#MOUNTAIN OF THE GODS HAVING THE ON THE COAST MOTIF | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sammystep · 4 years ago

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My God is the Sun

So this was an entry for a prompt on the Jojo discord I'm in- this prompt was history and I of course had to go and make it weird.

Historical Fiction of the first expedition to Machu Picchu, in which the narrator discovers the reason the Spanish Conquistadors had no record of the palatial grounds.

Written in Lovecraftian style, genre: horror

It is with reluctance that I dare to transcribe the events of that night in December to paper in the fear that to repeat it outside the confines of my mind will make it tangible. The discovery of such an evil in the world however weighs on me, my remaining honor implores me to give witness of the events so that it my not be repeated in error. May my selfless recording of my own cowardice give peace to the widows and families of those lost to us, if it is possible to find peace after such a tale.

I had traveled from Europe to the mountains of Peru under the employment of one Augusto Berns, a German business man of moderate renown and ambition, but no less lacking in political connection to without doubt expunge his name from these documents should they be parted from me. My previous experience working for his competitor in Egypt had extended my reputation far enough that for a moderate pay raise I had no qualms in overseeing similar unsavory work in South America. The relics of the ancients were not scarce once there was a deposit struck, but like mining for gold or silver there needed to be an experienced geologist on hand to conduct the miners. So too there was a need for my service of identifying the treasured pieces of archeological finds between useless bits of rubble and broken pottery.

Within a few months in the jungles of this untamed land our expedition had learned from the locals of a royal palace of the Inca left untouched by time. The Spanish conquistadors leaving no record of reaching such a place in the research I conducted made this rumor at least worthy of a guided tour up the mountain. A few shining coins convinced the local boys of the village to help haul equipment and guide us to their ancient playground, nimble as mountain goats they climbed steep rock face and held balance over a decaying rope bridge to our goal. The workers of our party armed with machetes to clear vines and overgrowth thick and gnarled from our path, if not for the occasional brick jutting from the ground clearly made by human hands, I would have assumed the palace to be only myth. Surely no structures would survive the will of nature at her heart of green growth.

Finally, a monument emerged from behind the trees, a complex of buildings and rubble overtaken by tall grass and vines and wild fruiting plants but immune to the advancement of thick trees and roots. Our searching was rewarded with the discovery of a dense collection of artifacts and items crafted hundreds of years ago. By the weeks end we had established a camp under the guise of a logging operation, rudimentary living quarters and storehouse to properly care for the treasures built at the base of the path up the mountain the locals called Machu Picchu.

The easily scavenged locations produced adequate finds and we pushed further and further into the expanse of desiccated temples and chambers even as the days waned with the nearing of the winter solstice. The temples devoted to the ancient gods of the builders of this mystifying isolated city were easily identifiable like all temples are, the walls carved in intricate detail of ritual and practices not unlike the stained-glass windows of a Christian church. Naturally, the caverns connected to the grand temple served as tombs for the deceased where we found the greatest treasures so far. Raw gems and rough metal tools and a few weapons made of a strange black glass that the locals identified as obsidian and was only found in volcanic deposits.

The mummified remains of the people buried here stare at us as we take from them the last of their worldly positions, eyes long unseeing and shriveled in their skulls but watching all the same. The treasures abounded and were sure to fetch whatever price we named for them and I sent word to my contacts in England to inquire their interest in purchasing directly from me and avoiding business costs going through Herr Berns. The day after that letter posted on an outgoing expedition to the coast for resupply, we came upon the grandest cavern yet found.

This new partition of the tomb system was markedly different from its predecessors, the walls even more spectacular in their craftmanship depicting a specific ritual and repeating figure of a man standing head over shoulders of the life-sized renditions of native people. Though certainly grander and more extravagant than the chambers that came before it, the new cavity was sorely lacking in loose artifacts that may be easily traded and sold. Few raw and roughly cut gem stones were cemented into the walls themselves and the workers quickly jumped at the chance to dislodge some precious stones as large as their fists.

I allowed them to work uninterrupted as I studied the carvings and hieroglyphics on the walls, and though I was no scholar of this language their rudimentary story telling through sequence made the ritual understandable across years untold and needing no interpreter. Depictions of young men lined up and awaiting a signal of the sun and moon to align descend into a cave, an underworld inhabited by creatures portrayed with human bodies and decidedly inhuman faces. The torsos and limbs of the nonhumans posed in strange and unnatural ways as the scenes continued deeper and deeper into the cavern. Only a sliver of light remained from the winter sun as I gained awareness of what the ritual carved from solid rock entailed, what the specialized glass tools and unfathomable artifacts scattered in abandoned workshops were for.

I could scarcely stomach the contemplation of the images, knowing now what my own hands had touched in the extraction of items from the temple halls, what morbid truth the array of alters and weapons found so far had been subjected to. All in appeasement of their god, the primitive god of what I would only realize later the god of death and blood. What I had once believed to be simply decorative motifs in the floors that I stood upon served a different more practical purpose to channel the blood of their deceased into this grand cavern. And if the star alignments and depictions were to be believed, the winter solstice marked the festival of ultimate sacrifice to this blood god. The groups of men previously depicted nearer the entrance to this tomb now bent in supplication to be worthy of becoming one with this great being.

My examinations ended here with the last of the carved reliefs, and I wish now that this had ben the end of our adventure to this hall of death, but ancient stone had never posed any real threat before, aside from unstable footing. Foolishly we continued to the rear of the cavern where the walls seemed to bow out away in a circular cul-de-sac around a central pillar holding the roof stable. Though it was covered in slimy algae enough to obscure what material it was made of, enough of the monolith remained visible to see it was dotted with alcoves containing the first untethered artifacts to be found in this section of cave. Within moments I had retrieved one of the items, a stone mask carved with great care and polish, its face a haughty sneer and monstrous fangs protruding from behind closed lips. In all my experience I had never known an artifact to emit such malice and menace as simply holding this mask instilled into me.

Not having the fortitude to withstand this feeling for longer than necessary I ordered the workers to start collection of these masks, for while they were indeed eerie and disturbed, they would fetch fair price to private collectors in Europe. The novelty of possessing mysterious worship items the fad of nobles to flaunt their wealth and intellect to lecture guests on its origin. I then turned my attention to the obstructed portions of this structure and what was uncovered burns into my mind even now as I write this account. Under the muck and slime, I revealed little at a time the face of a man, carved so carefully from the stone it appeared as though he had been cursed by Medusa of Greek myth.

Though the stone man was indeed the most valuable piece of ancient art we had uncovered in this expedition, he was carved from the very structure of the cave system and I mourned for the riches that would never be mine upon his sale. I returned my attention to the workers extracting masks from alcoves and scolded one as he was about to place the mask upon his face in jest. The light from the entrance was fading quickly as we recovered all we could carry and as we turned to exit it had faded completely so that we were forced to abandon arm loads of cargo and hold torches aloft instead. The flash of flint and tinder to light them sparked in the gloom and made the shadows dance along the carved reliefs on the walls, the pictures seeming to take on life of their own as the light shifted on their features.

I had scarcely lit my own torch to lead the men back to camp when the sliding scrape of a stone being dislodged behind us froze us in our steps. The more cautious and superstitious of the group spun around and franticly searched for explanation to the sudden sound but I foolishly eased their minds believing it to just be a natural shifting of rock or discarded artifact. The sun had truly set now and shade became pitch black without its radiant presence. As I worked to calm the men so too something else was working in these obscuring shadows.

From the central pillar of the cavern a writhing mass of roots carved from stone warped as they awoke from their centuries old slumber, twisting over themselves in masses indescribable in words before shooting out and grasping the closest members of our party, binding them and constricting like snakes devouring their prey. We were reduced in that moment to our most basic of instincts, some men fleeing the cavern on swift feet before their minds could even comprehend what they were witnessing, others remaining frozen in place as if they too were cursed to remain stone. Madness must have overtaken me then, for as I watched the stone vines rise up and pierce through the ear lobes of one of the workers, another vine through his tongue as he screamed, I could only feel a sense of awe as I saw acted out in front of me the rituals I had studied on the engraved walls. Blood flowed freely from his wounds as he struggled against the embrace of the stone vines, struggled against the embrace of death.

More roots curled around our ill-begotten goods that had fallen to the ground, lifting the macabre stone masks to the faces of the other men caught in the tangled web. The collected blood from the first man splashed over them and, upon contact, produced thin bone like claws from the sides of the masks and extended into the skulls of the workers. Their blood pooled beneath them where they lay motionless and fed into the irrigation channels marked into the floor, flowing towards the central monolith at a supernatural rate. With horror, I looked up to the face of the carved man and witnessed color return to his face and hair and I felt within me the burning cold awe of witnessing the ancient god come to life. For that is the only thing he could be, the carvings and worship of the ancient people must have been correct in their depictions of this god of death.

The monolith god descended from his perch, towering over we remaining mortals and approached the bloodied man still held firm in front of him. I had no control over my own person to even draw breath as I witnessed the pillar god’s chest undulate before sprouting ribs from beneath smooth skin without drawing blood, the ribs caging the unwilling sacrifice and pulling him to the gods body, where upon he started to melt into the flesh of the stone man, screaming in terror as his bloody tongue filled his mouth to drown his own screams. As he was digested and incorporated into the flesh of the god, the others that had been sacrificed and lay immobile on the floor began to twitch and move under their own power once more. The sight must have broken me from my stupor as I next remember running alongside the few others still untethered by roots toward the exit. Blurred walls rushed by my vision before we finally spilled into the open night air, spurred on ever faster by the sounds of our less swift companions being torn and cannibalized by our former colleagues.

I was one of only three men to make it back to our camp at the base of the mountain.

In our haste to reach the relative safety of our outpost we had not the presence of mind to ensure the creatures that were once men had given up the chase at the edge of the temple grounds, our subconscious minds somehow equating their presence as static and therefore bound to the unholy place behind us. But we were soon proved wrong when from outside the door a squealing of metal and splintering of wood informed us that the main gate to our own safe haven had been breached. We three that knew the truth of what lay out in the light of the crescent moon, rendered dumb and speechless as we heard the cries of men and animals alike outside fall prey to the hunting party stalking past our door. We could not draw breath to warn the others before they too rushed outside to fend off what they knew nothing about. I regained a semblance of sense or perhaps my survival instincts overwhelmed my rational mind, but I found myself cowering behind the doors of a standing wardrobe, not daring to crack the door in hope that perhaps I would run out of air before I could be found, that my death would be kinder than the ones I could hear happening still around and inside the lodging.

I know not how much time passed as I prayed mercy, as I awaited the inevitable. Eons, years, seconds had no meaning as I counted each breath, each heartbeat that flooded my ears and rendered them useless to hear the intermittent screams of the men in my employ. Exhaustion tugged at my eyelids as surely my supply of fresh air dwindled before my breathing must have alerted the hunters to my hiding space. The doors of my salvation proved to be little more than paper to the claws and power of the men formerly human, their faces twisted in expression to match the accursed masks found in that sanctuary of death. I screamed wordlessly as they dragged me past the remains of the work crew, of the carcasses of the pack animals and past the demolished wooden gate. In my panic I thrashed though they did not harm me as they carried my body back to the temple grounds.

The large flat stone in the center of the courtyard had been speculated to be the site of ritual for animal sacrifices to the ancient gods, and I suppose to a god, humans must not be more than livestock after all. The twisted creatures held me to the slab, one on each limb as a fifth held aloft one of the wretched masks. From the cavern entrance the blood god emerged into the moonlight, his hair a shade of red matching the blood on his face and hands of the night’s sacrifices given onto him. Two black horns adorned his head on each side of his head and I knew this was no god but a demon set upon the world. We had awoken that which was truly cursed, without our greed for treasure and careless disregard for warnings of ancient people this creature would be forever still trapped in its stone prison.

The terrible mask descending towards my face obscured my vision of this demon and the sickly moon in the lavender sky, the creature biting down and spilling its own blood from its tongue in preparation of taking the last sacrifice of the night. But as the cold stone settled over my face hope bloomed in my chest as through the eyehole’s daylight cast its first red rays upon the ruins. The temple grounds were bathed in the glorious rays and the hunting party fell to the ground squealing and shrieking as their skin and sinew burned away. With my limbs free I managed to free my face from the mask as the hunters still dripping blood activated its command to impale my own skull. Even now I bare the scars of the few bone like claws that managed to break the skin of my temple and face. With my remaining strength I flung myself from the alter, the man made from the monolith unable to step foot into the sunlight lest he suffer the same burning fate as his minions. I could feel his eyes upon me even after leaving the main entrance to the ruins but I dared not slow my retreat to look back.

My legs carried me past the ruins of my camp, now to be abandoned along with the stone buildings of the ancient peoples. In a trance, I carried myself to civilization. Though I understood the local dialect, at this moment I found words beyond me, unable to reconcile the fate I had narrowly escaped and indeed believing my escape was a phantasm of my own making, a final imagining of a dying mind like that of a dream. But the comfort of the safety afforded me now, the solid walls and bright sun shining down restored my faculties, though I still dare not speak of this encounter out loud.

I fear the strain on my mind too great to bear for much longer. I am no longer able to tolerate the thought of sleeping at night and leaving myself vulnerable to the hunters come back to reclaim their lost prize. But sleeping in the bright sun as I wish to do proves impossible as well, only able brief periods of rest under the burning rays before the discomfort proves too much, my eyes now sensitive to even the faintest flicker of flame. My strength wanes as food tastes of ash in my mouth, my mental state and paranoia sapping my will to sustain myself with it. Even if it were not a repulsive task anymore to simply eat, I fear that this gnawing hunger in my belly will never again be satiated.

I wait impatiently for the next traveling escort arranged by my employer to deliver the artifacts my team had collected, and I pray they will not hesitate to abandon the task of collecting the items when confronted with the carnage left at the camp site. The temple of the bloody god and the cursed stone masks must stay hidden in this jungle, lost to time.

Author’s Note:

I read a few short stories by Lovecraft to get the kind of feel for that horror genre down and I just gotta say this writing style is pretentious as hell and totally my jam.

Let me know what you think- I know its a VERY niche market for loosely Jojo-related historical fiction horror pieces ':|

#pillar men #lovecraft #monster #sacrifice #depictions of violence #first person narrative #horror #short story #jojo reference

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jellydishes · 6 years ago

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i recently rediscovered the Inquisitor as a Companion meme i had filled out for my Belluel Trevelyan (pictured here, on the left) several years ago, and wanted to post it here for own purposes (i.e. crying)

Belluel (Jacinta Immaculada Maita) Trevelyan

Alternate name: Her name is identical, though she is from a lesser branch of the Trevelyan family

Race, Class, & Specialization: Human, Duel-wielding rogue, Tempest

Varric’s Nickname for them: Jaws

How they are recruited: Belluel is first encountered on the Storm Coast a short distance away from where the dragon and the giant are battling, hunched in the ruins of a lifeboat with what surviving crew made it off her ship. She grips the hilts of her blades in her hands, and seems adamant in her refusal to leave her crew, some of whom are gravely injured.

Once the dragon leaves, the giant turns on Bell and her crew. The inquisitor can choose to fight the giant at this time, and if so, Bell leaves the scant cover of her lifeboat to provide assistance. If, however, the inquisitor avoids fighting the giant, Belluel will be understandably short with the inquisitor when they do speak, and several dialogue choices will be unavailable.

Either way, once the giant is finally dispatched, Belluel will approach the inquisitor. She promises the full support of herself and her ships, a pirate fleet she’s gathered under her command in the last ten years, if the inquisitor helps her repair her ships, damaged by storms and monster attacks.

The inquisitor can refuse to help Bell, or turn her offer down once the ships are repaired, at which point Belluel will scrub a hand down her face and say with brittle cheerfulness that she’s sure they’ll muddle along with them. Bell and her crew will be gone the next time the inquisitor comes by that spot, and will vanish from the game at that point.

If the inquisitor accepts, Bell will beam and tell the inquisitor that, really, they’re taking advantage of her good nature, seeing as how they’re getting a pirate captain and a fleet of ships out of the deal.

Like Iron Bull, her crew will accompany her to Haven/Skyhold. At Skyhold, her first mate Claudette can be found in one of the two buildings overlooking the bridge leading away from Skyhold, warming her hands over a fire (or, in the case of a glitch, IN the fire.) Talking to Claudette, as like Krem, provides additional information about Belluel and her crew, and will occasionally trigger quests. Usually, her crew will be put to use scouting out materials or harassing enemy forces on the seas, though they will also serve as protection for dignitaries and additional forces traveling from Rivain or Antiva.

Where they are in Skyhold: In Haven, Belluel can be found outside the walls by the trebuchets with her hands crammed up in her armpits and a wide smile turned towards the mountains, and the Free Marches. These first conversations with her are bright and cheerful and mostly lies. A Trevelyan inquisitor can call her out on a number of her lies, which will net both a laugh and disapproval.

In Skyhold, she can typically be found on the long bridge leading away from the fortress, leaning against the low wall and looking out over where the land breaks away from the sky. She will freely share stories of her decades at sea and of her various misadventures through every port town with a name and some that didn’t, always with a smile and a tilt of her head. Occasionally, if approached with the right amount of approval, she can be convinced to tell stories of her pre-Andrastrism gods and how they shaped the world, though, with the crooked smile she’s aiming at the inquisitor, it’s hard to tell if she’s telling the truth…

Things they Generally Approve of:

Providing assistance to mages whensoever possible, choosing dialogue options that support mage freedom, and, similarly, working against oppressive systems.

Good natured teasing.

Lying as a means to conceal your motives or true emotions will often be rewarded with a skeptical snort or a sideways, though wordless, glance, but a slight increase in approval. Similarly, cleverness and subterfuge. An easy way to get Bell’s approval rating up is to successfully beat her at riddles or word games. (This comes up later in her romance path, when she requests that the inquisitor help her locate a book of riddles given to her by her cousin Ista as a child, which is filled with their beginning efforts at code to make it past the circle’s censors, and that Bell had to leave behind when she ran away from her family home to be a pirate decades ago.)

Taking her to visit the tailor in Val Royeaux, wherein she will coo over waistcoats and tails and the detailed tooling on leather gloves. An additional approval point can be gained by purchasing and subsequently outfitting her in a specific item, which is randomly selected each playthrough.

A larger bonus can be gained after recruiting Dagna, after which Bell will be found in the undercroft, pulling up her pant leg to expose one of her prosthetic legs, conferring animatedly with Dagna over design and function and wouldn’t it be magnificent if the leg came to a point?? The inquisitor can comment on the proceedings, during which approval can be won or lost (though, it should be noted, the inquisitor has no actual say on the final design). On this occasion, joking will be met stiffly if made at anything but the highest approval, and any serious attempts to change her mind will result in an invitation to suck on Phoenix eggs, and a loss of approval. (Shortly afterward, a short cutscene will be triggered where she will be seen giving a small sigh with her eyes sliding shut, shifting her weight from side to side to judge the fit, before opening an eye to a slit and joking that she’s “moving away from the floral motif. Whatever will people say.”)

Expressing skepticism in Andrastrism and/or the chantry, or inquiring after her gods and Rivaini background.

Riding on the rowboat on the Storm Coast, though only if she is actually present in the party.

Things they Generally Disapprove of:

Siding against mages, or choosing dialogue options that reinforce oppresTHE LIESsive rules or beliefs.

Taking the amulet from Mihris in the Hinterlands will result in a loss of approval, while killing her will trigger a major loss of approval, and a small cutscene wherein Bell will stand rigid over her body in shock, before whirling on the inquisitor and shouting hoarsely at them. “How could you?!” She’ll cry out, slashing the air with a palm. “You’re supposed to be better than this! Than me!” If currently romanced, this is one of several triggers that can cause Bell to end the relationship.

Choosing to full-out decorate Skyhold with all of the chantry decorative options.

Upgrading the tower for templar usage.

Out and out cruelty in conversation choices, or in ignoring sidequests that benefit mages for a set amount of time, depending on the severity of the quest. (Taking your sweet time about delivering the amulet containing her phylactory to the mage in the Hinterlands, for example, will result in dropped approval.)

Confronting her directly about things she’s obviously lied about or evaded in conversation will often result in a loss of approval, though these can subsequently be won back if the inquisitor expresses genuine concern. These won’t win you the answers you’re looking for, either, not in the beginning, but Bell will give a start and a huff of a laugh and say with only a bit of awkwardness that she appreciates your concern. “It’s. Been some time since any but a select few people have called my bluffs. Perhaps I should play cards more, yeah?” (These same questions can be asked again after achieving high approval, and will net very different answers.)

Unnecessary killing, though she will admit, with clenched teeth and shaking fists, that the inquisitor is doing what they think best serves the inquisition, as she did (and does) with her crew. Continued executions will result in further loss of approval.

Hiding things that are considered important to someone’s well being (such as the fact that Dorian’s father wrote the letter from Dorian) result in a massive and immediate loss of approval.

Asking Krem transphobic questions. One of her mothers is a trans woman, and Belluel will immediately lose approval if the inquisitor picks certain dialogue choices. Additionally, she will bring this up the next time the inquisitor talks to her.

Mages, Templars, Other?: Belluel whole-heartedly supports mage freedom, and is openly disapproving of anyone expressing otherwise.

If pressed, she’ll admit that she’s given some thought to the ways her Rivaini mother Ahu described the circles in Rivain as being run, and will start to expound upon this before interrupting herself with a snort and settling her weight back on one leg, crossing her arms. “Well. That worked out so grand for Dairsmuid, then, didn’t it?”

If asked her opinion on the matter, Belluel will hem and haw and give her usual diversionary smiles and half truths before eventually telling the inquisitor that she supports Cassandra for the new divine based on the reforms she plans to make to the chantry, though Bell is also willing to hear the inquisitor out about their decision.

Friends in the Inquisition: (which canon characters are they close with?)

Belluel can often be found bullshitting with Varric, the both of them bent over mugs by the hearth, each trying to top the other, either in most believable lies or in the most unbelievable truths. Varric will take particular delight in telling her stories of Isabela, about whom Bell is greatly intrigued, while Bell will regale him with stories of her surviving sibling and twin, Rudy, who quit the pirating life many years ago and now lives in Kirkwall. After the jokes fall away, though, is where they find the other’s smile waiting for them.

She finds that she has a lot in common with Iron Bull. Once they get past that initial feeling out period wherein they take one-step-forward-two-steps-back, they settle into a comfortable rhythm of jokes and actual personal admissions carefully hidden as bunk. Several banters are the trading of riddles or talking entirely in code, with both trying to figure out what is actually being said.

She has great respect for Cassandra, and can sometimes be found sitting nearby Cassandra’s practice, discussing all manner of things. Cassandra will sometimes try to trap Belluel in a lie, but it is good natured, and Belluel somehow always manages to get a smile out of the seeker. Belluel is utterly, and unapologetically, head over heels for Cassandra, though she doesn’t know quite what to do with that information, often leading to her usual flirtations stumbling out of her mouth in a muddle. Numerous gifts make their way to Cassandra’s quarters, and Belluel can be spotted dancing with Vivienne, relearning the steps of a dance she’d long forgotten, though the inquisitor cannot interrupt.

Their relationship begins in fits and starts, but Belluel eventually becomes quite close with Vivienne, and will in fact eventually be heard to say that Vivienne is one of her few, close friends. They have very basic and very intrinsic disagreements about mages and the future of the circles, but through banter, it becomes obvious that the two are coming to genuinely appreciate each other despite this, and settle into a very easy back and forth.

She is unsure what to make of Cole at first, though she very quickly warms up to him. Their banters are warm, with Bell making mention of training him as a sailor after all of this.

Belluel and Dorian have their differences, most notably on the topic of slavery, though in most cases they get along very well, and become very close by the end of the game. She spends a lot of time with him in the library after his personal quest, talking of inconsequential things, joking and teasing and being silly just to get him to smile, though she can be spotted gripping his hand in hers and telling him with the utmost seriousness that she doesn’t have so many loved ones that she is ready to lose him just yet. She promises him that wheresoever he chooses to go, she and Ista will be there with him, whatever comes.

Though they couldn’t truly be called friends, Bell actually gets along better with Blackwall after his revelation than she did before, though she certainly does not approve, and in banters with him will admit that she cannot fault him for wanting to be someone else.

Romanceable?: Belluel is romanceable by women and nonbinary individuals of any race, and is available for poly relationships.

At low approval, or if the flirtation options are only occasionally chosen, Bell will return any and all flirtations with a laugh and a wink, including flirtations from men.

Once medium approval has been reached, Bell will cock her head at further flirtations, something going stiff in the edges of her smile. She will hesitate only a moment before shaking her head with a laugh. At this point, she will gracefully let down men with a clap to the shoulder and an offer of drinks at the tavern, and will meet further flirtations from women and nonbinary individuals with a flustered, crooked smile and a hand to the back of her neck. She “hadn’t actually considered this far,” she’ll admit.

“That’s not true,” she’ll say after a time, the first time in the inquisitor’s memory that she’s admitted to a lie, and will look down at her cupped hands before glancing back up at the inquisitor. “You are. Filling in a lot of spaces with light and noise, my dear inquisitor, and."

Still, she will hesitate, starting and stopping several times before she goes on to say, ”I’m not used to things going well, you’ll find. With ships or with people. It will go wrong, eventually, or all at once. I’m still not convinced that they won’t,” Bell will add with a breathless laugh that tried for normalcy, “but- if you’re serious-” She will draw in a breath and take up the inquisitor’s hand in hers, saying, “I wouldn’t mind seeing where they can go right.”

If the inquisitor approaches Bell and initiates private moments, there will be a cutscene of the pair of them holding hands on the staircase overlooking the main hall, Bell breathing out a smile before tipping her head to press kisses to the corner of the inquisitor’s mouth, hands rising to caress their face.

Early on, in a conversation triggered by walking by Belluel while she is talking with either Cassandra or Josephine enough times to witness certain fumbling smiles, Belluel will take the inquisitor up to the inquisitor’s bedroom for a private discussion. She’ll pace the length of the bedroom, holding her arms behind her back, pursing her lips before telling the inquisitor with a slow and measured carefulness that she’s poly, and if asked will explain, emphasizing trust and mutual respect, before falling quiet again.

Bell will stop moving and draw herself up to her full, if diminutive, height, and inform the inquisitor that she had only recently ended a long-term relationship with her first mate, Claudette. For over ten years, she will explain haltingly, the pair of them had spent a good deal of their time hurting each other, with Bell taking solace from events in her past and current depression in drink and in increasingly risky pirating activities, while Claudette turned to dallying with men and women outside of their relationship. Which would have been fine, she’ll take care to say, except that Claudette had never approved of Bell’s being poly, and took pains to hide her liaisons. Neither spoke of it, of any of it, and it festered between them for years.

Only recently, she’ll say, did she find it in herself to break things off, round about the time she found out about Ista’s disappearance. If asked why she’d never ended the relationship earlier (which will earn a sharp look but no loss in approval), Belluel will merely say that it’s not so easy to climb out of a hole when the sky holds just as many horrors.

Belluel will fall silent again for long moments after her story before giving herself a shake. “I haven’t even told Ista that,” she says. “I haven’t told anyone. I only tell you so you will fully understand what I mean when I say that that is not what I want. I want. I-” Belluel will drag a hand down her face again to grasp at her mouth. “I love you,” she says, simply, “but I have room in my heart for other people. I always have.”

At this point the inquisitor can A) Accept Belluel and her expand the relationship, which will both continue the romance and open up additional pathways for romance with other characters, eventually triggering cutscenes with Belluel involving those characters. Belluel herself will approach Josephine and Cassandra if the inquisitor does not.

B) Accept Belluel but decline expanding the relationship, which will continue the relationship unchanged.

C) End the relationship, to which Belluel will step back with her hands clenched behind her back, her crooked smile falling to pieces. She will reach for a joke and, finding nothing, will wordlessly leave the inquisitor’s bedroom. Later, she will be found sitting beside Ista, their joined hands between them as they share quiet stories of times past.

Also: Midway through the romance, Belluel will initiate sex. Turning down her offer of sex will have no negative consequence on the romance, and will trigger a cutscene wherein Belluel takes the inquisitor up to the battlements wherein Bell will be seated beside the inquisitor atop the battlements, arms linked together, voice a low hush as they talk over everything and nothing.

If unromanced, Bell will romance a similarly unromanced Josephine and Cassandra, both if they are both available.

Small side mission: Between the Lines

Belluel requests that the inquisition use it’s resources to track down former circle mages that hailed from the Free Marches and are located throughout Orlais and Fereldan, though she’s rather cagey as to the reason, more so than usual. If present in the party when the mages are located, Belluel talks with them, and bags will change hands. Belluel will refuse to discuss the bag’s contents with the inquisitor, and if pressed, will tell the inquisitor an obvious lie.

As with Blackwall, she disapproves if she is not in the party when they are located, and will make pointed remarks about this when talked to back in Haven/Skyhold.

Several items can be shaved off the questline if you take her along to the Winter Palace, where she can be spotted in one of the side rooms, trying to leverage some of the power behind her family name in order to track down a certain artifact, though the inquisitor’s presence is spotted before much of significance is heard.

Companion quest: Words, Words, Words

After her approval is high, Belluel will barge into the war room in a triggered cutscene to demand Leliana’s help and, when confronted by the inquisitor, their help as well. For once, Belluel’s usual easy going smile is shaken, and she is quite serious when she tells the inquisitor the purpose of her side mission: she has been bargaining, wheedling, and outright bribing mages in order to suss out the location of her cousin Ista’s phylactory.

Ista, she tells the inquisitor, had half raised her when they were both children, until she had, Bell would say delicately, “shown signs of magic” and, less delicately, “been stolen away by those utter bastards in armor” when Ista had been twelve and Bell had been six. They kept in regular contact through letters, passing along hidden messages through increasingly convoluted code, and Bell became worried when those letters cut off recently. Ista, she says, has disappeared from the Ostwick circle in the confusion of the war. Much of the circle’s contents had also since disappeared, Bell had discovered, including the phylactories.

Bell requests the inquisitor’s help in locating Ista’s phylactory so that no one could use it against her, even if that means that she wouldn’t be able to use it to find Ista, either. Further questioning will reveal that Bell had not met the inquisitor by chance— she had purposefully driven her fleet in through unseasonal storms in order to meet up with the fledgling inquisition. As fleeting as the hope of their assistance may have been, it was still the best chance she had of finding Ista’s phylactory.

The quest itself takes about three hours of research, after which time Ista’s phylactory, and Ista herself, is eventually located in the Hinterlands with a small group of young mages and tranquil, penned into a box canyon by red templars. Belluel will demand that the inquisition journey there right now, this very instant, damnit.

The mission is TIMED. If the quest is not begun within a set amount of time, Belluel will leave Skyhold. She can be caught up with in the Hinterlands, though she will be bitterly angry with the inquisitor, and will barely be able to speak through her anger and worry.

When they arrive, Ista is clearly in trouble. The vegetation around her is a scorched ruin, and a number of red templars lie dead, but there are more, always more, and Ista is flagging. Seeing no other course to protect her charges, Ista gulps down her last lyrium potion at the inquisition’s approach, and tears open a hole in the Fade that begins to draw in everything in a large radius, including Ista herself.

Belluel grows desperate, and tears away from the inquisitor. Dousing herself in an alchemical solution, Belluel hurls herself down the canyon towards the Templars and her cousin, damaging her prosthetics in her haste and nearly tumbling down the canyon wall.

Option 1: The inquisitor can seal the rift, which requires opening it still further and dealing with the demons that emerge. Multiple pride demons have to be dealt with, including the red templars.

After the battle, Belluel and Ista will joyfully reunite, and Ista will be gained as an agent. Ista will subsequently be found nearby Bell’s location in Skyhold, and can be talked to, though will have limited dialogue.

Option 2:

The inquisitor can refuse to help, try to delay or stop Belluel, or collapse precariously balanced boulders down on the canyon.

Depending on the choices made during the battle, Ista may or may not survive the battle, but any combination of the above will result in Belluel leaving the inquisition.

If Ista dies, Bell will collapse at her side, passing a shaking hand over her face before balling her fist up by her mouth. Without speaking a word to anyone, Belluel will gather her cousin up and disappear in the direction of the coast. Later, Belluel will turn her pirates against the inquisition forces in a series of brutal attacks, and can be captured in a subsequent quest, at which point Belluel can be imprisoned, forced to once again turn her fleet towards the good of the inquisition, or be executed.

If Ista survives, Belluel and her crew will permanently leave the inquisition, along with Ista. The pair hug, Bell leaning up to kiss one of Ista’s largest scars and to whisper things in her ear that go unheard by the inquisitor, and then off they go, without a backward look.

Afterward, reports on the war table tell you that the pair have ended up using Bell’s boats to ferry refugees, particularly rebel mages away, from dangerous areas.

The inquisitor will later get a quest on the war table about a minor Fereldan lord getting riled up because Bell’s crew was spotted flying pirate colors off the coast, and setting up a war camp full of apostates and criminals on his lands. Varying reports coming in accuse Belluel of intercepting shipments of food and armaments for the use of her crew or, according to one particularly colorful tale, planning on deposing the lord and setting up her cousin Ista as the new ruler of the lands.

If Cullen is used to strongarm Bell, Ista, and their crew away from the lord’s lands, they resist, and a good number of pirates die defending the apostates and refugees. Bell herself is injured in the attack. Some time later, the inquisitor will be notified in a bit of ambient dialogue from Josephine that the inquisition has received a bill from Belluel for the cost of a replacement prosthetic leg from a certain artisan in Val Royeaux.

If Josephine is used to negotiate a parcel of land for the refugees, a grateful Belluel will (somewhat begrudgingly) pass along a bit of intelligence about venatori forces moving along the coast, earning a bit of influence for the inquisition. The letter notifying the inquisitor of success will be from Belluel, informing Josephine (and, therefore, the inquisitor) that, as leader of their combined forces, all further messages can be directed to Bann Ista, please and thank you. The inquisition earns a small amount of influence.

If Leliana is used, Belluel and Ista’s forces will be slowly picked away by Leliana’s agents until Belluel is forced to gather what remains of her people and retreat back to the relative safety of the sea, leaving much of her supplies and ships behind. The inquisition earns a substantial amount of money from this course of action.

#belluel trevelyan

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i-am-very-very-tired · 3 years ago

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alibu is a beautiful city famous for its beaches, natural hiking trails, and the many celebrities that have homes in its region.

With a mix of laid-back attractions and upscale luxury hotspots, there are so many places to see and places to go within the vibrant, sunny town.

With so many choices, you might not know how you can spend your time here or where to head to first.

To help you out, here’s our travel guide for the 28 best and fun things to do in Malibu, California.

Things To Do In Malibu

1. Point Dume State Beach and Preserve

If you’re seeking a quintessential Malibu beach, Point Dume State Beach and Preserve must be on your list of places to visit.

This gorgeous expanse of sandy beach, decorated with an overhang of cliffs and headlands and packed with coves of rock, is a beautiful spot to relax and have fun in the sun!

Operated and maintained by the County of Los Angeles, this beach provides all sorts of facilities.

Whether you want to fish, dive, swim, or surf, there’s plenty that you can enjoy at Point Dume State Beach and Preserve.

Between the months of December and April, you can even spot California gray whales as they migrate for the season!

A hiking trail within Point Dume State Beach and Preserve brings you up a short but interesting hike that rewards you with delightful views of the Santa Monica Mountains, Santa Monica Bay, and even Catalina Island.

The clearer the day, the better!

These views can be enjoyed thanks to a unique mix of terrain from dunes and coastal bluff.

Near to its summit, you’ll find a lovely viewing platform and some paths that lead to lesser-known, more isolated beaches.

Address: Cliffside Dr &, Birdview Ave, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

2. The Getty Villa

When the Getty Villa was opened, it was subject to a fair bit of controversy, especially from art experts.

The museum was opened in a faux Malibu villa that was designed based on the famous Villa dei Papiri ruins of Herculaneum.

It was established by J Pau Getty, an oil magnate, and earned much derision when it began operation in 1974.

Today, it has grown into one of the city’s best things to see.

Getty used the villa as a home for his personal holdings, and after some renovation, the Getty Villa was converted into a genuine museum to store antiquities from the Mediterranean that Getty had collected.

For nine years, work was done on the building by expert architects, and the villa finally reopened in 2006 to much higher praise.

Over 1,200 different artifacts are on display at the Getty Villa.

Most date back to between 6,500 BC and 500 AD and have a wide range of themes, ranging from the Trojan War to ancient Gods and Goddesses.

Seminar rooms, temporary exhibitions, conservation labs, and research libraries are also scattered about.

There are a couple of hundred rooms at the Getty Villa, each one numbered and named based on its theme.

Room 113 maps out civilizations over the years, room 101 contains multiple Greek artifacts including a statue of Aphrodite dating back 2,500 years, and room 108 holds a magnificent statue of Hercules that is almost two millennia old!

There is also room 105, fitted with a large drinking horn, room 212, which is packed with Roman coins and gemstones “guarded” by a miniature bronze skeleton, and room 217, which packs a delightful and unnerving fertility goddess statue from 3,000 BC.

In addition to all of that, the Getty Villa is home to the University of California’s Archaeological and Ethnographic Conservation program.

There is also a lovely English ivy and rose garden outside dotted with majestic Roman statues.

Do note that a visit to this museum requires booking a ticket in advance, though tickets are free!

Address: 17985 Pacific Coast Hwy, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272, United States

3. Adamson House

Termed as one of the best places to visit in California, the Adamson House is a stunning marvel of architecture that looks out over the Malibu Lagoon State Beach.

Often referred to as the Taj Mahal of Tile, it has an eccentric and unique but undeniably beautiful interior that was likely originally designed with promotional intent.

In 1929, May Knight Rindge and Frederick Hastings Rindge had the estate constructed upon 13,000 acres of gorgeous land, encompassing the city and terrain with Spanish settlers.

The Rindges were entrepreneurs who operated a dairy farm and, in 1926, opened Malibu Potteries

The pottery company made a wide range of different ceramic tiles with different motifs, inspired by different cultures and muses, each one ornate and stunning.

Some of these tiles would go on to be installed at the Roosevelt Hotel, Los Angeles City Hall, and even the Mayan Theater.

The Adamson House was built by the Rindges as a wedding gift to their eldest daughter.

Built resembling Mediterranean Revival design, a few unique Rindge features made it one-of-a-kind – specifically, the multiple ceramic tiles.

A “Persian rug” in the entrance of the home spans 60 feet and is made up entirely of tiles.

Custom tiles pepper the rest of the interior, ranging from Art Deco to Native American and from nautical to Andalusian in theme.

The bathrooms, kitchen, floors, fountains, pool, and even benches are covered in them, almost top to toe!

Sadly, the pottery company shut down in 1932 when a fire burned down its factory.

In California, visiting the Adamson House is what to do if you want to view the greatest work of this family business in its truest form!

Address: 23200 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

4. Zuma Beach

Zuma Beach is one of the finest of the Malibu Beach options that dot California’s portion of the East Pacific Coast Highway.

It’s the biggest that the city has to offer, making it a hotspot and one of the main points of interest for some beachside enjoyment.

With 105 acres of land, 1.8 miles of clean beachfront, a couple of thousand parking spaces, beach wheelchairs, and tons of facilities, it’s a wonderful spot to head to!

A wide range of activities can be partaken of at Zuma Beach.

The golden sand is great for lounging and building sandcastles, the many lifeguards allow for safe surfing and swimming, nets make for good beach volleyball spots, and those with a permit can fish to their hearts’ content!

A smattering of eateries, ranging from casual to fancy, let you sate your hunger without ever fully leaving the beach area!

If you come by in the winter, you might get to watch the dolphins and seals, and all year round, the ridge above the beach lets you hike for a lovely view.

Still, regardless of the season, it’s a great spot to head to this weekend, though you should expect it to be somewhat crowded!

You should also be prepared for cool water that’s lower in temperature than some other beaches.

Address: 30000 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

5. Leo Carrillo State Park

Leo Carrillo State Park is a prime spot for sightseeing.

You might recognize its name, as it is named after conservationist and actor Leo Carrillo.

Carrillo is perhaps best known for appearing in Cisco Kid as the character Pancho.

For an impressive total of 18 years, he served the California Beach and Parks Commission and played a crucial role in the local acquisition of San Simeon’s Heart Property.

This state park, named in his honor, is primarily a long beach stretch spanning 1.5 miles.

A wide range of activities, such as beachcombing, swimming, windsurfing, and surfing, are commonly undertaken here.

Exploring the stretch will let you find coastal caves, tide pools, backcountry trails, campgrounds, and even interpretive displays.

As a dog-friendly beach, Leo Carrillo State Park is a great place to bring your leashed dogs.

With its relatively secluded location and serenity, a visit here to bask in the sun is one of the top things to do in Malibu.

Address: 35000 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

Visiting other parts of California? Why not check out some of the best things to do in Berkeley & some of the fun things to do in Irvine?

6. Malibu Pier

If you’re an avid angler looking for the best vacation spots, you can’t go wrong with Malibu Pier, which sits next to the popular Surfrider Beach.

A fishing pier, it spans 780 feet and is one of the must see places to visit for any anglers.

Cheerful and vibrant, it provides a great spot for people to sit or stand and watch the surfers at their craft.

This charming spot is filled with well-spaced brackets for fishing enthusiasts to place their reels or rods.

Even if you’re not into catching fish, the pier is a wonderful place to walk and relax, especially if you get there to watch the sunset.

Restaurants allow you to eat by the lovely California water, too.

The tranquility is unmatched!

Address: 23000 CA-1, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

7. Malibu Divers

It would be almost criminal to go to the sunshine state of California without diving at least once in its beautiful blue waters.

Malibu Divers helps you out with that!

This company is the main go-to for diving courses of all kinds, providing programs for people of all skill levels.

So if you’re looking for where to go to get your gear and some lessons, this is a good place to start!

In addition to providing equipment for the fun act of diving, the company also offers a range of different guided dive trips across the islands and reefs in the south of the state.

Charters can even be organized for father locations, and most trips include lodging, transportation, and food.

Training is offered for rescue divers, free divers, and even kids, so this is a cool way to get everything you need for the sport!

Address: 21231 CA-1, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

8. Malibu Country Mart

Lots of wealthy celebrities and business people live in the city, and a huge majority of them probably get their groceries from Malibu Country Mart.

Located in the Malibu Civic Center of California, the mart spans 6 acres and provides a range of high-end shopping, dining, and play options.

Whether you’re looking for couture fashion, fancy dinners, pampering, or even repair work, this shopping avenue has turned into one of the city’s tourist attractions in its own right.

Often called a boutique mall, multiple different buildings make up this lifestyle center.

Each one is surrounded by stunning gardens fitted with playgrounds, sculptures, picnic spaces, and eateries.

The structures themselves are made in many different designs, including rustic, Spanish, Mediterranean, and even modern architecture.

Upscale brands like L’Occitane, All Mankind, and John Varvatos can be found in the hub, as well as more localized offerings.

Desserts here are very popular, with places like Malibu Kitchen offering sweet treats and Grom Malibu famous for gelato.

Despite how busy it can get, the Country Mart is also quite laid back.

If you’re looking for even more shopping, check out the Malibu Lumber Yard next door, an extension of sorts of the original shopping center that provides more options in a more modern environment.

Address: 3835 Cross Creek Rd, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

9. Solstice Canyon

Solstice Canyon is situated in the Santa Monica mountains and has huge historical value.

A quick two-mile hike of low difficulty can bring you right up to the greatest spots – or if you want more of a challenge, a much more strenuous hike spanning six miles.

Flanked by tall, cascading waterfalls, Solstice Canyon is home to a stone house “shell” that remains in the area, dating to the year 1865.

It was built by a man named Matthew Keller and is believed to be this California city’s oldest stone building that is still standing.

It’s actually lasted through multiple wildfires before ultimately being destroyed by the Corral Fire of 2007.

Its walls, though bare-bones, are one of the most fascinating Malibu attractions.

Though the waterfalls of Solstice Canyon can get crowded, they truly are beautiful and relaxing, and most find them to be worth the visit.

It is no doubt, one of the most beautiful places in the US!

Address: 3455 Solstice Canyon Rd, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

10. Malibu Creek State Park

Malibu Creek State Park provides some of the city’s most peaceful and lovely campgrounds, as well as top locations for sightseeing.

It is often considered the Southern California region’s Yosemite and is widely referred to as the Santa Monica Mountains’ crown jewel for recreation.

With more than 8,000 acres of land and countless things to see, this state park boasts oak savannas, plains of tallgrass, thick forests, and sharp mountain and hill peaks.

It first opened its doors in 1976 and, for a long time, was owned by 20th Century Fox Studios.

It is here that certain terrain was used in the filming of things like M*A*S*H and 1968’s Planet of the Apes.

While at this state park, you can explore the hiking trails – such as the beautiful 15-mile oak and sycamore woodland trail by the stream – go riding, or try some climbing.

There is even some wildlife roaming around that you can try and spot.

Most stunningly, little of it has changed over the past several millennia when it was only lived in by the Chumash!

Address: 1925 Las Virgenes Rd, Calabasas, CA 91302, United States

11. Malibu Farm

Malibu Farm Restaurant and Malibu Farm Cafe are two of the go-to places to visit if you want a healthy meal with locally and mindfully sourced ingredients.

Both are located on the Pier.

The Farm Restaurant isn’t just popular for its waterfront location, but for its pride in using farm-to-table meals, with many ingredients taken from California.

It ensures sustainable food and quality fresh deliciousness.

The fun rainbow mimosas and open-face omelet are among its most popular options, and other must-tries include the cauliflower pizza and grass-fed burgers.

On the other hand, the Farm Cafe provides counter-service-only, but with the same sustainable concept.

Their breakfast burritos and BLTs are pretty well-known, and they’re easy to eat as you walk along the pier.

Address: 23000 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

12. Try Some Local Wine

If you’re looking for activities and fun things to do in California related to alcohol, then trying out the city’s local wine may be among the most fun things to do in Malibu.

After all, this is California, so you know the vineyards are aplenty!

Here are some of the places you can try.

Malibu Family Wines provides not just good drinks, but also great events.

At night from July to October, they host movie nights and comedy nights, and they even have a Yoga & Mimosas program.

Malibu Wine Safari brings you around a vineyard of 1,000 acres to meet all sorts of exotic animals that live onsite.

You can even feed them with bananas, carrots, and pellets provided by the establishment.

Enjoy tastings of local wine as you say hello to giraffes, alpacas, zebras, and bison.

Other common options for good wine tastings are the Cornell Winery and Tasting Room, the Rosenthal tasting room, and the ever-famous and simply named Malibu Wines.

13. Malibu Coastal Adventures

A trip with Malibu Coastal Adventures is one of the most fun activities you can enjoy in this California city.

The company specializes in planning and executing customized water adventures for its customers, providing unique options for what to do in Malibu that is accustomed to each group.

Bring cameras and get ready for the time of your life!

The goal of the Malibu Coastal Adventures company is to create exciting days, which can involve things like fishing trips, surfing lessons, boat trips, scuba diving, paddleboarding lessons, cruises around the coastline, and even whale watching.

Run by U.S. Coast Guard Certified Captain Dave Ogle and his licensed team, you know your safety will always be a priority, and will feel relaxed with all these new experiences.

14. El Matador State Beach

El Matador State Beach, California may be small, but it’s certainly beautiful, and its combination of rocky outcrops, stone formations, and caves creates many places to see.

One of the more laidback Malibu beach locations, it’s a little ways past Leo Carrillo State Park.

As a small and lesser-known beach, El Matador State Beach doesn’t have a lot of facilities and doesn’t have lifeguards.

This provides more privacy but a little less accessibility.

A steep gravel path brings you onto the sand.

Come at the right time to watch either the sunrise or sunset!

Address: 32350 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

15. Surfrider Beach

One of the best things to do in Malibu for surfers is to head to the fun and famous Surfrider Beach.

The waves are next level, even for California, and if riding the waves are among the activities you like, this is the go-to Malibu beach for you.

Known as a World Surfing Reserve, this beach boasts three point breaks in the waves that have grown incredibly popular among shortboarders and longboarders alike.

The first point is the most famous with the most crowded sands, but it’s a great spot for novices.

The second and third points are more known for being ideal for shortboarding.

Address: Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

Looking for thrill outside Malibu? Why not check out Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Monterey? If you do plan the trip, here’s what to do in Long Beach, some fun places to visit in Los Angeles, and some of the best things to do in Monterey!

16. Malibu Seafood

If you go to California without trying some local seafood, well – what’s even the point?

If that’s what you have in mind to do, one of the best places to visit for this type of fare is the simply named Malibu Seafood.

It has been opened since 1972 and is owned by commercial fishers of all kinds.

It serves tasty and fresh seafood and fish and is so popular that on most days, there’s at least a bit of a line!

Located along a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway and marked by a large, unique signboard, this seafood establishment provides an ocean view with scrumptious meals.

Fish and chips, clam chowder, ceviche, and fish tacos are among the most popular, with some ice cream sandwiches ready for you to try, too.

The restaurant also doubles as a fish market, selling homemade coleslaw, fillets, and shellfish, as well as a number of cookbooks, spices, kitchen tools, and rubs for you to purchase.

Whatever you’re here for, it’s worth relaxing on the three-tiered patio outdoors as you look out over the waves

Address: 25653 CA-1, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

17. Escondido Falls

Escondido Falls boasts the tallest waterfall in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Spanning 150 feet in height, it’s one of those sights you shouldn’t miss, especially if you love beautiful places.

The two-tiered waterfall gushes down onto moss-covered limestone rocks.

To get to Escondido Falls, you need to travel about 3.8 miles via a private road beginning at Winding Way East.

You’ll have to be ready to hop across streams and rocks before you even first arrive at the 50-foot Lower Escondido Falls.

Stop here for a quick rest and continue on if you’re willing to go the distance via the safe official route to the Upper Escondido Falls.

It’s a steep climb, but with some provided rope, your efforts will be rewarded!

Do note that during hotter months in California, droughts may dry out the Escondido Falls, so plan accordingly.

Even if it’s a little dry, though, the hike up is quite fun and the pictures will be memorable if you’re looking for stuff to do!

Address: Escondido Canyon Trail, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

18. Malibu Hindu Temple

Contrary to its name, the Malibu Hindu Temple is not actually in the city but is near to it in Calabasas, California, within the Santa Monica mountain area.

Despite its huge differences compared to the estates, tract homes, and modern fancy houses surrounding it, the Hindu Temple actually often goes overlooked, but pay attention and you’ll be rewarded with a delightful, beautiful, and thoughtfully made place of worship.

This temple is dedicated to Venkateswara, the Lord of Venkata and a Hindu god.

It formally contains other alters to differing deities, as many Hindus are polytheistic.

Rooms within perform different functions and are just as beautiful.

A sanctuary dedicated to the god Shiva is fitted with gorgeous tiered chandeliers, an underground chamber that serves as a traditional music recital and religious service space, and an outdoor deck that has multiple shrines.

For those interested in other cultures, this Hindu Temple is one of the must do tourist attractions, as long as you’re willing to travel out of the city.

Just remember to be respectful, especially if you spot priests praying or chanting, or if you see some holy water gifting in the temple.

Planning to go this weekend?

The temple’s kitchen will be serving yummy vegetarian meals!

Address: 1600 Las Virgenes Canyon Rd, Calabasas, CA 91302, United States

Looking for more excitement outside Malibu? How about visiting Orange County and Palm Springs? If you do plan the trip, here are some of the best places to visit in Orange County, and some fun things to do in Palm Springs!

19. Neptune’s Net

Neptune’s Net isn’t exactly one of the typical Malibu attractions, as it’s actually a seafood restaurant!

Serving up fresh catches, it has been operating since 1956 and is located in a beautiful environment.

Its fun front porch is vibrant and colorful and it looks out over the beautiful water and the County Line Beach.

Among Neptune’s Net’s most famous offerings are its clam chowder, seafood basket, shrimp tacos, and fresh lobster.

It’s become quite iconic in California for quintessential regional seafood fare, so give it a try if you’re a fan of the food type and want to sample some of the state’s most delectable choices.

Need more reasons to check out Neptune’s Net?

It’s a screen star!

The location has been used in pop culture offerings like Losin’ It, Point Break, The Fast and The Furious, The Hills, Gossip Girl, People Like Us, Iron Man 3, and even GTA 5!

Head over and see if you can spot where some of your favorite shots were taken!

Address: 42505 CA-1, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

20. Westward Beach

Looking for fun things to do in Malibu by the ocean that isn’t too crowded?

Westward Beach might be a good bet!

Its shoreline spans three miles on Point Dume’s west, boasting crystal clear azure waves and lovely golden sand.

From the shore, you can spot sea cliffs that beckon you to swim, fish, and surf – though sunbathing is just as popular an option!

Facilities like picnic tables, showers, and restrooms make Westward Beach more comfortable.

If you want to do something a little more active, you’ll be able to find your way to multiple hiking trails that branch off from the beach to other popular California sites.

So head over this weekend and go exploring!

Address: 7103 Westward Beach Rd, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

21. Geoffrey’s

Geoffrey’s first opened its doors in 1948 and was a prime spot for stars and celebrities and one of the rare go-to places to visit for greats like Lana Turner, Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, and even Marilyn Monroe.

Now, Geoffrey’s remains one of the greatest that the city has to offer, known as a chic California eatery for fancy meals and special occasions.

From the outdoor terrace, you can view the stunning ocean, and indoors, the dining rooms are elegant and the epitome of an upscale experience.

It’s classy, intimate, and perfect for many meals.

Geoffrey’s is served by Executive Chef Bijan Shokatfard and its menu is primarily seafood-focused, though it also offers amazing wines.

One of the most loved dishes here is the Ahi Tuna Tartar, which is served with Tobiko caviar, ginger, avocado, scallions, and Wonton Crisps.

Another loved dish is the puff pastry stuffed with baked brie.

Address: 27400 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

22. Duke’s Malibu

Duke’s Malibu will take you away from California and transport you – metaphorically – to Hawaii!

A restaurant-bar, it’s situated so near to the waterfront that you might get splashed as you sit here – but if you’re looking for what to do when you’re hungry, this is a great choice!

The eatery is named after Duke Kahanamoku, a Native Hawaiian master waterman, and Olympian, famous for his surfing and swimming prowess.

It is thanks to him that surfing was popularized across not just California, but America and the rest of the world.

Today places like Duke’s honor the great man’s legacy.

It offers stunning views of the ocean, but even inside, the decor provides many things to see with its surfboards, funky colors, and fun, lively style.

It’s pretty popular with both tourists and locals and boasts a laid-back but vibrant atmosphere, with more romantic touches on the veranda.

Some of the more popular things to order at Duke’s are its furikake ahi tuna, coconut shrimp, hula pie, and other Hawaiian-inspired specialties.

Beer, tropical cocktails, and special foods make delicious and inviting offerings for all.

Address: 21150 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

Planning a trip outside Malibu? Why not travel to Pasadena and Sacramento? If you do plan a trip, here are some of the best things to do in Pasadena, and some of the best things to do in Sacramento!

23. Nobu Malibu

As it turns out, many of the places to go that aren’t to be missed in this city are eateries, and Nobu Malibu is one of them.

A fun spot with a modern, sleek design, delicious food, and gorgeous panoramic views of the ocean, add this to your itinerary if you’re in the mood for upscale meals.

Nobu is run by Nobu Matsuhisa, a famous “Iron Chef” who serves up delicacies like Tiradito, Rock Shrimp Tempura, and Black Cod Miso.

The Executive Chef, talented Gregorio Stephenson, has some of his own offerings, like Ribeye with Truffle Butter Sauce.

The pair are known for their exquisite dishes, and you’ve probably seen the restaurant itself plastered on the social media pages of celebrities like Liam Hemsworth, Miley Cyrus, or any Kardashian or Jenner.

Located on the Pacific Coast Highway, Nobu has a prime spot on a low cliff perched above a beautiful beach.

Its architecture is distinctly Japanese.

A lounge upstairs with exterior seating provides relaxation, and a bar has a number of great drinks to sell.

Address: 22706 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

24. The Roberts House

The Roberts House is named after its commissioners, Fred and Florence Roberts, who had the house built in 1952.

However, it is also often called the Williams House after its architect Paul Williams, who was one of the first certified African-American professionals in his field on this side of the Mississippi.

The home was intended to be Polynesian-styled and its magnificence earned it features in Architectural Digest, but unfortunately, it was also wrought with irony.

Fred Roberts requested that Williams use a lot of fire protection for the home.

Williams therefore only used materials resistant to fire, but even his genius mix of water-collection pools, pumps, and pipes could only hold off for so long against the fearsome regional wildfires.

In 1982, a fire rushed through the area and pretty much all but decimated the historical home.

Its remains were as ironic as they were sad: a bomb shelter, bathtub, four fireplaces, a studio, and the home’s foundation were all that were left.

Today, those ruins still stand, acquired in 1988 by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy thanks to real estate developer Bill Dempsey.

For those who enjoy a little touch of melancholic history, a trip to the Roberts House may be one of the top things to do in Malibu.

Address: Corral Canyon, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

25. Nicholas Canyon Beach

Nicholas Canyon Beach is one of the places to visit you shouldn’t miss if you’re a surfer.

It’s often referred to as Point Zero among those who like the sport, and it’s also just a nice place to hang out in general.

Idyllic in appearance, it’s a great location for wading, swimming, windsurfing, surfacing, scuba diving, and beachcombing.

Though not as famous as some other places in the city, Nicholas Canyon Beach is popular enough to have food trucks and lifeguards in the summer.

It also has modern facilities like showers, restrooms, sitting places, and picnic tables.

You can arrive here easily via the Pacific Coast Highway.

Address: 33850 CA-1, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

26. Circle X Ranch

If you’re looking for what to see as a hiker, Circle X Ranch is a wonderful place that’s even popular with Los Angeles residents.

Once upon a time, it was a camp for Boy Scouts, but it has since opened up to the public for use by anyone looking for a good time and a fun excursion in Malibu.

There are many parts of Circle X Ranch that are worth visiting, but its main draw is Sandstone Peak, which is the highest of its kind along the Santa Monica Mountain range.

If you go on a clear day, you’ll be treated to some truly incredible views of the Channel Islands, Anacapa Island, Mount Baldy, and Santa Cruz Island.

The trails themselves, though, are worth it even on less clear days.

The ranch is filled with paths to follow for many different levels of experience.

Some unique flora and fauna, native to the coastal location, can also be spotted.

You can even settle down in some of Circle X Ranch’s dedicated picnic and camping locations!

Address: 12896 Yerba Buena Rd, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

Planning a road trip around Malibu? Why not check out San Diego and Solvang? If you do plan a trip, here are some fun things to do in San Diego, and some cool things to do in Solvang!

27. Robert H. Meyer Memorial State Beach

The Robert H. Meyer Memorial State Beach is a pretty calming one of the city’s tourist attractions.

While beaches are a very common form of entertainment here, this one is lesser-known but equally picturesque, allowing for a calmer way to enjoy the sand and surf.

Bird watching, beachcombing, swimming, and surfing are pretty common at the Robert H. Meyer Memorial State Beach.

With its prime spot between Point Dume State Beach and Leo Carrillo State Park, it’s a good “middle ground” to try out if you want some more serenity but don’t want it to be entirely deserted.

Three pocket beaches, or coves, cover Robert H. Meyer Memorial State Beach, known by the names El Matador, El Pescador, and La Piedra.

They are all equally beautiful, and paths help guide you to each one depending on what your mood is.

Though they can fill up during the summer months, they’re peaceful and quiet in the off-seasons.

Address: Malibu, CA 90265, United States

28. Point Mugu State Park

Point Mugu State Park can be found in the Santa Monica Mountains and is one of the many beach-related and nature-themed Malibu attractions.

It is famous for its five miles of gorgeous coastline, but that’s not all that it has to offer!

With 40,000 acres to its name, Point Mugu State Park has two canopies, multiple valleys, hiking trails spanning a total of 70 miles, many hills and beaches, sand dunes, and more!

There are even places where you can go surfing and swimming, with many coastal areas to check out and explore.

Even better, there is a chance you may see some whales migrating, depending on the season, but especially in winter.

Want to stay at Point Mugu State Park for a prolonged amount of time?

Check out the designated campgrounds available – there are two of them, named Sycamore Canyon and Thornhill Broome respectively.

They can be used for trailer camping or tent camping as needed.

The relaxing natural atmosphere is perfect and one of the reasons this is among the many famous Malibu attractions!

Address: 9000 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265, United States

Start Planning Your Trip To Malibu

Malibu has many points of interest that provide opportunities for excitement, entertainment, and experiences of all kinds.

Whether you’re seeking beaches, celebrity hangouts, great seafood, good shopping, or natural parks, you’ll be sure to find must see and must do locations that bring out the greatness that this city has to offer.

With any luck, this list has further helped you choose the best things to do in Malibu, California!

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danwhobrowses · 4 years ago

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NXT Takeover: Stand and Deliver Day 1 - Review

It is Wrestlemania Week, and every company wants their shot

but alas, I can only do so much, so we’re gonna be sticking with Mania and Stand & Deliver for now. I do also have some other WWE post-mania stuff planned which I’ll also do for AEW Double or Nothing in May

but in spite of Dynamite still doing a decent ‘not gonna try to top it’ show, the night belongs to NXT so let’s get into it

Spoilers for Stand & Deliver Day 1, you have been warned

Pre Show I had to add this in because Sam Roberts really laid in thick the bravado, NXT is great but chill man. Seeing Io and Raquel enter the building was a good touch though. The Samoa Joe interviews were good too but damn I miss this man in the ring, it kinda threw me how well-spoken WALTER is, he’s kinda giving me the same vibe as Daniel Bruhl’s Zemo currently is in Falcon & The Winter Soldier, also interviewing Io proves that if the company’s hot on you promo game isn’t necessary to be a great champion, also Io has put Rey over more than the main roster has in the last 3 years. The shoehorned Prince Harry comment was not needed that’s not gonna get a pop but mercifully we moved on to other interviews, LA Knight still does a great promo and hearing that Mickie James will be on commentary for the pre-show match was interesting.

Zoey Stark def. Toni Storm (Pinfall via Inside Cradle) Zoey Stark has been making quite some noise since her NXT Debut, similar to Utami Hayashishita’s start in Stardom and Leyla Hirsch in AEW it was mainly revolving around Zoey getting over even in defeat to big names. She started fairly even with Toni Storm with some solid chain wrestling, Toni was able to keep Stark grounded with submissions, which worked well for Zoey to feed off the babyface comeback, landing a big superplex. A flurry of an exploder and running knee hit two but then Toni came back with an electric chair facebuster, Toni tried Storm Zero but failed, so went for the Germans, tried the Storm Zero again but Stark counters it into a cradle for 3. It was a decent pre-show match, Stark gets a rub from winning but I get the feeling the rub should be bigger, Toni Storm is still good but her stock has dropped since her heel turn designed merely to lose to Io, the match finished a bit abruptly too.

Main Card Nita Strauss then guitars the anthem, ‘Merica and stuff on a PPV themed around Pirate and Highwayman motifs, as well as an Adam Ant song. The Skull is awesome though.

Pete Dunne def. KUSHIDA (Pinfall via Bitter End) Technical masterclass would of course be an understatement for this match. A minute in it was quickfire joint manipulation and reversals. Dunne took the early advantage after catching KUSHIDA and landing an X-Plex onto the apron, the injured arm didn’t slow KUSHIDA too much who did the handspring elbow and the Muta pele kick on the ramp. Dunne tried for the Kimura and the Bitter End but KUSHIDA escaped twice over, the latter catching a Back to the Future (small package driver). Dunne resumed control though in handling the arm, it might just be me but the audio was cutting out at this point. Cross Armbreakers traded and escaped as the arm began to slowly come into play, but KUSHIDA started handling Dunne’s arm too, a Top Turnbuckle Hoverboard Lock Spanish Fly also led to an armbreaker escaped by the ropes, another Hoverboard lock almost led to a pin. Dunne manipulates the digits of the other hand, which hurts KUSHIDA’s punch attempt, stomps on both hands twice over and then a Bitter End finishes the night.

That did not feel like 10 minutes, it was a great and well-paced match, wish it went longer. I anticipated that Dunne would win but one has to worry for KUSHIDA, even on his best WWE run he’s not able to win a feud, he didn’t leave NJPW for that.

Bronson Reed wins the Eliminator Gauntlet (Pinfall via Tsunami Splash on Isaiah ‘Swerve’ Scott) At first I thought Leon Ruff had botched his entrance until Swerve showed up, looking far different to the Killshot of Lucha Underground. Before the bell rang Ruff got hit into the barricade a lot and then an ad!? Dude, come on, the bell rings and they’re outside the ring again... Of course, it’s hard to start a pace for a Gauntlet, Ruff hit a lovely twisting Cutter as commentary ignored how his NA Title win was mainly a segue in the Gargano/Priest feud, a super frankensteiner was the big move before the next man came in: Bronson Reed. Ruff’s dive is caught and thrown back in the ring, Swerve planted with a combo suplex/crossbody before Ruff foolishly tried to attack Reed again, getting sat on a few times before Reed german’d Ruff and Swerve at the same time. Grimes came in next, delaying his entrance to distract Reed and land a moonsault, he bribes Swerve for a partnership which works for a decent while, Ruff got a big ouch suplex on the turnbuckle pads after some very slippery escapes. The arrival of Dexter Lumis involved super creepy eyes inside the Skull model but we missed most of Swerve finishing off Ruff. Lumis cleaned house until Reed recovered from the ramp DDT, Lumis even lifting Reed on the second time of asking before another big ouch ring-out with Grimes. LA Knight was last, his diss promos not as good as his earlier promo as Reed cut him off short and cleaned up house himself. Knight does get a good spur including a quickfire superplex but pauses when Lumis shows up, Grimes’ cheap shot misses and the Silence is locked in, but Knight rolls him for 3. Bit deflating that really, Lumis was the only one with story against Gargano and he kinda got chump pinned because he didn’t wanna release his finisher. Knight fell quickly after though, Grimes and Reed teaming up to end him, Lumis then locking the Silence onto him - probably setting up a feud there.

The final three ended all chance of alliances, Reed comically flattening both men when after a delayed fall from a superkick. Grimes and Swerve both try a handful of tights to pin each other, but Swerve’s one pays off. Swerve also powerslams Reed onto the apron and then hits a 450 for 2, two House Calls don’t drop Reed, a third gets 2, but a slap wakes Reed up. Powerbomb, Beach Break (idk the technical name) and Tsunami Splash for 3.

Liked the match, Reed is a worthy winner but I just wish they dealt with Lumis and Grimes better, Gargano came out the ramp to stare down his opponent and we moved on to the next.

NXT UK Championship: WALTER (c) def. Tomasso Ciampa (Pinfall via Knife Edged Chop) Reminder that the UK title is WWE’s best looking active belt because good god it’s glorious.Ciampa stayed on the turnbuckle to stare down WALTER, completely unafraid of the mountain he faces. They lock up but WALTER uses his muscle, looking for those monster chops, one on the turnbuckle preludes a messy drop for Ciampa, Walter’s hand is injured though by the chop of the announce table gimmick breaking, Ciampa works on it but the champion’s big boot earns a reprieve, his submission attempts are futile with the injured hand though so he applies his power and weight to keep on top. A flurry of lariats finally chops WALTER down for an Air Raid Crash, but it’s only for a 2. WALTER northern lights reversal’s a Fairytale Ending for 2 but could not escape the second, still a 2 count though. WALTER’s submission attempts neutralized by the fingers again as Ciampa continues to lay into WALTER’s hands and head, an Avalanche Air Raid Crash then hits for 2 as well, Ciampa at a loss for what he can do, opting to throw his own blistering chops, WALTER gets nasty with a neck twist and two powerbombs but it’s 2 again, Sleeper Exploder and one massive chop gets the 3.

I had heard great things from this match, and it was very well done narratively and physically, but a chop as the finish? Dunno, Ciampa had already taken chops, 2 powerbombs in succession and yet what ends it is a chop from an injured hand? Feel like it could’ve ended more emphatically.

No Thatcher present either, instead we get a Franky Monet (Taya Valkyrie) promo and a Reed/Gargano backstage argument.

NXT Tag Championship: MSK def. Grizzled Young Veterans & Legando del Fantasma (Pinfall by Wes Lee on Zack Gibson via combo Spinebuster/Spinning Blockbuster) Another ad break during LDF’s entrance was disrespectful, the mask was awesome though. Gibson likely not in the best of moods with Liverpool’s 3-1 defeat to Real Madrid in the Champion’s League first leg but he still flies the colors. LDF control the match at the start with tag offence, Gibson going for MSK off the bat until LDF get in the way. Drake and Carter get some time in the ring but Lee remains on the apron awaiting the hot tag, after a dive LDF comes back to do a dual dive themselves, double Coast to Coast on Carter is broken by Gibson who gets dumped out by the duo and another commercial break (wtf come on!). LDF were getting some great combo moves and rotating in quick tags as Carter continues to be the feeder, Drake almost catches Wilde with a roll up though and Lee gets another hot tag, first clear the ring, then out the ring to Gibson, then to LDF, somersault Pele Kick, combo move for 2. Gibson and Drake almost catch Carter with a Doomsday Device on the outside but Lee nails Drake with a knee, GYV neutralize Lee by hurting the hand as well, Carter holding Lee’s hand to prevent a tap as LDF come back in. They clear the ring, hit the combo move but it’s 2! GYV and MSK take out LDF leaving the two left to fight, a double cutter by Carter takes Drake out of the ring, leading to MSK finishing Gibson with a twisted blockbuster/spinebuster combo. Very much earned for the new champions, exciting match, LDF got a lot of shine too I hope they win the titles later down the line.

NXT Women’s Championship: Raquel Gonzalez def. Io Shirai (c) (pinfall via One-Arm Powerbomb TITLE CHANGE) If Raquel Gonzalez doesn’t win rookie of the year for 2021 it’ll be a travesty, her current run has been built amazingly. Before we started though we see Steph in the crowd with Sarray (Sendai Girls and SEADLINNG’s Sareee). The tunnel cam of the two competitors and the names on the LEDs sold the huge Main Event feel of this match. Side note though, while NXT does tout the most stacked Women’s Division out of the major wrestling companies they shouldn’t peacock themselves, most of their talent are ready made acquisitions with a few like Ripley, Belair and Gonzalez who gritted to the top, just because your division is stacked doesn’t mean that there aren’t cracks, and let’s not forget that ROH barely has a women’s division and NJPW doesn’t have a division at all, if we’re comparing the actual competition Stardom still gives WWE a run for their money having made their stars in Natsupoi, Guilia, Utami, Konami, AZM, Tam Nakano and others.

The match kicks off with a flurry, picking up where they left off last NXT of Gonzalez just boomeranging Io with her size and strength and Io flying back with vigor and athleticism. The champion takes control with a dive out the ring but Dakota rakes her eyes, leading to Dakota being kicked out of ringside immediately. Io hits the apron moonsault but Gonzalez lawn darts her into the ring post, a lovely Dominator-esque move with extra flip brings the advantage fully in the hands of the challenger. Io uses her flexibility to frustrate Raquel and hits a picture perfect hurricanrana, misses the 619 but arm drags into another 619, Yoshi Tonic for 2, tries for the Moonsault but Raquel sets up the One Arm Powerbomb, Io wriggles it into a crossface which is ended by a rope break, Moonsault on the ramp and then a running meteora leads to Io doing the ‘jump off the NXT arena prop), after slowly rolling Raquel into the ring it’s the Moonsault, but it only gets 2! Raquel flattens Io with the One Arm Powerbomb outside of the ring, rolls Io in with some trash talk, Shotei is responded with a Lariat, One Arm Powerbomb and that’s 3!

That was a solid main event, recurring problem though: it was too short! That match went under 15 minutes and while it was jam packed with high spots and power moves we could’ve had more time with Raquel’s crowning moment. I feel like Io could’ve resisted more offence seeing as her Skull crossbody and Moonsault should even out Raquel’s two One Arm Powerbombs. Also they overdid the smoke on her celebration we could barely see her. That being said, this was definitely a worthy usurper to Shirai, Gonzalez at the top of the division will be an interesting new landscape after a year of Shirai as champion. She’s had a good run, I do wish it didn’t involve the Charlotte skulfuckery at the start but she has done well to keep on top of the division during the COVID era and she’s done a good job in making sure the next champion is over.

Conclusion Good wrestling is all you need, and NXT Stand and Deliver stood and delivered strongly on Night 1, there is of course room to top it but that may be the intention. Do wish that some matches went longer but I’m not mad at all with who won, so once more a job well done as NXT end their Wednesday Night Campaign on a high.

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philanthropos · 7 years ago

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You could say it was a year of Bukowski and Vonnegut, looking at these books. This is a collection of my favorite books I’ve read in the past year (my non-academic ones), and I’m going to briefly review them.

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Kurt Vonnegut

This is by far my favorite Vonnegut. This year I read it for a second time, and I’m thankful I did. The themes sank deeper the second time through. The main character of this book is a large sum of money—the plot is the story of Eliot Rosewater, heir of the fortune. In this book Vonnegut takes aim at old money America (Rosewater=Rockefeller), American familial heritage, and anybody who’s out for more than they deserve. The perverted tendencies of Eliot beg us to examine all of our own tendencies. It is nearly perfect, however, Vonnegut falls short in fleshing out fully the psychology of Eliot--especially his wartime killing of German fireman. 4.5/5

Jailbird, Kurt Vonnegut

This one was a bit more forgettable but my third favorite Vonnegut. Walter Starbuck flashes back on his entire life while being released from jail. He was Nixon’s scapegoat, and always dealt a raw hand—although he was afforded the chance to become a ‘Harvard man’, a motif that recurs in the book. This book, like other Vonnegut works, asks how one might act if you encountered a large sum of money. In this book, Vonnegut attempts to explain his understanding of the events of the 20th century (Particularly 1910s-1980s). Everything is owned by a single ominous corporation, even the prison he’s being released from. 4/5

Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut

This book can best be summed into a single question: how does our implicit value system function? Vonnegut examines this question while surveying an island that has fallen into a banana-republic-like state, except there are no bananas. Throughout the book, the sayings of Bokononism--local religion--appear. This religious value system is a stand in for formal religion and tries to ease the islanders amidst their tragic lives. Bokonon’s objective is to provide lies that serve a better purpose than a terrible truth. 3/5

Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac

If you like long-winded sentences and discount Buddhism, this is the right book for you. Yes, it has passages that are incredibly profound, particularly about self-discovery in relation to transcendence. But most of this book is taken up by tales of wine-induced parties, climbing/hiking, and a west-to-east-back-to-west coast backpacking trip for the narrator. There’s nothing especially notable concerning the plot, but Kerouac remains one of the most quotable Beat writers, sprinkling in lines like “One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls” or “Finding Nirvana is like locating silence” or even the abrasive “Pretty girls make graves” suggesting that pretty girls bring more children into the world, and therefore more death. Kerouac’s thesis seems to be: we ought to shrug off the middle-class lawn home-owning American narrative and instead backpack up and down highways and mountains. A thought for the young. 3.5/5

Post Office, Charles Bukowski

Although most of Bukowski’s work is autobiographical, this book is a near exact recount of the life he lead leading up to its writing. Bukowski opens with a post office statement of ethics, and then Henry Chinaski proceeds to break every code listed. Bukowski works in nearly every aspect of a post office, then quits. By the end, I found myself with a soft-spot for the work done by postmen across the nation, and quietly hoped he would return to the job. It’s easy to romanticize the work discussed as a postman, but Bukowski’s constant non-complaining always strikes the reader as clear and caustic. 4/5

Factotum, Charles Bukowski

This is the most violently sexual and remarkably lazy book Bukowski has written. Here, we are given a picture of a young Henry Chinaski roaming across the United States, job to job, woman to woman, brawl to brawl, relative stability to absolute poverty. We see Bukowski admit his own sickness, and his various attempts to self-medicate with booze and women. Bukowski is a Kerouac without the Buddhism and jazz. The classical music lover roams around the country abusing women and stealing from employers. 2.75/5

Last Night of the Earth Poems, Charles Bukowski

His last collection of poems published while alive, Bukowski does some of his best work. The imagery isn’t as vivid as his early works, and the trope of “I’m an old asshole” isn’t as central to the collection. But nevertheless, Bukowski creates some of his most clear and impressive poetry. “Let Me Tell You” is a favorite, and this is a simple one-page statement on the construction of hell, and as always, Bukowski is a master of repetition. “We Ain’t Got No Money, Honey, But we Got Rain” is my favorite Bukowski poem, painting a story of a relentless rain in California during depression days. It illustrates a picture of Bukowski’s youngest childhood memories. “Man with the Beautiful Eyes” is another favorite from this collection, where Bukowski also explores childhood innocence, at the end postulating that the world will be a cruel place once he grows up. 4.5/5

Hot Water Music, Charles Bukowski

This is a collection of short stories, and it paints the most filthy picture of Bukowski's life I have read to date. There is the usual themes of sex, filth, classical music, and the broken artist. Admittedly, I read this while sitting on a beach in Siesta Key, Florida, so I don’t recall much. 3.5/5

Pulp, Charles Bukowski

This is my favorite work of Bukowski’s I’ve read--it’s his last published work. The plot can be described as a sci-fi noir detective novel, starring Nick Belane, private detective. He is hired by Lady Death to find late French author Celine. He is also tasked to sort out a possible cheating wife and find the ‘Red Sparrow’. The book is allegorical to Bukowski’s own life, the Red Sparrow is a parody of Bukowski’s publisher Black Sparrow Press--John Barton being a parody of John Martin, his publisher. Lady Death is representative of Bukowski’s impending death, shocker. Bukowski doesn’t relent at any point in this novel from his usual slightly-satirical voice and obscene sexcapades. Bukowski is at his humorous peak in this book, writing witty jokes and an absurd sci-fi story line. This book is distinctly different from Factotum or Post Office because Nick Belane, unlike Henry Chinaski , always has a case to crack, a hunch to check on, a lead to see out, and this leads him on adventures only Bukowski could make believable.

Honorable mentions:

Ham on Rye, Charles Bukowski, 4.75/5 (the ending gives it an incredible status)

Man Without a Country, Kurt Vonnegut, 3.5/5

Catcher in the Rye, Salinger, 3.74/5

#vonnegut #kurt vonnegut #charles bukowski #Bukowski #writing #book review #jack kerouac #kerouac

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aestheticschaos · 7 years ago

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ie aesthetic

The Universal Day of the Romanian Blouse (Ziua Iei) is celebrated in June 22-24, all around the world. The Universal Day of the Romanian Blouse has become a truly global event celebrated on six continents, 55 countries, 130 cities, and 200 events. In 2014, the movement grew exponentially, to almost 100,000 members, with an audience of millions of visitors mostly from Romania, the rest of Europe, and the United States.Last year, June 24 was officially recognized by the Mayor of Washington as the “Universal Day of the Romanian Blouse” in the US capital.

The Romanian blouse, ie by its original Romanian name, is not a simple traditional peasant blouse, but it became a symbol of Romania, with its legends, stories and deep significance.The ie (pronounced ee-eh) is a blouse, traditionally worn by Romanian girls and women. And it has overcome its traditional peasant confines, as it became an important source of inspiration for the fashion designers in Romania and abroad. High-ranking names such as Tom Ford based his 2012 collection on the Romanian traditional motifs.

The ie is entirely hand-made from a special fabric called approx. in English ‘sheer lawn’, with exquisite embroideries on the chest, back and sleeves, with designs preserved for centuries.

The signs and symbols embroidered on the Romanian blouse aren’t just random decorations, but each has its own significance, depending on the region, the seamstress, and the person who wore it. Every ie, along with the other items of the traditional folk costume, has its own story. Among the symbols embroidered on the blouse there is the tree or a tree-like design, which is the symbol of life, wisdom and rebirth.The circle or a sunflower represents the sun, day or Divinity; In the Romanian tradition, the sun was at the core of life and was often associated with God and abundance.Other motifs related to daily activities can be found ranging from one region to another: water (either as a river or as sea waves) and fish in the fishing villages along the rivers and sea coast, wheat or corn stems in agricultural villages, wheels or coin in crafting traders’ villages, and so on.At the same time, the colors on the blouse also vary according to the geographic region. Green and gold symbolize the plains, gray, red and brown for the mountains and blue for the rivers.For instance, in the past, young girls from the countryside, who were not married used to wear merry colors on their blouses, combinations of red, yellow, pink and light colors, while the dark ones- brown, black, dark green and gold were usually worn by older women, married and having a certain social statute.

#ie #romanian blouse #romania #romanian #ziua iei #ziua universala a iei #universal day of the romanian blouse #folklore #mythology #balkan #traditional #rustic #village #Aesthetic #moodboard #white #red

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thebethbits · 5 years ago

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non-western art: teotihuacan + nazca cultures.

For this assignment, I chose to research Teotihuacan and Nazca cultural art.

teotihuacan, a mesoamerican metropolis.

Teotihuacan culture was based in a city of the same name, homed in Central America, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of modern day Mexico City. It is the largest pre-Columbian site in the Americas, and was the largest city in the entirety of the Western Hemisphere before the 1400s. It thrived for the first half of the first millennium A.D. Based on our best evidence today, we believe Teotihuacan to have been established around 150 BCE, lasting to about the middle of the 6th century. Nearly 200,000 people lived in the city at its peak. (Wikipedia)

Teotihuacan is, for nearly all parts considered, a ghost story. The city, a sprawling grid of over 30 km² (over 11½ square miles), was already in ruins, abandoned for nearly a thousand years before the Aztecs came upon it. So much of the Teotihuacanos is unknown: “they had no form of writing, so much of their politics, culture, and religion were lost or co-opted by later civilizations.” (Vance) Archaeological excavations have led to some recent significant discoveries; it is believed that sometime in the 7th or 8th century, the city was heavily burnt, seemingly by invaders, but recent findings shows that the damage was focused towards the structures of the elite were burnt, which leans towards convincing evidence of an uprising, but is still just a theory. (Wikipedia)

teotihuacan, in its prime.

From what we can see, and by what has been found, Teotihuacan is believed to have been home to a wide, diverse set of cultures, including Zapotec, Mixtec, Maya and Nahua distinctions, but this is still heavily debated.

Chief Curator of the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Matthew Robb, was the exhibition curator for the exhibition Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire, at the de Young museum in San Francisco, in late 2017. When asked about how the art and culture of Teotihuacan invited new, diverse variety to the city, he said: “Not very many people in ancient Mesoamerica woke up and lived their lives in an apartment compound covered with interior wall paintings, but a lot of people in Teotihuacan did. And that’s just the murals—many compounds had small domestic altars, and certain kinds of stone sculptures were pervasive across all social levels. It was a materially and visually rich environment—there are even reduced-scale versions of vessels and objects included in burials.” (Gardiner)

At the time, Teotihuacan was a Mesoamerican metropolis. In its prime, the city was a bustling aspirational utopia of culture: the cultural, political, economic, and religious epicenter of ancient Mesoamerica. It was home to a visually rich environment, in more ways than just art. Houses had courtyards and drains, goods came from all around the city: minerals from the north, shells from the coast, jade from the Maya region. There were ball games and gambling, religious worshipping temples, many different types of food, various entertainments, it all made for a comfortable life to start thinking about bigger ideas than just survival. Teotihuacan was a shot at a better life for many people. (Moran)

teotihuacan architecture.

A Map of Teotihuacan, de Young Museum.

Architecturally, Teotihuacan contains a massive central road, thousands of residential compounds many pyramid-temples. We don’t know their true names, but we have those that the Aztecs gave them. The massive central road is known famously as the Street of the Dead, and the two main pyramid-temples are known as the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon. Even Teotihuacan is a given Aztec name, meaning "Place of the Gods”.

The grid layout of the city is incredibly organized and neat. The entire city is orientated 15.5 degrees East of true north. The main avenue, or the Street of the Dead, is massive, spanning 40 meters wide and 3.2 km long. (Teotihuacán) It spans from agricultural fields all the way towards the city’s main citadel, housing the pyramid-temple of the Sun, and culminating at the pyramid-temple of the Moon.

Temple of the Feathered Serpent, displaying "Tlaloc" (left) and feathered serpent (right) heads. Teotihuacan, Mexico, Mesoamerica.

Although it is the smallest of the three pyramid-temples along the Street of the Dead, the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl (or the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, Quetzalcoatl), as well as its surrounding central plaza, are home to the greatest concentration of Teotihuacan’s sculptural and painted iconography. (Google Arts & Culture) Architectural sculpture attached to the temple are more than just decorative, displaying "Tlaloc" and feathered serpent heads. There are indents in the eyes for the placement of light-reflecting gems. It is believed that they suggest a strong ideological significance, but the significance itself remains highly debated. (Temple of the Feathered Serpent)

teotihuacan sculpture.

Mask, 4th–8th century, Teotihuacan, Mexico, Mesoamerica. Onyx marble (tecalli). The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Sculptures were varied, as there was no tradition of portraiture in Teotihuacan culture. Masks were made in this idealized style, we believe, to be a representation towards a status symbol, or towards a standardized art motif of the time. It is carved out of Onyx marble, a precious stone, and may have been painted at one point. Depressions in the eyes and mouth may suggest that they were once homes for inlaid shells, stones, or other precious stones. There are perforations on the sides, intending that the mask may have not been worn by people, but instead attached to further sculptures; human figures, mummies, or deity bundles. (Doyle)

teotihuacan paintings.

Wall painting, 7th–8th century. Teotihuacan, Mexico, Mesoamerica. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Paintings can be found everywhere in Teotihuacan culture: on walls, on statues, on various kinds of ceramics. The painting above, is an example of the many floor-to-ceiling murals that cover the walls of many of the high-status apartment compounds, frescoed murals depicting elaborate scenes and enigmatic iconography. (Doyle)

teotihuacan ceramics.

Vessel from Tlaxcala with procession of figures, 550–650 CE. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF).

Ceramics were a vivid, expressive venue of Teotihuacan art. Stylistically, the range of variety and high quality of painting and production showed mastery and expertise in the creation of ceramics: “Teotihuacan culture boasted a range of ceramic styles. Luxury ceramics could feature abstract figures rendered in vivid colors. There are also painted ceramics that are similar to frescoes, mold-made ceramics, very large and ornate multi-part incense burners, as well as architectural ceramics.” (Eiland)

contemporary references to teotihuacan.

Ralph Maradiaga Mini-Park, 24th & York. Mosaic sculpture, Colette Crutcher and Aileen Barr, 2010.

In San Francisco’s Mission District, various artists have paid homage to Teotihuacan culture. A mosaic sculpture done by artists Colette Crutcher and Aileen Barr, shows an interpretation of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god the Teotihuacanos worshipped.

The architecture of Teotihuacan can tell us so much about how the way we build our cities has evolved over time. Concepts like harmony, time-lasting material, and significance still have merit in our cities today. Look outside, see the way buildings are angled, or arched, or how high they climb in comparison to their surroundings and backdrops. The similarities are everywhere.

The Moon Pyramid and complex in Minecraft, de Young Museum.

The study and historical significance of Teotihuacan’s culture, architecture, and artwork of its diverse population is incredibly important. But not all of us can see it in our lifetimes, due to monetary restrictions or general life-work restrictions. Because of this, the exhibition curators at the de Young museum in San Francisco, California, made a 1:1 scale replication in Minecraft. The size, the scale, the recent discoveries, are all there for people worldwide to experience, with custom texture pack for a realistic representation of stone and artwork textures. Talk about incredible dedication and hard work to bring Teotihuacan to the world!

nazca culture.

Nazca civilization was homed in South America, near the coastal river valleys and high mountain basins of Peru. It flourished from about 100 BC to 800 AD. The style generally associated with the art of the Nazca – polychrome textiles, ceramics, architectural irrigation technologies – drew heavily from their contemporary, then-predecessors, the Andean society of Paracas.

The Nazca period was one of artistic flourishment and technological advancement. Religiously, the Nazca drew likely inspiration from their desert environment, beliefs based on agriculture and fertility. (Wikipedia) Many worshipped nature gods in favor of growth of crops and agriculture.

Politically, Nazca civilization was headed by a collection of chiefdoms, who worked both individually and collectively when the time called for it. There was no singular large-scale or integrated position of power. There was no centralized city. Instead, the overall population of about 25,000 people were spread across small villages. The Nazca were a state of the theocratic militaristic power sort, leadership often being those held in high qualification, usually priests and military leaders. (Cartwright)

Small cities of the Nazca civilization usually included many domestic amenities, including ceremonial mounds, walled courts, and terraced housing. It was also home to engineered aqueducts, including the Cantalloc Aqueducts, but there were more than 40 different built to ensure the supply of water to the city and to the surrounding agricultural fields, where cotton, beans, potatoes, and other crops grew. There were many opportunities in small cities for artisans, including ceramists, architects, weavers, astrologists, and musicians, to work for the leadership. Those who were not artisans, were usually farmers and fishermen, the fundamental base of the Nazca economical society. Pieces of pottery and textiles that have been found with resources originating far from Peruvian valleys (rainforest bird feathers, and mountain-homed alpaca and llama wool, etc.) serve as examples of evidence of trade with other cultures. (Cartwright)

nazca ceramics, goldsmithing, and textiles.

Curved Beaker with Rows of Abstract Masks and Geometric Motifs, 180 BC/500 AD. The Art Institute of Chicago.

The tradition of ceramics in Nazca culture was one of stunning high-quality polychrome pottery, with the use of eleven gradations of various colors in various pieces. Shapes included “double-spout bottles, bowls, cups, vases, effigy forms, and mythical creatures”. (Wikipedia) Pieces usually feature motifs, drawing from the environment, myth, religion, geometric, or deity representation.

Nazca ceramics were made before the use of wheels, and instead done by building coil walls up, then smoothing them out, before sometimes adding a smooth layer of soft clay for painting. Their reflective, smooth and shiny surfaces were made with the process of careful burnishing, or polishing/rubbing during the late drying stages. Many of the best-conserved examples we’ve found have been preserved in graves, buried with the mummified dead, either in dug graves or in tombs.

Nose Ornaments in the Form of Feline Whiskers, 180 BC/500 AD., The Art Institute of Chicago.

Gold and silver were also used in ceremonial and religious traditions, worn in the style of jewelry: masks, ear flaps, nose rings, or other adornments. To be worn they were flattened, cut, and embossed.

Panel, 500/600 AD, The Art Institute of Chicago.

Textiles were produced with cotton and wool, using techniques of muslin, brocading, tapestry, embroidery, painted cloth, and tridimensional weaving. Thread was dyed various different colors. Textiles, alike Nazca ceramics, usually portrayed themes, or motifs, worn for religious ceremonies or rituals. Excavations have found spindles, looms, needles, cotton, and pots of dyes at various Nazca sites. (Cartwright)

The panel above displays human-animal duality, portraying anthropomorphic abstract figures. The orientation can be shifted and still understood due to the range of horizontal symmetry. The many different heads featured are meant to signify supernatural, otherworldly powers, leaning towards this piece having ritualistic significance. (Art Institute of Chicago)

the nazca lines.

Of course, it is difficult to talk about Nazca culture, and not immediately turn to the famed Nazca lines; large geoglyphs seen only from an aerial vantage point, spanning over 50 miles, that have remained intact over the last 2000 years. The lines were made by clearing – with incredible detail – the red rocks of the Sechura (Nazca) desert, and exposing the greyish sand beneath. The geoglyphs are incredibly geometric, consisting of images that are of zoomorphic (animal-based) and phytomorphic (trees, flowers, etc.) shapes. (Bahadur)

The meaning of the lines has been heavily debated over the last handful of decades: leaning towards agricultural, to sacred rites for aquifers and springs, to astronomical and calendrical theories. National Geographic explorer Johan Reinhard summarized the versatile meaning of the lines in his book The Nazca Lines: A New Perspective on their Origin and Meaning: “No single evaluation proves a theory about the lines, but the combination of archaeology, ethnohistory, and anthropology builds a solid case.” (Reinhard) The way we see the world and our past continually adds onto itself, and with further research and a little bit of luck, we will hopefully find the origin and true meaning of the Nazca lines in the relative future.

Works Cited:

“Art and identity in the ancient city of Teotihuacan.” Gardiner Museum Blog, Gardiner Museum. 2018. URL.

“Teotihuacan, Mexico.” Google Arts and Culture, Google. Dec 2009. URL.

Bahadur, Tulika. “The Nazca Lines.” On Art and Aesthetics. eLucidAction. 8 May, 2016, URL.

Cartwright, Mark. “Nazca Civilization.” Ancient History Encyclopedia, Ancient History Encyclopedia Limited, 23 May 2014. URL.

Doyle, James. “The Arts of a Mesoamerican Metropolis, Here at the Met.” The Met, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 19 Nov. 2014. URL.

Eiland, Murray Lee. “Ceramics from the Birthplace of the Gods.” Ceramics Monthly, The Ceramic Arts Network, 8 Jan 2019. URL.

Moran, Barbara. “Lessons from Teo.” The Brink, Boston University, 6 Oct 2015. URL.

Reinhard, Johan. The Nazca Lines: A New Perspective on their Origin and Meaning. Editorial Los Pinos, 1986.

Vance, Erik. “An Homage to Teotihuacan.” Sapiens, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Inc. 5 July 2018. URL.

Wikipedia editors. “Temple of the Feathered Serpent, Teotihuacan.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia, 7 Sep. 2019. URL.

Wikipedia editors. “Teotihuacán.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia, 4 Sep. 2019. URL.

Wikipedia editors. “Nazca Culture.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia, 16 May 2019. URL.

Art Cited:

Curved Beaker with Rows of Abstract Masks and Geometric Motifs, 180 BC/500 AD. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. URL.

Explore Teotihuacan at Home with Minecraft, de Young Museum. 21 Sep, 2017. URL.

Mask. 4th–8th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. URL.

Mosaic sculpture, Colette Crutcher and Aileen Barr, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. URL.

Nose Ornaments in the Form of Feline Whiskers, 180 BC/500 AD., The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. URL.

Panel, 500/600 A.D. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. URL.

The Sun Pyramid. Jorge Pérez de Lara Elías, Flickr. URL.

Vessel with Procession of Figures. 4th–8th century, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, California. URL.

#3 #non western art.

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otheatreopenproject · 6 years ago

Text

Open Project: Stage 2# of Text, Energy scoring and Critical Thoughts - Evening of 03/12/2018

This session began with Dawid, Gabrielle and Delya discussing what they felt the show was doing and what it was becoming about at that point in time.

It then followed with the three company members, relaying this discussion to Dannielle and her contributing with her own opinions on the subject.

The company had organised a workshopping of their current drafts of the texts. In it they were switching the ‘first person’ style of language to the third person and cutting out bits that no longer fit within the sections, being too long.

Whilst these new drafts of the texts were being developed, the group were discussing ideas involving how the dynamic onstage would shift with the change in the number of performers within the canvas (on the floor) or speaking on the black frame around this canvas. This black frame also has the potential to be read as the representation of the liminal space between the audience and the performers – or the visual representation of the tension between theatre’s fictitious connotations and the association of a gallery as a place of authority and truth.

A scoring of the energy present within the piece:

In addition to the brief description of this rehearsal, the company have discovered the following things about the piece:

• This piece has involved a process of learning what has been done in the past within theatre and art in order to better foresee the future.

• If they are taking full inspiration or stimuli from already made work, already established artists, this may be implying that everything has been said before. Though this does not mean that everything has been made before. Part of this includes gathering words that have been spoken before and making their own sentences.

• The group wish to bring out other aspects of the artist’s lives within the texts. For example, with Keith Haring, finding a way of bringing out the fact that his legacy wasn’t just his art but also his activism.

• The group are exploring colour and topography. They plan to also explore viewpoints in more depth within another rehearsal.

• What they have observed about the artists that they have chosen are that:

- The art happened to be extremely male dominated, though this is interesting as the performers are made up largely of women.

- That the artists all say the similar or at times, the same things in one way or another – even if their lives were vastly different.

- That all of the company’s chosen artists have either lived through extreme misfortune and poverty or extreme richness and luxury – there is no middle ground, it always appears to be polar opposites. Is this simply as the artists’ life stories have been taken out of their hands and dramatised by strangers? Couldn’t it be said that this is what the company is doing now? The company acknowledge this and wish for this to be one of things that they interrogate within the work on a larger scale.

- As this is also a process of the company teaching themselves of the past in order to understand what has been done and bring the old into the new – the group will be working towards ending up with an archive for a series of pieces beyond this initial project

Questions asked were:

- Why specifically those eight artists?

- What makes them more special than all of the others?

- Why are they all men? They group wishes to avoid it appearing as if it is just men’s legacies that they want to carry on. How can this be interrogated?

Here is the Stage 2# of our narration text:

Keith Haring Text Stage 2#

Have you ever heard of a dynamic man who painted dynamic figures with dynamic lines of thick, black paint?

Do you know the name of the man whose activism shone brighter than the prints he handed out on the streets of New York City?

Are you even aware of who he was?

Or were his actions simply not impressive enough to catch the eyes of a generation like yours?

What would grab your attention?

Do crack epidemics rail to plague your streets?

Are international acts of racism and greed not entirely on your list of important problems?

Then perhaps he is not for you.

His depictions of love and respect would only dissatisfy your taste for injustice.

For some of you, the thought of diversity could rarely cross your minds and it would not bother you.

You are aware of its importance, but what would you get out of it?

Maybe some of you should remain within your boarders, happily ignorant of the world and its deterioration, what’s it got to do with you anyway?

It is possible that very few of you could step away from your herds and think beyond your boarders.

Step outside and act with a cause.

Not all of you would do it, not without your comforts, but some of you could, or, you could remember the man who refused to walk away from the concerns that few others shared for the world.

The inequalities and atrocities that some of you would ignore, only until your comforts are revoked.

- Delya Joubert

Claude Monet Text Stage 2#

This could be a fairylike place. You do not know where to poke your head. Everything is superb and you would like to do everything. So you squander up lots of colour. So much colour, of every kind, for there are trials to be made. Thus, he travelled to Monte Carlo. Where the grand lines of mountain and sea are admirable. So beautiful. And apart from the exotic vegetation that is there, Monte Carlo is certainly the most beautiful spot on the entire coast. The motifs there are… more complete. More picture like. And consequently, easier to execute. After visiting the French Riviera, he returned home, to Paris. The cursed city of Paris. Where colour becomes a day long obsession. Joy. And torment. Where he found himself looking at his beloved wives dead face, and systematically noting the colours according to an automatic reflex. It could be grey. Blue, black and grey. You could try and understand his art, but people discuss art as if it is necessary to understand. When it is simply necessary to love Like the fallen petals that gather on the surface of a pond, a wish is to build something for the pleasure of the eye and also for the motifs to paint. So he bought some land in Giverny. With a pond. It could be water. Beautiful, blue water. You could be following nature, but you will never be able to grasp her. As he does, you could owe this picture to flowers. Beautiful flowers. Beautiful nature. My wish is to always stay like this. This could be you. Living quietly in a corner of nature.

- Dannielle Woodward

Vincent Van Gogh Text Stage 2#

Imagine a soul that sees much, does much, and hurts many. Even the knowledge of his own fallibility cannot keep him from making mistakes. Only when he falls, does he get up again. Even the fisherman, like him, knowing that the sea is dangerous, cannot stay to shore. Imagine that he is still far from being what he wants to be, but with gods help, he may succeed. The emotion buried inside us are the great captains of our lives, and we obey them without realising it. And what would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything, and live in fear? We all must keep our love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more. And thus, he puts his heart and soul into his work, wears it on his sleeve, and has lost his mind in the process. His paintings have a life of their own that derive from his soul. His delicate, fragile soul. He believes that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people, as a good picture is equivalent to a good deed. Yet both are subjective. Some days, you may hear a voice in you say, ‘you cannot paint’, then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced, as painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty, to disregard the public opinion.

And thus, you might dream of painting, and then you may paint your dreams. You may experience of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. You may no longer be sure of yourself, and the painting may appear as in a dream. In spite of everything, you should take up your pencil, which has been forsaken in this great discouragement, and you may go on with your drawing. Imagine closing your eyes. Imagine catching the cold nights breath. And dream.

I confess, I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream. And you may not know anything with any certainty, buts laws may suppress you to dream whenever the stars dance in the night sky. You may seem to think that the night is more alive and more richly coloured than the day. And if you truly love nature, you should find beauty everywhere. Yet you will find that there is no blue, without yellow, and without orange.

- Dawid Wiczynski

Gustav Klimt Text Stage 2#

There seems to be nothing special when looking at him. No real attention to detail. No real polish to it. No refined edges. You begin see marks of tiredness and dust on his face. The cracks open his cheeks and his skin falls onto his paintings. Dust and Gold. True relaxation, which would do him a world of good, seems nonexistent to him. However, if the weather is good, he goes into the nearby wood. There, he will paint a small beech forest with the golden sun falling from the sky. There, he paints until the sun is no longer with him, and he returns home.

If you wish to know anything about him, you should look attentively at his pictures and there, you should seek to recognise who he is and what he wants. However, you will find that there is no self-portrait of him. Some may believe that all art is erotic, and he is not art. Art can be a line around your thoughts, a grasp around your tongue. Imagine dust gathering over days and nights, and he does nothing.

Place him inside his house. Imagine the four walls. On his very first day, he did not start working straight away, but as planned, he took it easy for a few days, flicked through a few books maybe, studied Japanese art a little. And it seems that now when he has to write a simple letter, he is scared stiff, as if faced with looming seasickness. And after tea, he would return to his painting. He seems to do nothing, yet he does so much, it just seems like nothing. Imagine a painter who paints day in day out, from morning till evening – figure pictures and landscapes, more rarely portraits. He seems to believe that he can paint and draw, and others seem to believe this too. But he seems uncertain of whether this is true?

- Dawid Wiczynski

Eugène Delacroix Text Stage 2#

Is this heroic, or distasteful? Criticism, like so many other things, risks keeping to what has been said before and not getting out of the rut. There has been a certain amount of fuss surrounding the 'Beautiful'. Some see it in curved lines, some in straight lines, but all persist in seeing it as a matter of line. Although, he would look out of his window and see the most lovely countryside; lines just did not come into his head. The lark is singing, the river sparkles with a thousand diamonds, the leaves are whispering; where, he should like to know, are the lines that produce delicious impressions like these? They refuse to see proportion or harmony except between two lines: all else they regard as chaos, and the dividers alone are judge.

For, weaknesses in men of genius, he believes, are usually an exaggeration of their personal feeling, which in the hands of feeble imitators become the most flagrant blunders. Entire wars have been fostered through these blatant misinterpretations. Entire schools have been founded on misinterpretations of certain aspects of the masters. Lamentable mistakes have resulted from the thoughtless enthusiasm with which men have sought inspiration from the worst qualities of remarkable artists because they are unable to reproduce the sublime elements in their work.

He longed to live austerely, as Plato did...he needed to try to live a more solitary life.... as he was convinced that the things which he would experience for himself on his own would be stronger by far...

How infinitely happy, he thought, is the man who reflects nature like a mirror without being aware of it, who does the thing for love of it and not from any pretensions to take first place.

He always thought that he should desiring or hoping for something. He believed that when one can hope for that which one desires, one enjoys the greatest happiness of which our thinking apparatus is capable. He knew that to obtain what one has been desiring is the first step to the depths of sadness and even pain, from which one can never emerge.

- Gabrielle Benna

Giovanni Bragolin Text Stage 2#

*No Text*

- Dannielle Woodward

Pablo Picasso Text Stage 2#

A lot has been conjured up about him and his art in his absence, his absence must be acknowledged. His artwork has been called obscene, pornographic, incomprehensible compared to his earlier works. Others have attributed this lack of coherence to a result of loneliness, depression, war, superstition, his love of women. Though the insistence on finding a meaning in everything and everyone might be the trouble. He himself, deemed it the disease of our age; an age that is anything but, believes itself to be more practical than anything else.

For, how can we expect to behold or experience his picture as he experienced it? A picture comes to mind a long time beforehand; who knows how long beforehand. He sensed, he saw, and painted it and yet the next day even he claimed not to understand what he had done.

To penetrate his dreams, his instincts, desires or thoughts, which have taken a long time themselves to come to the surface – above all to grasp what he put there, perhaps involuntarily, is irrational.

The artist is a receptacle for emotions derived from anywhere: from the sky, from the earth, from a piece of paper, from a passing figure, from a spider’s web. We are tangled in a spider’s web. This is why one must not make distinctions between things. For the artist, there must be no aristocratic quartering. He must take things where he finds them.

He assures us that Art is not truth. It is but a lie that makes us realise truth. Art washes away the dust of everyday life. Art is not chaste, it is dangerous. Where it is chaste, for him, it is not art. When he paints, his object is to show what he has found rather than what he is looking for.

- Gabrielle Benna

Jackson Pollock Text Stage 2#

It’s the paint

It’s the liquid paint

That’s dripping in his ears.

Cuts of colour across his vision.

The painting isn’t finished,

It does what it wants,

Not what he wants,

But what he wants is to paint

He is painting.

He took a change that was controlled by paint.

He was not done, it was not complete.

The painting needed more!

It needed less!

A masterpiece!

A disgusting mess of a painting…

Magnificent.

Such a tortured soul, no wonder he was such a brilliant artist!

When he paints

When he is painting

He lets it in

The painting

It has a life of its own

He does not control

He is not in control

He has no control

He is a painter

Yet he does not paint

The painting paints itself

So many artists fear the smallest change

He had no fear

No fear of change

No fear of destruction

He does not fear destroying the image

The painting has a life of its own

The painting creates itself

He makes no mistakes

He makes no errors

He is not aware of what he is doing when he paints

But the painting knows what it wants him to do.

The painting does not come from his easel

None of those artist’s tools

The painting

It doesn’t need them.

It has him.

He does not need tools.

Not to create

Not to paint

You starving artists know a thing or two about control

How you crave it

How you’ve lost it

Your hands got carried away from your thoughts.

It may be strange

This idea

This modern world

This modern art

But the strangeness will wear off

And we will discover the deeper meaning.

The deeper meaning will swallow me

The painting will use it

He will let it come through

That deeper meaning

He must find it,

Over, and over again

And again

This deeper meaning

He would let it use me

He shall be its pallet

His blood its paint

His fingers its brush

A vessel for art itself.

Every painter paints what he is

He is a painter

He is a painting

A vessel

A tool

He is a tool of creation.

Creation left him drained

Don’t be a fool

She will drain you of your logic

Until there is nothing left to drip from his ears

He regained control

Yet he refused to accept it

Watering down his command with spirits,

Waiting for the trees branches to spread him like paint across a broken windscreen.

- Delya Joubert

--------- end of text

Gabrielle read a short section of Delya’s second draft of text for Keith Haring, to see how the dynamic changed when it was read this time around.

Dannielle thinks that the way the Haring text is read, it comes across as a riddle.

Dawid likes that it directly addresses the audience. It makes him think a painting that follows you around the room. It will be as if the speaker stood on the black frame talking, becomes that painting following the audience with their eyes.

Dannielle suggested that to experiment with some of the sections different, they could try using two different painters in one section and see how it alters the piece.

The company then discussed which parts of the set they already have, what they still need to get and how they were planning to make it.

They will be making the soundscapes as soon as possible – from Tuesday onward.

They then discussed the schedule for final dress rehearsals and the times in which they could present their progress to the supervisor.

Plans for the next session are to:

Organise an eight-hour session on Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints.

Speak with their supervisor and show him some adaptations of the text that they have already been working on.

Discuss ideas and make preparations for the creation of the soundscapes and edit the texts, ready to explore onstage with them.

Company members present in the rehearsal:

Gabrielle Benna

Delya Joubert

Dawid Wiczynski

Dannielle Woodward

- Gabrielle Benna

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happymetalgirl · 8 years ago

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Emperor of Sand by Mastodon

I’ll get this very important preface out of the way early: I think Mastodon are massively overrated. While they are credited with making some of the more cutting edge progressive metal and honing out a uniquely sludge-y yet melodic sound with their first albums, to me they didn’t ever really do anything that other sludge metal bands or other progressive metal bands weren’t already doing, and their closest contemporary I can think of off the top of my head, Baroness, has accomplished just what Mastodon have, and in a more conscious way. What I think Baroness does quite well that Mastodon have struggled with is tasteful, fitting songwriting. While Mastodon can compose a monster of a song and take it all over the place with elegance and intensity quite well, I have a hard time wanting to go along with them on that ride a lot of the time because I feel like, despite what their eccentricities portray, they don’t really have that many tricks up their sleeves. I have a hard time understanding what it is that got Mastodon so big in the metal world compared to their contemporaries. I understand how people can really like Mastodon, but I really don’t get how so much of the metal world has latched on to them and worshiped them like gods because I don’t think what they do is really that special. I don’t say this to trash Mastodon at all; I do like their music for the most part, I know and acknowledge how incredibly talented all of them are at playing their respective instruments, I even thought their polarizing 2011 album The Hunter was pretty alright. I just bring this up for context because I generally haven’t lauded any of their previous work, certainly not to the extent their fans and much of the music press has, and that is definitely worth noting for a discussion on my opinion of their newest work. For reference, my favorite Mastodon albums are Crack the Skye and Blood Mountain (which I know are favorites for a lot of fans, so my taste can’t really be THAT dissimilar to the average Mastodon fan), but even those albums have sloppy, draggy, and awkwardly arranged parts that sometimes make it a challenge to keep listening through them. Remission, the one that the super old-school, we-want-just-heavy-and-nothing-else fans keep clamoring for a sequel to, is one that I enjoy too, but being so one-dimensional and also sharing the same weaknesses as all their subsequent albums, I don’t see it as something Mastodon should have stuck to as though that was where they were strongest or as though their subsequent style was a failed experiment or something. And as far as their branching out is concerned, I quite enjoyed their follow-up to The Hunter, the much more focused and gripping Once More ‘Round the Sun. On that album, I think Mastodon did a good job of emphasizing what they are indeed good at and wrote some much sweeter hooks, choruses, and riffs than they had on their previous album. As much as I don’t think it should be that big of a deal, Emperor of Sand is definitely the biggest metal release of this year so far. I already mentioned my opinion of the band’s music going in to this record and I have to say that, for me, Mastodon’s 7th studio album is their worst effort yet, with emphasis on the word “effort” there.

It’s been a little over a week since Mastodon’s 7th studio album was released and a lot of things about it still have me baffled: the direction in which they chose to take this thing, the uncannily lazy and seemingly uninspired songwriting, the praise it’s received, etc. (I’ll get into all that stuff). What sets this album apart from and below the rest of Mastodon’s discography is their strange affair with post-grunge (yeah, the cheesy-as-movie-nachos, radio-bait shit that all your favorite alternative metal bands from middle school doped their music up on). While “Show Yourself” was, when it came out as a single, met with some skepticism from fans and criticized as basic “dad rock” by many people, I didn’t think it was too bad; it’s biggest faults were just being super formulaic, overstaying its welcome a bit, and (in the context of the album as a whole piece) being placed kind of awkwardly after the very straightforward and heavy opening track, which disrupts the momentum the album started with. On the topic of that opening song, “Sultan’s Curse”, it’s a nice opener in that it sets what would be a nice, usual Mastodon mood. The song moves from start to finish without grabbing any bells or whistles, but for how Mastodon-ically typical it is and how lacking of a single compelling central musical idea it is, I kind of wish the band applied some of the experimentation they did on Once More ‘Round the Sun to this song.

The album really just goes bumpily downhill after the introductory songs, “Precious Stones” carries on that bad-tasting dad-post-grunge/sludge blend they built its preceding track with, but is blessed with none of the catchiness that post-grunge relies on and none of the intensity that usually makes Mastodon’s music worth listening to. I can kind of see what they were going for on that song, but the pieces just didn’t fit and they didn’t look good on their own. On “Steambreather” it seems like Mastodon know how little true sludge metal they’d been giving their fans until this point, and they seem to overcompensate with a super isolated, primitive, down-tuned guitar riff. But even to this, they can’t seem to commit, and they fall right back into a pit of formulaic nacho cheese with the alt-rockin’ chorus that makes me think I’m listening to Foo Fighters or something.

“Roots Remain” picks the album up off its hands and knees with its building acoustic introduction and the pummeling groove it kicks into. The chorus on this one is a bit less corny and sounds like it might have been a leftover from their 2014 album; its beginning few minutes are a bit formulaic but the halfway mark brings in a nice, mystical, echo-y guitar passage that smoothly leads the song to the exit. “Word to the Wise” tries again for a similar feel with a sludgy heaviness and some soaring vocals that lead to a chorus that reminds me of those from Trivium’s last album (Silence in the Snow). It’s a decent song and I enjoy the chorus a lot more than the pre-chorus’ poorly tossed in high notes, but it’s this song that shows Mastodon’s true intentions on this album, to widen their appeal but do just enough to keep from spreading so thin that they start losing support.

The following track, “Ancient Kingdom”, is one greasy slice of cheese pizza though and almost sounds like such a wannabe stadium rock song with those goofy church bells in the back of the mix. Mastodon seem to think they give it enough dynamic with the minor key-focused chorus but it is not nearly an absorbent enough paper towel to dab off the rest of the song’s musical grease. “Clandestiny” is just jumbled as hell and I truly don’t know what Mastodon was trying for on this song. It just sounds like another verse-chorus-verse track coasting on everything the previous tracks had greased the tracks with. I like the little synthesizer motif in the middle of the song, but it doesn’t really fit in the song or tie together whatever Mastodon is maybe going for with those horribly lazy choruses.

The third single, “Andromeda”, that shows up at the tail end of the album is a song harkens back to Once More ‘Round the Sun better than any other song on the album and actually succeeds at being a catchy and mystical piece of work that the rest of the album doesn’t seem to deserve. Mastodon deliver some more typical sludge and unique guitar/drum work with “Scorpion Breath” and it’s one of the better moments on the album, but it seems like it’s just there to appease the people who want Remission again and the people who might not have been fond of the preceding string of cringe-worthy choruses. And, of course, it’s the second-shortest song on the album so it’s gone before it has any time to go anywhere or make any real effect on the album.

The album closes with its longest song, “Jaguar God” and it involves a lot of moving parts that don’t exactly piece together into a functioning machine. The moody acoustic guitar intro, supplemented with that subtle piano so you know it’s somber, leads into a better, brooding, bass-heavy section that manages to dazzle a little bit, but also takes a little spoonful of corn syrup that keeps the power Mastodon later exhibit held back in uncomfortable territory. The song, and the album, end sort of anticlimactically and leave a lot to be desired out of the concluding piece and the music that preceded it.

Since this album’s release I’ve seen a lot of praise for it and a lot of it even holding this album at the level of their earlier work. What really grinds my gears when I see it though, is people’s defending this album and the band’s direction on this album as “evolving” or “maturing” to the prime form of Mastodon. Just as Suicide Silence was just ripping off their favorite nu metal albums and definitely not maturing on their new album, Mastodon is not maturing either by just plugging their shit into the post-grunge formula and tossing it in a blender. Mastodon were already an incredibly musically accomplished group basically when they started and the way this album reeks of sheer laziness is the opposite of embodying what an ambitious and growing band are. I do understand how plenty of people have found a liking to this album, as it does still bring forth the thickly produced wall of guitar sludge and spastic drumming we’ve come to love and expect from Mastodon, but to hold this up as one of their most important, and one of metal’s most important, records in recent history, to me, is just asinine. I acknowledge that my perspective on Mastodon is quite different from much of the metal community’s and I can see what people enjoy about them, but I can’t see why kids love this Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Like cereal that’s been in the milk too long, simply adding some sugar to this album does not save it from being the soggy and unhealthy part of this year’s breakfast and I hope Mastodon don’t take too long to pour a fresh new bowl of sludgy-o’s for themselves. I don’t like the food at my university’s dining hall at all, but one thing I like is that they have some off-brand cinnamon sugar cereal that doesn’t skimp on the sugar. When I do go there I eat it dry because I grew up eating milk and cereal separately, like a heathen apparently, and it’s one of the best things that this crap school food service has to offer. I’m going to the grocery store to get my own food and ingredients today though. While I’m there, I have to pick up some cheese, because unfortunately I can’t add the cheese heard on this album to a ham and salami omelet.

#mastodon #emperor of sand #sludge metal #progressive metal #groove metal #post-grunge #new album #album review #heavy metal #metal

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nofomoartworld · 8 years ago

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Hyperallergic: A Photo Show Romanticizes Yosemite at the Expense of Native Americans

Francis Flora Bond Palmer, “Yosemite Valley – California: The Bridal Veil Fall” (1866), handcolored lithograph (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

NEW HAVEN — At a time when the legacy of racism of colonialism are returning to the center stage of cultural politics in art institutions across the United States, it is difficult to conceive of exhibition-making as a neutral field that does not participate in the configuration (and, often, the justification) of history. Think about not only the scant presence but also the type of representation garnered by African-Americans and Native Americans — often marginal figures like servants, slaves, and background motifs — in the historical painting show in the permanent collection at the National Gallery of Art. People of color in the United States have fought and are still fighting a long battle not just for acceptance but greater visibility, where race and class inequalities have dominated the cultural landscape since at least the colonial period. Accordingly, whenever art institutions take on chapters of American history as subjects for exhibitions, even those that are strictly descriptive and monographic, a bare minimum of critical engagement with the historical realities of racism in America is expected.

Alfred Bierstadt Summit, “Central Pacific Railroad California” (1872), oil on paper mounted on canvas

This kind of critical engagement is so completely absent at Yale University Art Gallery’s exhibition Yosemite: Exploring the Incomparable Valley that visitors could almost wonder whether it’s actually an ironic montage where wall texts with truly incomparable passages are text paintings by the likes of Sam Durant or Christopher Wool, meant to draw attention to the country’s profound history of systemic racism and the extermination of Native Americans, instead of away from it. But the exhibition, organized by Mark D. Mitchell, the curator of American painting and sculpture at Yale, is anything but funny.

Installed in a dimly illuminated space on the fourth floor of the gallery, the show opens with Alfred Bierstadt’s large oil painting “Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point Trail” (ca. 1873), which commemorates the 150th anniversary of Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History and the 100th anniversary of the creation of America’s National Park Service, with a focus on one of America’s most iconic landmarks, the Yosemite Valley in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. This sets the stage for the exhibition, which makes the American West Coast and its many natural marvels seem sublime in its pristine emptiness, a holy land waiting to be conquered.

James Madison Alden, “Nevada Falls Yo-Semite” (1859), watercolor on paper

The photographs on view are awe-inspiring, unique, and impressive, but the exhibition is, shall we say, rather discreet with its depiction of historical events. For example: “The Miwok people of the central Sierra Nevada Mountains have inhabited the area of the Yosemite Valley for thousands of years. Violent conflicts between Native Americans and the miners of the Gold Rush during the late 1840s and rapacious development of the area by residents of the new state of California — established in 1850 — forced change.” Let me translate that. Here, “violent conflicts” means extermination, “rapacious development” means extermination, and “forced change” means, well, also extermination. The wall texts refer almost casually to the annihilation of Native Americans, unwilling to let this distract viewers from the exhibit’s noble message: “Over the course of the later 19th century, however, naturalist John Muir led a transformation of the nation’s perception of Yosemite by drawing attention to its uniqueness. Instead of viewing the landscape as a resource to be exploited by profit, Muir sought to appreciate Yosemite as a means to better understand nature itself — an approach that changed the direction of the natural sciences in America.”

It’s interesting to hear that, so early on, the United States changed its mind about seeing the landscape as a resource to be exploited in the quest for profit, because this message was certainly forgotten again, as one can easily tell from watching the evening news.

Alfred Bierstadt, “The Trappers Camp” (1861), oil on board

The exhibition couldn’t be any more revealing in its lack of actual native presence. In the first room, Bierstadt’s canvas stands across from a selection of plants from his painting, identified by the School of Forestry and the Peabody Museum: Ponderosa Pine, Sugar Pine, White Fir, Greenleaf Manzanita. Other objects complement the photographs, such as the 1870 book The Heart of the Continent by Fritz Hugh Ludlow, who traveled to Yosemite with Bierstadt; watercolors by James Madison Alley; and albumen prints by Carleton E. Watkins. There are no people to be seen anywhere except at the bottom of Bierstadt’s large canvas, where there are depictions of some visitors who came west after the completion of the transcontinental railway. Without any reference to their extermination, Native Americans reappear in the idyllic setting of Frances Flora Bond Palmer’s small lithographs (1866), seeming to be little more than background characters in an epic drama.

In the second room is a set of baskets made by the Miwok people, with the only credit given to “Mary,” who is shown in a tiny photograph on loan from the Yosemite Museum. There’s also wall text that tells, without an image, about Lucy Telles, another Miwok basket-maker, who was awarded first prize at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933. (Allow me to translate again: She was awarded a prize for being “exotic” at a colonial kind of theme park.) That’s about as far as Native Americans go in the story this show is telling.

Fritz Hugh Ludlow, “The Heart of the Continent” (1870)

“Yosemite: Exploring the Incomparable Valley,” installation view

It is through exhibitions like this that you can see the profound disconnect between institutions and the history they are entrusted with. The gallery’s collection began in 1832 with a gift of 100 paintings by John Trumbull, and it has since grown to semi-encyclopedic status with a bit of everything, from the tiles of a synagogue in Doro-Europa (third-century Syria) to modern-day Rothkos. It’s astonishing that an institution that has been host to major exhibitions of modern and contemporary art could mount a display in such remarkably poor taste, a sad attempt to look like the information center at Yosemite.

But let’s return to Bierstadt, the most interesting part of the exhibition. His paintings, from Yale’s modest collection, are beautiful, majestic, bathed in a golden haze, as the almost otherworldly “Glacier Point Trail” (1873) shows. This is his signature work, and a former curator at Yale Art Galleries explains what it is meant to represent:

In the 19th century, when Americans, especially Easterners living in cities, looked at a painting by Bierstadt, it gave them the vicarious pleasure of communing with nature, of escaping to someplace where the landscape appeared to be untouched by civilization. That is still, today, our mythic image of the American wilderness — the American frontier — as forever awaiting settlement, forever pristine, forever open to all our hopes and dreams of communion with nature and of a vision for what this nation is and could be.

This is meant not as curatorial text or a press release, but, more poignantly, as a resource for schoolteachers. It makes you seriously wonder whether this isn’t actually the root of a bitter American nationalism, a delusion we are just now beginning to act out once again.

Alfred Bierstadt, “Glacier Point Trail” (1873), oil on canvas

Because the golden haze that inspired Bierstadt, the quintessential painter of the American Romantic landscape, wasn’t otherworldly at all — it was deeply tied to the cares and profits of this world. The painter wanted the viewer to see actual gold, without metaphor: the Gold Rush. (And how could one forget the history of displacement and exploitation that came with it?) Yet, as curator Robin Jaffee Frank adds:

There is this verdant valley. And you imagine yourself being one of those tourists and then your eye goes down into the valley and follows this waterway which leads you into a distance that seems to go on forever, promising that the frontier goes on forever. Bathed in a divine golden haze, this sense that this land has been blessed by God himself. And that idea of America as a chosen place goes back to John Winthrop, the Puritan who looked before him and called this place the Golden City on the Hill.

Bierstadt studied in Germany and was acquainted with the Romantic painters, and he understood that what painters meant by the “sublime” (a concept introduced by British philosophers in the 17th century, referring to the Swiss Alps) was a place beyond beauty: otherworldly, magical, unreachable. When his eye for the uncanny merged with the ambitions of American settlers, the result is almost a theology of colonization that ends in salvation.

One can’t simply dismiss the artistic and intellectual accomplishments of the past as errors when they become associated with historical problems — and that’s not what one would expect from an institution as rooted in tradition as Yale. But different readings are possible. Bierstadt’s kind of sublime has now become, in art and literature, almost the standard response to reality in America: to flee from the scene of the crime, to seek refuge and comfort in beauty and nature, to be untroubled by the facts of the world and in almost perfect agreement with classical liberalism (and its more militant branch, neoliberalism), preaching the ugliness of politics from which one must escape. It is this attitude that has partially destroyed public life in the United States. This kind of romanticism helps us understand the radical impetus of abstract painting in the early and mid-20th century as a reaction to a recalcitrant aestheticism (something that wouldn’t be obvious to our contemporaries). But abstraction is now itself in need of critical review, as it has been, by and large, adopted and merged into the aesthetics of high-end luxury.

Carleton E Watkins, “The Sentinel Rock” (1866), albumen print

There is a shocking optimism in this show about its subject matter, as well as a cynical treatment of the past. It is undeniable — as the exhibition accidentally highlights — that there is a correlation between history, politics, and science in that many scientific discoveries in natural history were the result of colonial exploration and exploitation. This doesn’t necessarily lead us to the conclusion that science is bad; it’s actually morally neutral. But it is crucially important to understand the degree to which we inhabit structures of power and time that are much larger than ourselves. We are constantly surrounded by objects and places imbued with the memory of violence, a violence that is cumulative and, for us as mere observers, unquantifiable. Its presence is not only pervasive throughout history but very much alive today, through our systems of political representation, education, health, housing, welfare, etc. Bierstadt’s empty West Coast landscapes are today more than a memory; they stand for a political reality: the right of access to water, land ownership, economic inequality, military surveillance, black sites, border control, and racial segregation. What a pity for an institution like Yale, founded in the Colonial era, to ignore all of this.

Yosemite: Exploring the Incomparable Valley continues at Yale University Art Gallery (1111 Chapel Street, New Haven) through December 31.

The post A Photo Show Romanticizes Yosemite at the Expense of Native Americans appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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