still providing spots of colour among endless green. Thanks to anyjazz (husband) for the photograph.

Music [Labor Day] Monday

As I always say on Labor Day: here's to the Unions, gods bless 'em!

Song written by Florence Reece in 1931. She was the wife of Sam Reece, a union organizer for the United Mine Workers in Harlan County, Kentucky. In 1931, the miners of that region were locked in a bitter and violent struggle with the mine owners. In an attempt to intimidate the Reece family, Sheriff J. H. Blair and his men (hired by the mining company) illegally entered the Reece family home in search of Sam Reece. Sam had been warned in advance and escaped, but Florence and their children were terrorized in his place. That night, after the men had gone, Florence wrote the lyrics to "Which Side Are You On?" on a calendar that hung in the kitchen of her home.

One more, suggested by JD, in the north of England: this one is from 2017:

Union miners (A miner's life/A miner's lifeguard) at Durham Miners' Gala 2017

Saturday & Sundry Thoughts on September

Most of these thoughts of mine are a decade old, but in the absence of new inspiration, could be worth re-airing:

September brings with it memories of two portentous events: in September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, World War 2 followed. September, 11th, 2001 brought another fateful, never to be forgotten event. This year [2017] September is seeing the aftermath, and continuation of horrendous flooding in southern Texas and Louisiana, USA, as well as even worse floods, and higher death tolls, in India and elsewhere in the world.

It's sad that September carries such bad memories.

Sorrow and scarlet leaf,
Sad thoughts and sunny weather.
Ah me, this glory and this grief
Agree not well together!
(Thomas Parsons, 1880, A Song For September)

September, so named because once upon a Roman time it was the 7th month.
(Septem = 7th in Latin). The first three weeks of September fall within the tropical zodiac sign of Virgo, with just one week left for Libra.

You know, September, as a month, here in the northern hemisphere, doesn't strike me as being a typically Virgoan time, or for that matter Libran. Yes, I know that in mythology Virgo holds a sheaf of corn, and in most places September is harvest time, but September is also when, in many locations, the leaves fall from the trees, and life starts winding down. September is not a neat Virgoan month. Leaves pile up all over the place, then chilly winds blow them messily around. If anything, Virgo has to describe the work of clearing up the leaves. September - the kids go back to start a new school term. The boys, in Britain anyway, play soccer and rugby again, after a summer of playing tennis and cricket. They often get themselves very muddy in the process - how Virgo is that? In the USA Labor Day (that is, to my mind, Virgoan) with a holiday weekend marks the move from August to September.

One of Frank Sinatra's loveliest recordings, September Song..."And it's a long long time from May to December, and the days grow short when they reach September..." describes our life's September, our own autumn/fall. On the back of the old LP cover to the Sinatra album September Of My Years, Stan Cornyn wrote:

"....September can be an attitude or an age or a wistful reality. For this man it is a time of love. A time to sing. A thousand days hath September"

Goodness me, those liner-note writers were good! It's a big loss that CDs don't have the space for their purple prose; and now, in 2017, even CDs are becoming defunct, along with even the briefest of liner notes.

Sinatra, though a Sun Sagittarian, for me remains a September man. Often melancholy, whether for the dying of the year, or for a lost love, a memory, or a feeling - yet with hope always for what is still to come. Perhaps that is the true essence of September.

I'll resist posting again Sinatra's well-known September Song. Instead I've chosen another singer, another song. This could come as a surprise to those who knew the vocalist best as an actor in TV and film, but his stage career began in musicals. He had been a favourite of mine for years, I was so sad when he left us in 2004. Here he is with Try to Remember - and - which song writer would ever be able to resist that rhyme? The song has some nice, very September-ish, nostalgia.

Arty Farty Friday ~ Christopher Isherwood & Don Bachardy

 Isherwood & Bachardy in front of David Hockney's portrait of them

Artist Don Bachardy met British ex-pat author Christopher Isherwood on a Santa Monica beach in 1952. Bachardy was 18; Isherwood was 49. Given their age difference and Hollywood's then-repressive attitude toward homosexuality, their relationship came as a shock to many. Few expected their romance to last for years, let alone decades. (See NPR website HERE)

The relationship lasted, in fact, for 30 years, until Isherwood's death in 1986. Don Bachardy still lives in the house they shared in Adelaide Drive, Los Angeles.

Christopher Isherwood is best remembered for The Berlin Stories (1935-39), two semi-autobiographical novellas inspired by Isherwood's time in Weimar Republic Germany. These enhanced his postwar reputation when they were adapted first into the play I Am a Camera (1951), then the 1955 film of the same name, I Am a Camera (film); much later (1966) into the bravura stage musical Cabaret (musical) which was acclaimed on Broadway, its unsparing stance being substantially sweetened for the film Cabaret (1972). His novel A Single Man was published in 1964. (Wikipedia)

Don Bachardy became a popular portrait painter among "celebrities" of California's film and entertainment world; Joan Rivers, Fred Astaire, Tennessee Williams, Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Jacqueline Bisset and Nancy Reagan have numbered among his subjects. His artistic talent was, for sure, encouraged and mentored by Christopher Isherwood. (See HERE)



There are many interesting articles online about the pair's lives and relationship.

Christopher Isherwood was born on 26 August 1904, at 11.45 PM, in Disley, Cheshire, England.
Don Bachardy was born on 18 May, 1934, at 4.11 AM, in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Natal charts are available HERE and HERE at Astrodatabank.

Astrologically the pair were "fated" to be, at the very least, friends; their Earthy Suns (Virgo for Isherwood and Taurus for Bachardy), combined with Watery Moons (Pisces for Isherwood (+ Cancer rising), and Cancer Moon for Bachardy would have ensured they'd gravitate towards each other if moving in the same social circles. I'd guess, though, that Bachardy's steadfast Taurean Sun and ascendant were a major factor in maintaining longevity in this loving relationship.

Russians

John Steinbeck, from A Russian Journal (1948), written in the cold war era but likely still relevant:

“It seems to us that one of the deepest divisions between the Russians and the Americans or British, is in their feeling toward their governments. The Russians are taught, and trained, and encouraged to believe that their government is good, that every part of it is good, and that their job is to carry it forward, to back it up in all ways. On the other hand, the deep emotional feeling among Americans and British is that all government is somehow dangerous, that there should be as little government as possible, that any increase in the power of government is bad, and that existing government must be watched constantly, watched and criticized to keep it sharp and on its toes.”

Whatever current political attitudes of the everyday Russian-in-the-street may be, we're all the same, at core - really we are - even when out shopping and taken by surprise...look -

Too Many of Us ? What's to be done?

Overpopulation - of planet Earth: a delicate, yet important, subject. Articles pushing the need for population control are persuasive, but without much searching, an article dismissing those needs can be found. I have to remain a don't know on this issue, though I do lean towards voluntary control of family size. In truth, nobody knows for sure how the matter of overpopulation will develop; in known history, on an Earth-wide scale, overpopulation hasn't happened before. In extremity, would nature itself step in? I do wonder!

Sir David Attenborough, naturalist (born 1926):
“The human population can no longer be allowed to grow in the same old uncontrolled way. If we do not take charge of our population size, then nature will do it for us.”

It makes sense that couples ought to voluntarily limit the size of their families, for numerous reasons, and not only environmental. This has happened in recent history already, without regulation being needed. Families of 10 or more were not uncommon a century or so ago. Life spans were considerably shorter then, even for those who survived childbirth, childhood diseases, and went on to live a reasonably healthy life. My father's parents brought forth 10 children, but none of those ten have parented more than two offspring apiece. As a very loose pattern I'd guess broadly similar applies generally, both in the UK and in the USA ( excluding families whose religion dictates life choices).

Also, on this topic, an archived post from 2012:
Every Sperm is Sacred - or so they say.


Overpopulation is a concern oft approached by writers of dystopian speculative fiction, and film makers of that ilk. We watched one such movie, via Netlix last week :
What Happened to Monday? In that movie, set in the year 2073, the world is in turmoil, a Child Alloocation Act dictates and enforces (without pity, and with Gestapo-style tactics) a one child per family mandate. Any surplus children are rounded up to be (euphemistically)"cryogenically frozen until overpopulation is solved"...for "frozen" read the opposite! Glenn Close plays the evil leader in charge of all this unpleasantness.

What Happened to Monday proved to be something of a collage of ideas already used in several other movies in the dystopian genre. This movie's trade mark, though, is somewhat shared with a TV series, Orphan Black, in that one actress, in this film Noomi Rapace, plays several different personalities of identical physical appearance. She plays seven siblings, septuplets born during a spate of multiple births thought brought about by various environmental or food-related factors. The seven girls' grandfather has named them after days of the week - Monday is girl number one, and she goes missing.

I found the movie interesting, but suspension of disbelief was severely taxed, particularly in the premise that, in order to protect themselves, the seven girls could act as if they were the same person, while undertaking the same employment, one day at a time. Passing on necessary information on work and relationship issues, by word of mouth, to one another each evening. In my view that was just, well, silly - far beyond belief that such a plan could be workable.

Afterwards, I got to remembering a couple of other overpopulation tales in film. First to come to mind, one from the 1970s Logan's Run (my blog post here is relevant). That film could sorely use a good re-make! In the year 2274, the remnants of human civilization live in a sealed city contained beneath a cluster of geodesic domes, a utopia run by a computer that takes care of all aspects of their life, including reproduction. The citizens live a hedonistic life but, to maintain the city, at age 30 all must undergo a ritual, when they are "renewed" a.k.a. vaporized. Population size and consumption of resources are maintained by killing everyone who reaches age 30.

Also from the 1970s, Soylent Green, set in 2022 (today that's just around the corner!) Dying oceans and year-round humidity due to the greenhouse effect, result in suffering from pollution, poverty, overpopulation, euthanasia and depleted resources. 40 million people live in New York City; housing is dilapidated; homeless people fill the streets; many are unemployed; those few with jobs are only barely scraping by and food and working technology are scarce with most of the population surviving on rations produced by the Soylent Corporation. Their latest product is Soylent Green, a green wafer advertised to contain "high-energy plankton" from the World Ocean, more nutritious and palatable than its predecessors "Red" and "Yellow" but in short supply. Most passing readers will know the true content of the green wafer!

There's also The Thinning (2016) I've yet to see this one. Synopsis tells that in the year 2039, Earth's resources are nearly depleted by overpopulation, so the United Nations declares that all nations must cut their population by 5% each year. While some countries remove their elderly, others enforce a one-child policy. The United States implements a policy known as 10-241 or the "Thinning", a standardized test taken from first grade to twelfth grade. Those who pass continue to the next grade, while those who fail are executed. This film's story is set in Austin, Texas.

Margaret Atwood, novelist (born 1939):
“The world is finite. For everybody in the world to have the same lifestyle that we [in the West] have now, at only six billion people, would take four additional Earths [in resources].”

Music Monday ~ The Poet and Janis

Patricia Spears Jones, African American award-winning poet, born in Arkansas in 1951, has lived most of her adult life in
New York. One of her poems:





Swimming to America—Half-moon Sky

Esther Louise and I were talking about Janis Joplin. We were talking about
how Janis Joplin sang as if she found a pain so wide it wounded her.
She sang loud and harsh. But the wound was big. The wound would not heal.
She sang as if nothing nothing could cauterize that wound.
She sang as if only only she knew the way to heal this wound was to burn.
Daily dousing flames from her mouth. Daily striking matches to her mouth.
She sang as if the only only way she could make her face
remove every trace of plainness was to burn burn burn.
She sang so hard and long and loud she came as close as she could
to the pain of those songs made in boxcars, juke joints
outside vaudeville tents home to deviants degenerates and the generous
family of hustlers, some of them women torched by the freedom of the road.
Oh yes, Esther Louise said, “that white girl can sing the blues.”
Janis sang as if only only she could sweep away dry Texas air and burn
out like a nova leaving traces of wild hair, Indian bracelets all the
way up her arm. Her neck wrapped in layers of beads from Persia,
beads from Navaho land, beads from West Africa.
When I first saw Ntozake Shange, I thought, Janis Joplin.

From Bomb Magazine.

Link to the poet's own website: http://psjones.com/

I felt sure I'd written a post about Janis Joplin, with astrology, but if so it has sunk without trace, wrongly tagged perhaps, in the archives. Janis was mentioned in a post I wrote after husband and I had visited his younger daughter and grand daughter in Austin, Texas, years ago - that one is HERE.

Saturday & Sundry Moments from The Week That Was - French Style

Gallic-flavoured momentary discomforts: the qu'ils mangent de la brioche: "let them eat cake!" moment, combined with a mauvais quart d’heure, (as well as having fifteen minutes of fame, one can also have a “bad quarter of an hour” — a brief but embarrassing, upsetting, or demoralizing experience) - this week's related shaming award goes to Louise Linton, labels-loving wife of Steven Mnuchin, US Treasury Secretary. She replied condescendingly to an Instagram poster about her lifestyle and belittled the woman, Jenni Miller, a mother of three from Portland, Oregon for having less money than she does. Thereafter Twitter and the rest of the net did what they do best (or worst depending on one's viewpoint).
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41027854
BUT... what would Madame Defarge have done?

Our plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose moment (the more things change, the more they stay the same) came with President Trump's speech on 22 August : more troops to Afghanistan.

Blackwater founder says Trump's Afghanistan plan is 'Obama-lite'
By Ellen Mitchell

Linked to that is our après moi, le déluge moment: “after me, the flood.”

Stephen Bannon was removed, one way or another, from the White House -

After Bannon, Do Hawks Rule the Roost? By Miles Mogulescu
Without Bannon’s strategic guidance, it’s likely that Trump wouldn’t be President. There’s a special place in hell for that.

But there was another side to Bannon that has been lost in the turmoil over his departure from the White House. The New York Times characterized him as the White House’s “resident dove. From Afghanistan and North Korea to Syria and Venezuela, Mr. Bannon… has argued against making military threats or deploying American troops into foreign conflicts.”

Loosely linked also - another recent exit from The White House: that of Anthony Scaramucci, he of the colourful language and tale-telling proclivity. Sadly we lost him before he could delight us further. This was, no doubt at all, our
pour encourager les autres moment. “So as to encourage the others”— that's the straight translation, but this actually, and obtusely, refers to an action carried out to discourage any future episodes of similar behaviour, unhelpful to The Powers That Be.

Lastly, not an actual moment but a famous (in Britain) French phrase, seldom uttered, often seen as legend on isignia: honi soit qui mal y pense - "shame on him who thinks badly of it". In English, used to discourage preemptively or unjustly talking something down. Dates from the early Middle Ages. Tongue in cheek cartoon (at right) could represent a imagined recent honi soit moment for Queen Elizabeth II.

Arty Farty Friday ~ Dorothea Tanning, artist & writer.

Dorothea Tanning, American surrealist painter, print-maker, sculptor, writer, and poet. She was born on this day in 1910, died in 2012, aged 101.

She certainly had a way with words, as well as paint! This sample of her writing from an article/interview HERE:

Now the doors are all open, the air is mother-of-pearl, and you know the way to tame a tiger. It will not elude you today for you have grabbed a brush, you have dipped it almost at random, so high is your rage, into the amalgam of color, formless on a docile palette.

As you drag lines like ropes across one brink of reality after another, annihilating the world you made yesterday and hated today, a new world heaves into sight. Again, the event progresses without the benefit of hours.

The application of color to a support, something to talk about when it’s all over, now holds you in thrall. The act is your accomplice. So are the tools, beakers, bottles, knives, glues, solubles, insolubles, tubes, plasters, cans; there is no end ... (Dorothea Tanning)

I considered this the best presented YouTube video featuring Ms Tanning's work. Titles of her paintings are included, making it easy for interested viewers to easily search for a larger version of any which particularly attracts them.




Extracted from one of the many obituaries available online this from The Telegraph:

Dorothea Tanning was born on August 25 1910 to Swedish immigrants who had made their home at Galesburg, Illinois. At the age of five she developed a gift for weeping while reciting tragic poetry, leading her mother to hope that she might make a career on the stage. Two years later, however, she had made up her mind to become an artist.

In her autobiography she recalled that her devout Lutheran parents had been alarmed by a perverse bohemian streak that first manifested itself when, as a child, she always lusted after the villain in Westerns. Aged 15, despite never having heard of Surrealism, she horrified her family by painting a naked woman with leaves for hair.

She left home at 20 and moved to Chicago where, after dropping out of art school, she worked as an artist’s model, an illustrator, and a marionnettist at the World’s Fair, and claimed to have dated a gangster who was called away and murdered while she waited at the bar.

In 1936 she moved to New York, where she supported herself by working as an illustrator. The same year she visited an exhibition of Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art: “I thought, Gosh! I can go ahead and do what I’ve always been doing,” she recalled.

In 1939 she travelled to Paris, armed with letters of introduction to several prominent artists, Ernst among them, but found that most had fled the city, which was on the brink of war. After a short spell with her father’s family in neutral Sweden, she returned to New York on the last boat.

After 31 Women, Dorothea Tanning had her first solo exhibition in 1944, at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. By then she and Ernst were living at Sedona, where they confronted lizards, scorpions and snakes and played host to a bohemian cast of visitors including George Balanchine (for whom she would design ballet sets and costumes), Henri Cartier-Bresson, Marcel Duchamp, Truman Capote and Dylan Thomas.

To escape McCarthy era restrictions, they moved to France in 1957, ultimately settling at Seillans, a hilltop village in Provence, in a house designed by Dorothea. During the 1960s and 1970s her work was exhibited regularly at galleries in America and Europe. It was in France, too, where she “lived a lot in my own language”, that she developed her writing skills as a “way of talking”. She and her husband never discussed art, she claimed — “We just had fun.” Unlike some critics, Ernst always allowed her independence, never referring to her as “my wife” but always as Dorothea Tanning.

After his death she returned, in 1979, to New York. Alongside her writing, and following a stroke in the mid-1990s, she embarked on a series of 12 flower paintings – lush, dark works which were subsequently collected in a book entitled Another Language of Flowers.

Just one example of her painting:

 Palaestra = (in ancient Greece and Rome) a wrestling school or gymnasium.

ASTROLOGY

Born on 25 August 1910 in Galesburg, Illinois. No time of birth known. Chart set for noon.

A scant few points, because lack of birth time leaves rising sign unknown as well as exact Moon position. I suspect her rising sign might light up the whole picture and bring it more into focus.

I do see her writing talent: three planets in Mercury-ruled Virgo, one at the beginning of that sign, one mid-sign and one in the last degrees of the sign: Sun Mars and Mercury respectively. Natal Mercury links to Uranus (planet of the unusual and unexpected) by harmonious trine (120 degrees) which probably explains the drive to surrealism in her painting. She has the generational opposition of Uranus-Neptune, so with personal planet Mercury in trine to Uranus that draws in the Uranus/Neptune eccentricities of dreamlike imagination. Ideally I'd have expected Venus, planet of the arts to have been hooked up to that in some way, but not so. Venus is in Leo - maybe that Venu/Leo flavour harks back to her early indication of possessing some acting talent (mentioned in the clip above).

Natal Moon at noon was at 7 Taurus - ruled by Venus, but I guess (not sure about this) there's an outside chance that Moon could have been in the very last minutes of the last degree of Aries, if her birth time had been extremely early. At noon natal Moon was uncomfortably close to Saturn, which didn't feel right to me, from the impression I've gleaned of this lady.

Underlining, again, her writing talent I'll finish with one of her poems Are You? This opens her poetry collection A Table of Content (2004), and is a.... profound statement about identity and self-reliance. This comes from an obituary in The Guardian.

If an expatriate is, as I believe, someone
who never forgets for an instant
being one,
then, no.
But, if knowing that you always
tote your country around
with you, your roots,
a lump
… that being elsewhere packs a vertigo,
a tightrope side you cannot
pass up, another way
to show
how not to break your pretty neck
falling on skylights:
… then, yes.

Who is Robert Mercer ?

Robert Mercer? Who's he? He hadn't entered my mental card index until a few days ago. Seems he's been one of the shadowy figures lurking behind The Donald, The Bannon; and with sticky fingers in The Brexit too; reputed to be on the edge of billionaire-dom, and a longtime computer whiz. A whirl around the net's back alleys threw up some detail. From a fellow-blogger:

Robert Mercer, Cambridge Analytica, and Why It All Matters
by Robert Selth at his blog Sea Wolf.

First paragraph:

Over the past several months, a series of three articles by a journalist named Carole Cadwalladr have appeared in the Guardian. These articles detail the connections between the US billionaire Robert Mercer (now notorious as the money behind Trump), the data firm Cambridge Analytica (which he owns), and a vast, extraordinary campaign of psychological profiling and manipulation, conducted over the internet, and intended to alter beliefs and voting behaviour on a massive scale. The articles touch on a remarkable range of problems and questions, from the probability of large-scale intervention in the Brexit referendum and 2016 American election by a small nexus of reactionary individuals centred around Mercer, to the landscape of international cyberwarfare and how cutting-edge technology is evidently being used to sway elections in unprecedented and frightening ways.

Yikes! Big big money is one thing but "psychological profiling and manipulation"? Up with that we should not put - not ever!

 Click on image for clearer view

There's lots of stuff around the internet about Mercer and his doings. I looked for specific information on his personality, as seen by those who know him. Here are some snippets I gleaned:

He's a man of few words.
The Guardian called Mercer "brilliant but reclusive." Newsweek's headline declared him "mysterious." Bloomberg: "Secretive." You get the idea. In a 2010 book, Mercer referenced a 40-minute speech he gave and said it was "more than I typically talk in a month." That same year he told the Wall Street Journal, "I'm happy going through my life without saying anything to anybody."
(HERE)

One source told the New Yorker that Robert believes “human beings have no inherent value other than how much money they make. A cat has value, he’s said, because it provides pleasure to humans. But if someone is on welfare they have negative value. If he earns a thousand times more than a schoolteacher, then he’s a thousand times more valuable.”
Robert has also been described by people who know him as brilliant, but also weird. Apparently one of his favorite things to do is walk around and whistle, and the same source told the New Yorker, “He can barely look you in the eye when he talks.” (HERE)


His personality is very interesting. Mercer is the co-C.E.O. of Renaissance Technologies, which is among the most profitable hedge funds in the country. A brilliant computer scientist, he helped transform the financial industry through the innovative use of trading algorithms. But he has said little about his political views.

Through a spokesman, Mercer declined to discuss his role in launching Trump. People who know him say that he is painfully awkward socially, and rarely speaks. “He can barely look you in the eye when he talks,” an acquaintance said. “It’s probably helpful to be highly introverted when getting lost in code, but in politics you have to talk to people, in order to find out how the real world works.” In 2010, when the Wall Street Journal wrote about Mercer assuming a top role at Renaissance, he issued a terse statement: “I’m happy going through my life without saying anything to anybody.” According to the paper, he once told a colleague that he preferred the company of cats to humans.

He seems like he has Asperger's syndrome, a.k.a. high-functioning autism.

According to another former employee, RM also apparently believes that the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki made Japanese people away from the blast zones healthier.

RM also supported Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, and he claimed that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a big mistake. That employee claims that RB believed that black people were better off before that act, and also that there are now no white racists in the US, only black racists.

NP also recalls clashes with RM about climate change -- RM does not believe that it is real, and that if it is real, it would be beneficient.
(HERE)

Unpleasant, bordering on repulsive then!


A little astrology:

Data from Astrodatabank: Born 11 July 1946 in San Jose California at 4.25 AM

Sun and ascendant in Cancer - and Saturn too! I need look no further to discover how such an an obscenely wealthy and technologically brilliant guy is seen as reclusive and introverted. Cancer - symbolic crab of the zodiac - values, above all, the protection and isolation afforded by its shell. Ultra sensitive, cautious and quite oddly and unnecessarily shy, there is no way someone with Sun and rising sign in Cancer would ever be an ebullient extrovert. Show me one and I'll take that back! Mercury in Leo might have helped Mercer overcome addiction to his shell but Mercury in his case is conjunct Pluto, planet of (among other things) secrecy, darkness, control - even, possibly, manipulation.

Mercer's natal Moon is in Sagittarius - his emotional core is quite different from his outer nature. His family and closest friends would likely have a different take on his personality, having felt benefit of the warmth and joviality of Jupiter-ruled Sagittarius.

There's what astrologers call a T-square in Mercer's chart: two challenging square angles linking to an opposition, forming a triangle. Here we have the opposition from Sagittarius Moon to the conjunction in Gemini, with squares from both to Mars in Virgo. First interpretation of this coming to my mind is a kind of echo of the contrast between Mercer's Sun and Moon. The Airy and warm sides of his nature constantly challenged, held in check, by Mars (energy, aggression) in critical, down to Earth Virgo.

What about Mercer's technological brilliance ? We look to astrological Air (mental acuity) for that, and find his North node of the Moon conjunct Uranus in Airy Gemini; Jupiter also in Air, in Libra, links to the Gemini emphasis via harmonious 120 degree trine aspect. There lie his credentials as technological virtuoso.

It all fits - as does the overall "shape" of planets in his chart: all planets are grouped within just half of the zodiac circle. Astrologers call this a "bowl" shape. Astrologer Bob Marks interprets thus:

When one half [of the zodiac circle] is empty, it seems to give painful recognition that something is missing, that there is an area of existence from which they are excluded, and the entire life may be spent trying to fill that void. This is why those with Bowl horoscopes frequently seem to be on a mission. And they do have a tendency to get involved in causes.

Whatever the causes driving Mr Mercer, I'll wager they're never for the good of The Great Unwashed - to the absolute contrary in fact!