#Solomon (Clown Bible) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mbvvacationbibleschool · 1 year ago

Text

The Lover Archetype - Magic Mushroom Trip Report

Today I decided to face my fears of taking a classical psychedelic alone- although I had done it many years ago, sort of, and to attempt to be motivated by love rather than by fear. The dosage was 2.8 grams. I had tried this batch earlier with a friend and I was not exactly blown away by a similar dosage. I just was expecting to go through the motions of getting a piddling dosage of magic mushrooms just to prove that I didn't need a sitter.

I drank it in water ground up and waited. I put on Tame Impala's album Currents because I didn't want something too imposing or intense, I put on Electric Sheep's fractal TV. It started right on cue by 20 minutes. I noticed tracers when I looked away from things like the fractal TV, and the after-images were better than what was on the TV, so after the record ended, I had a fairly uneventful come-up and was approaching 45 minutes or an hour in. I decided to spend the peak in my bedroom with the blinds open, lying on the bed with a casual blanket draped partly on me, and my orange female cat on my lap. I sat there in a state of unease realizing that this was as far as I had planned, the music was off and now I was peaking and there were no distractions at all. The mushroom spoke to me wordlessly - "Why have you invoked me?" I feebly explained that I wanted to face my fear of invoking it, basically, and that I believed that love could be an antidote to fear, and that I hoped the mushroom, myself, and my monkey body could all be friendly and respectful. (I don't know why I perceived myself as two). I closed my eyes and asked it to show me something really bizarre. I began to feel a vaulted space as interlocking pieces of mauve geometry, accordion shaped or little spirals, floating and slowly approaching and changing in the blackness. They moved little. They became like clown chainsaws with eyes and humanoid teeth. I had enough of that. Part of the turn was that I'd discovered this new music from Eartheater - she writes psychedelic pop music with powerful themes of transformation, infinity, and sexuality, so the themes were just below the surface. Seeing my wife's picture on the dresser caused my trip to take a drastic turn from the lucid experience of being embodied and aware I was on a trip into something transcendental. I suddenly was intentionally invoking the divine feminine - mother nature, Gaia. She was several pink translucent insects on the grass, tending to her broods of tiny nymphs nestled in the crook of stemmy grasses. She was frogs and the marsh surrounding them. With a breathy whisper she dreamily invited me to come to bed. Then, I put the blanket over my head and I felt the warmth of infinite love. She covered me in layer upon layer of herself- Ornate white frills and deep pink and magenta thick folding smears of comfort enveloped me. She was my wife, she was vegetation, and she was every mother and lover - every female frog, minnow, deer, cow, insect, past and future in all time and space. It was pretty much Song of Solomon in the bible. Insects became bunches of grapes became breasts - all fractals. It was pure poetry. I spent the next 2 hours in this state of unity and bliss. I came back to my body around 2:00 completely amazed.

I got up to try to write about it, I tried to get back into that headspace, and I was able to get a sort of echo of it.

Coming down, I pet my other cat and blessed him, but he was also symbolically me. "You are worthy of love. You are enough. You are perfect."

I saw Allan Watts' face made of grass and lichen laughing at the cosmic joke. He says something along the lines of "Vishnu you rascal, come off it, old boy. I know that's really you, pretending you forgot who you are." The psychedelic message is simple - you are the universe experiencing itself - an amnesic ego-bound transient fractal of God almighty, you just have to remember who you are. The Goddess repeated - "Don't forget who you are, don't forget who I AM." Sooner or later if you've taken enough psychedelics, you have the "I'm god, we are all god" kind of experience, and I think I haven't ever fully had it in spades like this before.

I think the way to get the best bang for your buck with these magical tools is to do it by yourself without distractions like loud music or videos or other people. Retreat to your chamber and treat it like a genie- the mushroom is a familiar spirit. It is a magical technique. The mushroom - or any other serious spiritual discipline - grants unimaginable treasures that can only be cultivated from within and only directly observed by you- the one doing the alchemical work. It was truly sacred. The mushroom is holy. What I'm going to take away from this - other than a serious drive to create more art and to be more loving - is to remember that I should not constantly criticize what I don't like but rather to praise what I value - and I value the Goddess and her abundant vegetation, nurturing spirit, giver of life, and wellspring of love.

#trip report #psilocybe cubensis #goddess

1 note · View note

your-mom-friend · 3 years ago

Text

Okay rant incoming

As much as I love Ramadan, and I do, this month is...exhausting for me.

For years I've been struggling with my identity as a Muslim but it was only recently that I came to the conclusion that I don't want to be Muslim at all. I'm not a muslim.

And there isn't anything wrong with Islam either. my reasons are part religious trauma and part i-simply-do-not-vibe-with-it. Some queer muslims reconcile their queerness with their faith, but I can't.

There is so much emphasis on prayer and reading the quran and making dua'a and it hurts and drains me to lie. to pretend that I believe in this god. to read the quran when it was such a huge part in my trauma. To lie to my parents and sisters so often.

And it is not as if I want to lie. I take no pleasure in this. More than admitting to my parents that I'm gay, I'm scared of admitting to them that I'm not Muslim. However little chance there is that they'd accept my sexuality, there's even less chance of them accepting that I'm not Muslim. They'd shun me or try to fix me but they wouldn't accept that and I'm terrified.

Lies about how I've prayed roll off my tongue as often as I can get away with it. It disgusts me even as I say it. Lying so easily to them, and about prayer, which is meant to be a huge sin unto itself. I don't like fake-praying, it feels even more disingenuous. So I lie, again and again.

It makes Ramadan tiring. When there's so much focus on reading Quran together, or praying in congregation, I hate myself so much because I know that everyone around me believes in what they're doing, the words they're saying and their action. They believe in it more than I do and I'm a liar and a sinner who does these thing without the slightext belief in them.

And i am so, so angry. Angry that there is almost no chance at a world where I can be completely myself, where I have no secrets with my family about who I am, without compromising my safety or happiness. Angry that if/when some people read this, I will get told that being ex-muslim is shameful or that I just need to get over these things or that I'm just not trying hard enough.

I'm angry at the injustice of Islam being considered a minority because of what it entails. No one can speak ill of Islam, even when there's legitimate criticisms to be voiced. If you clown Christianity* it's okay or something but heaven forbid that I make the same claims against Islam.

Here's a history lesson for you: According to the Quran; Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are cut of the same cloth. The Bible, the Pslams, and the Torah were said to be early versions of the Quran that were changed by people and then accepted as the holy books of their respective religions. Christianity's Jesus was Islam's Prophet Isa. Abraham was Ibrahim and Moses was Musa and Solomon was Sulaiman and so on and so forth

Hence it A) makes no sense to respect one over the other, B) makes no sense to allow and encourage the criticism of one over the other.

I hate that I can't just rant about the exhaustion that plagues me trying to keep my life open and secret at once and to keep it together without having to give disclaimers and context lest people decide that everything I'm saying is baseless and discriminatory.

I am angry that I can't feel safe and at home in my own house, that I can't tell the people I love what I'm dealing with because they either won't understand or are the ones I'm hiding from. I'm exhausted and terrified and there's nothing I can do about it.

* I mean this only in the sense that I can see multiple people complaining about Christianty and it's generally agreed with, not that there aren't people who don't face backlash for saying things.

#rem rambles #tw religious mention #it's all about religion thouhg #christianity #islam #judaisim #ramadan #ex muslim #tw religious trauma #i don't know if that tag is totally accurate to that but I'm putting it there #vent post

65 notes · View notes

fayewoodss · 3 years ago

Text

I ain't gonna lie, "Solomon" from Clown Bible goes hard.

#i still know next to nothing about the bible despite being raised catholic (partially)#but whatever dave malloy says is canon imo #clown bible #malloysicals

15 notes · View notes

animealways · 3 years ago

Text

Obey me x twisted wonderland

Headcanons for lucifer adopting yuu (oc)

- why is there a human child in devildom? What do you mean they came out of portal?!?! Did they pray to a angel? They never touched a bible in their life?!?! Honestly what is he gonna do?...

- when he sent mammon keep a eye on this child this is the last thing he expected. Its never heard of somebody being this natrual talent at magic let alone a human child!

- he talked alot about this to diavolo and at some point he said that lucifer should adopted them since their a orphan. He was shocked to hear that to say the least but it was the best solution to this pretty massive probleem. Their only 8 years old inmagine what their capable of in 10 years. He couldn't let someone that powerfull run around without proper training.

- so thats what lucifer did. He went to the human realm and adopted yuu. After introducing them to everyone and showing their room the first thing he did is teach yuu about the other realms. He was relieved that yuu didn't seem to be scared of the fact the were gonna live in the demon realm considering how the other realms see them.

- lucifer expected this to be difficult and it was but at the same time not?... Sure he raised satan but satan is a demon and pranks lucifer on a daily bases. Lucifer has learn since then and made sure they spends time with the rest of his brothers as well not wanting another prankster in the house.

- yuu is pretty neutral when it comes to pranks towords their father. Yuu only pull pranks once every blue moon cause "if something like that happens who are you gone blame the goody two shoes or the class clown" but when satan or belghie did they would just let them do their thing and watch from afar. When somebody outside their family does oh boy prepared to get scolded. Not like the demons can do anything back when 1 of the brothers are near and growing up they had made a reputation of defeating demons with ease wich earned them the title of "demon slayer" despite the fact they never killed a demon. lucifer also made pact with them since more time past by more demons seemed to pick fights with yuu. his pactmark is on their right iris to show that their his child cause lets be honest he would defenitly make sure everybody knew that yuu is his child after adopting them.

- training yuu to controle was the hardest part of all. Yuu is not only shockingly powerfull but is human wich means their magic is different from his. So as much as he hates to ask for help he ask diavolo for help with yuu's training. Wich ended up with solomon become yuu's mentor.

- thats when learned about how yuu ended up as a orphan in the first place. Yuu was afraid solomon would hurt them cause their father was abusive and got bullied at a young age. Now he makes sure yuu feels safe with him and basicly checks yuu mental health reguraly.

- but he didn't expected to be such a kindhearted, calm, quite, smart and mature child. Yuu fairly easy to take care of and only got in trouble if someone drag them into it*cough* mammon *cough*. They randomly give food whenever he was working, helped him abit when he is on cooking dutys, somehow always made a solution to fight in the house of lamentation and when they got older even did his paperwork for him after asking barbs how to.

- thanks to the fact their such a sweetheart lucifer has a soft spot for them and the day they called Lucifer "papa" made him beam with pride and oh how much it strokes his ego that they grew up to be so much like him. Their calm, serious aura and taking pride in being capable.

- when yuu had to go to NRC he surprisingly got worried for yuu. Sure they can take for themself perfectly fine but yuu is always surrounded by 1 of the brothers. He didn't want yuu to get lonely. They have trust issues and only ask help to people they trust. He refuse to let them burn themself out so he made sure to prepare them the best he could and calls them often.

64 notes · View notes

op-sheepy · 4 years ago

Note

ok so I'm particularly interested in

Bellamy Law

Law and Bible stuff

Law is a substitute kindergarten teacher

shichibukai applications

reverse hanahaki disease (?? do u spit out flowers when your nemesis walks by?)

if you feel like elaborating on any of these!

This is gonna get long and I actually contemplated posting them separately but would that have been more work? Yeah, that felt like more work so for anyone interested, check under the cut. :D

---------------------------------o

Bellamy Law

Hm… This would be an attempt to explore the parallels and contrasts between Bellamy and Law. I've always found it fascinating that the former was a foil to the latter.

They both come from well-off towns in the North Blue.

Bellamy left because of boredom. Law had no choice because Flevance.

Both ended up seeking Doflamingo because of his notoriety as a pirate. Both admired him initially

Doffy favored one over the other though. Bellamy always sought his approval but was never really part of the inner circle Doflamingo cared about.

Law got the dubious privilege of being part of the family despite being absent for so long. Even offered one of the highest seats by Doffy's side for seemingly nothing.

Law had no trouble turning his back on Doffy once he realized the man's nature. Bellamy tried to stick to his principles until the end despite admitting that he new he was wrong.

Bellamy can (and did) quit piracy after his ordeal with Doflamingo. Having the option to live peacefully, perhaps a return to his previous life (the one he considered boring). Law can't do that quite as easily what with his Devil fruit and his reputation.

I thought it would be interesting trying to explore what Bellamy was thinking. Did he hear the Donquixote Pirates talk about their missing 'family'? Did he get to see Doffy be amused at Law's rise as a Supernova while he kept being reminded of his own status? Did Law save Bellamy partially because he also saw what he could have been had Corazon not saved him?

On principle, Bellamy should have hated Trafalgar Law. Does. Bastard even saved him without him wanting it. But there was something about the shadows haunting those eyes and Bellamy started to wonder.

He had heard the family talk about Law before. The child personally taught by Doflamingo, chosen to be his right hand. Never was he compared to the man because Law was just obviously better. Smarter. Stronger. Bellamy was ever just an uncouth thug.

He was allowed to 'borrow' Doflamingo's symbol while Law had an empty seat waiting for his return–a seat Bellamy had wanted enough to risk everything for.

Maybe he had resented, Trafalgar Law for carelessly rejecting the things he had that Bellamy had always desired. In the end too, Trafalgar Law did prove to be better. He'd done as a child what Bellamy had trouble doing even as he was now.

But having been given the chance to observe the other man as they all recovered, he wondered, perhaps for the first time, whether despite Law being better than Bellamy, Bellamy had had it better–barring the poor life choices.

---------------------------------o

Law and Bible stuff

This is just me wanting to know how many biblical parallels and themes I can draw from Law, the Donquixote brothers, the characters associated with them, and his backstory. Honestly not sure whether this would become a fic and in what style or I'm gonna give up and just make it a post.

Not gonna elaborate on them much but here are the ideas in more bullet points (yay):

Law gets familiar with all four horsemen of the apocalypse: conquest, war, famine, and death. He even survives them.

Law is like the son in the parable of the prodigal son to the Donquixote pirates. Except the themes are inverted.

Doflamingo and Rocinante -> Cain and Abel

Ope Ope no Mi -> Granting eternal life by sacrificing one's own life

Gods descending or living among humans. Also, Homing and his family being prosecuted for other people's sins.

That scene where they were hanged by their arms outstretched looks like a crucifixion. Also, Rocinante was on the right while Doflamingo was on the left. Similar to how the penitent thief was on the right and the unrepentant one to the left.

Flevance being considered a paradise with walls/fences/gates and somewhere Law cannot return to.

In the panel where the Donquixote pirates are seated at the table, there were thirteen of them with Doffy at the center. Same as The Last Supper

There are a lot more of these (David and Goliath, Solomon, Jonah, Job, etc.) but I kinda lost the notes and some are more visual so I can't really explain it too well. This would is a drabble series to emphasize or highlight the parallels so no proper snippet for this one.

---------------------------------o

Law is a substitute kindergarten teacher

Originally an idea to get around most of the Heart Pirates being nameless but evolved to include other characters as kids. Chopper is a kindergarten teacher and he convinces Law to take over his class for a week because somehow Law has the qualifications to and free time. Naturally, he wasn't able to say no.

Unfortunately, despite not being terrible at handling children, Chopper's class is filled with menaces. Also, despite not being terrible, Law can still be awkward so...

"Mr. Trofao–fargar—"

"Trafalgar."

The kid—which one was this one again? Shit, he should really get them name plates or something—scrunched up his face and tried harder, "Tar-pal—"

"Law. Just call me Law."

"Mr. Low"—eh, close enough—"can I go to the bathroom?" Wide imploring eyes stared up at him.

"Sure, go ahead." Law gestured towards the exit of the classroom with his head.

The kid just stared expectantly at him and he tried to suppress the need to narrow his eyes.

"Is there… anything else?"

"Mr. Chopper always comes with me to hold my hand."

Really?

"Mr. Chopper isn't here. You should practice doing it on your own now." He said after a deep inhale.

"But the monsters might get me…"

"No, they won't."

"You don't know that."

"I do." Before the kid could open his mouth again to argue, he added, "Besides, children taste terrible so you're safe."

The kid looked stricken and took a step back from him. Uh oh. Glistening eyes, wobbling lower lip… "Alright! I'll go with you." The kid did not look reassured. In fact he looked like going alone with Law was the last thing he wanted to do. Guess, he kinda implied that he ate children didn't he? Oops.

Well, the kid needs to go and he's not going to be cleaning up after him if he wets himself.

Law glanced at the rest of the children. It was Arts and Craft time and they seemed preoccupied enough. Still, Law doubted Chopper ever left these kids alone–already he could see some of them glancing up at him, waiting for him to leave no doubt to cause trouble. That Monkey kid in particular looked extremely suspicious.

He stood up from his crouch and clapped twice to get everyone's attention.

"Alright. Fall in line. Single file."

There was some grumbling and questioning directed at him. "What's going on?"

Law shrugged. "You're all going to the bathroom."

---------------------------------o

Shichibukai Application Forms

Crackfic where the World Government and relevant parties review various Shichbukai Applications. Most submitted by the pirates applying themselves, some produced by their own staff. They discuss and debate. As well as judge pirate resumes.

She scanned the document. Terrible format, really. If you fail to impress within the first page, you've failed entirely. There just wasn't anyone promising enough in this batch of applications or any of the other ones before. The last one had been that clown. "Apprentice to the Pirate King," was a pretty hefty credential.

"Oh, how about this one? Three years experience pillaging, and they even listed all the towns they looted." One of the newly transferred administrative staff said.

"None of these are worth considering at all. You know, when Mihawk was asked to submit his application, he hadn't bothered with all of this. He just sent us a card with his name on it and the title "World's Strongest Swordsman," underneath."

The staff perked up. "Oh, there was an application like that." There was scramble and some shuffling before a plain white card was produced. "Here."

"'From Trafalgar Law'. What does this even mean?"

"Well, it did come with a big box..."

---------------------------------o

Reverse Hanahaki Disease

(?? do u spit out flowers when your nemesis walks by?)

Haha. At first it was going to be that way (because it is hilarious) but the inflicted would probably choke to death too soon. Or if both enemies had it, they'd end up just coughing flowers at each other until they stopped being enemies.

The version I ended up going with was that this variant of Hanahaki, instead of afflicting those with unrequited love, affected those in denial instead. The reverse part comes from the original idea that this would usually happen if you somehow fell in love with your nemesis (someone you originally hated). So it's not the thought that the other person can't love you, it's that you can't accept that you love that other person. You get cured by confessing to the person sincerely.

This is actually another KidLaw (surprise!). And the flower coughed up directly represents the person they're in love with (I went with Oda's flower representation for them because I found it funny for plot)

So the idea is that, you get sick but you don't automatically know (maybe) who it is because that's part of being in denial. Kid and Law have many enemies after all. In this story they both get it though not exactly at the same time and not known to the other.

He survived Amber Lead Syndrome only to be killed off by a stupid flower disease that apparently knows more about his own feelings than he does.

He glared at the petals. Tulips. Red.

An image of a cocky grin and a shock of red hair flashed through his mind and—nope. That's not right.

He coughed harder, tears stinging his eyes with the effort. More flowers. Now he has enough for a bouquet.

Alright, he was a doctor. He could do this. Differential time.

First, which variant does he have. He doesn't particularly feel unloved or hopeless. There wasn't anyone he wanted in particular to love him. Ok, nothing. It was maybe safe to say he had that other variant.

Which was stupid because Law had many enemies and he hated all of them.

And cue the racking coughs. More red. He was very familiar with that particular shade.

New theory. This was a new variant that somehow makes you sick when you think of the person you hated the most.

Yes, that had to be it. He thought as he all but collapsed on the floor from the sudden paroxysm.

I knew this was gonna get long. :) Oh well...

Thank you for playing. :D

#One Piece #One piece fanfiction #wip game #trafalgar law #donquixote brothers #donquixote doflamingo #donquixote roci #donquixote homing #donquixote pirates #one piece bellamy #bellamy the hyena #eustass kid #kidlaw #trafalgar d water law

49 notes · View notes

chaosisyourfriend · 4 years ago

Text

Okay, rant time, since these Christians wanna keep getting on my nerves.

Everything Christians tell you is wrong. Straight up. The Bible is so cherry picked by them it’s actually fucking hilarious.

Nearly ever verse they quote at us to harm us, is either a mistranslation or taken out of context. Examples:

Abortion: There is not a single Bible verse that says life begins at conception. Any verse mentioning life, mentions the “breath of life”. Life begins when life is breathed into a vessel. Numbers 5:11-32 straight up outlines how a priest is to perform an abortion in the temple if a women has been unfaithful.

Homosexuality: the only mention of being gay is in Deuteronomy. Now, I’ve heard from various Jewish friends that the verse actually refers to pedophilia. I am not Jewish, and do not speak Hebrew or Greek, so I won’t be arguing that here. The Old Testament is full of laws to follow when bringing your sacrifice to the temples. We no longer make sacrifices at the temple, because Jesus have the ultimate sacrifice. To say we have to follow those laws, is to say that Jesus’ sacrifice wasn’t enough. The literal worst form of blasphemy.

Witchcraft: the verse most often quoted against this is “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live”. The word “witch” is actually a mistranslation of the word “prisoner”. Not to mention the entire book of Solomon summoning demons and having a witch tell him the future???

Some other great morals from the Bible:

-You can rape a virgin as long as you pay her father for her vrirginity and then marry her, as you have “humiliated” her. Deuteronomy 22:28-29

-It’s totally cool to get your father drunk and rape him, to “carry on his seed”. Genesis 19:30-37

-God sends a bear to maul over 40 CHILDREN to death for calling his disciple “baldy”. 2 Kings 2:23-25

I may add to this later, especially if any of you Jesus freaks get on here to clown.

TLDR: Christians have absolutely no fucking idea what they are talking about, and should hope god isn’t real, as a religion they have failed horrible at what is wanted from them.

#witchcraft #witch #pagan #personal #paganism #Christianity #Bible

29 notes · View notes

rated-r-for-grantaire · 4 years ago

Photo

house of gold by twenty one pilots vs solomon by the original cast of clown bible [image description: lyrics from house of gold that read “[Chorus] She asked me, "Son, when I grow old / Will you buy me a house of gold? And when your father turns to stone / Will you take care of me?" and lyrics from solomon that read [SOLOMON] I'm gonna build a house for You / [GOD] Oh, Solomon / [SOLOMON] Gonna cover it in gold, real thick / But first, I'm gonna need my cubit stick. end image description]

#clown bible #dave malloy #twenty one pilots

18 notes · View notes

letstalksymphogear · 5 years ago

Text

Symphogear, EP. 5

LAST TIME ON SINGY WINGY

ANGRY GREMLIN BEAT UP GOOD BY SUICIDE MOVE SURVIVE BLUE BIRD YES. BLUE BIRD GO TO HOSPITAL FOR WATER METAPHOR WITH AFTERLIFE GIRLFRIEND. TINY BIRD SAD, BUT THEN NOT GET SAD! JACKIE CHAN TIME AFTER MUCH THINKING. WIFE WORRIED ABOUT THINGS. SOMETHING SOMETHING PUNCH GOOD NOW.

Let us continue.

Miku wakes up to see her wife has run off yet again. This is the part of the Sam Reimi’s Spiderman franchise phase where the Mary Jane (not weed) begins having a rockier relationship with Peter Parker (not slang for penis) due to lack of availability.

It’s contrived.

It’s almost impressive that she left a note and had time to draw a tiny Hibiki saying something in a bubble. Glad to see you have your priorities straight, Hibiki.

“you know she might have had a better time in the local art school that doodle aint half bad”

Hibiki is motherfucking Rocky all up in this.

youtube

She’s going to kick some ass and nobody’s getting in the way.

“YOU’RE GONNA EAT LIGHTING AND YOU’RE GONNA CRRRRRAP THUNDER TACHIBANAAAAA”

“THAT’S A DIET I CAN GET BEHIND”

I wasn’t joking when I said she’s not fucking around anymore. Did you think I was joking? I can see how you can get the impression given the first few episodes, but I really can’t emphasize the thoroughness of the ass kicking she is going to be capable of.

“MY FATHERLY ENERGIES ARE WORKING! ADOPTERS ANONYMOUS WAS WRONG AFTER ALL!”

That’s totally not ominous in the slightest.

Meanwhile, in the middle of an unnamed McMansion in the middle of who knows where...

Gratuitously spoken English is heard. To be fair, it’s actually really impressive pronunciation coming from people whose native language are systemically different to ours. Most shows would just settle for “this dude is actually speaking english but everything is said in japanese for better interpretation” but not Symphogear! No siree!

Relic business is afoot.

We have a random blonde lady shooting random Noise from the thing The Gremlin had in her hands.

She’s really trying her best with her accent. She’s also casually shooting Noise because let’s face it, would we not do the same if it were in our hands?

“i do whatever i want with my big stiff rod pal”

Also, she’s a nudist. To also be fair, if you lived in a fuckoff rich McMansion with weapons beyond your comprehension, you likely couldn’t help but walk around naked doing whatever the fuck you want.

The people she’s talking to are the Americans, which we explained before are portrayed strictly in an antagonistic light. They want some relics, and this lady clearly deals them like like some sort of glorified drug dealer.

Suffice it to say, she’s not a very nice person.

Also, the subs don’t match what they’re saying in English in the slightest.

The name of this woman... is Fine (pronounced fi-neh). And she is the main antagonist of this series.

Fucking identical.

And here is the most unpleasant scene in the entire season.

The person we’ve repeatedly alluded to as The Gremlin is called Yukine Chris. She serves Fine in whatever the hell they’re up to right now. In this case, it’s using the Nehushtan armor to run around with Solomon’s Cane to throw Noise around the city.

“shits gonna get real abusive, pal”

Fine is a narcissistic sociopath. She’s manipulated Chris into servitude by believing she is the only one that can pave humanity into salvation.

“i dont like that smile”

Chris thinks Fine can secure her deepest wish. Ironically? It’s world peace.

“yeah! yeah yeah, world peace, yeah, totally. just treat me like jesus and we’re gucci”

Anyway, she proceeds to thoroughly shock Chris.

The lore behind this is that this is helping her resistance with dealing with the physical demands of the Nehushtan armor, as well as deal with the pieces of Nehushtan that may be still inside. Let’s be real, though. Fine’s a sadist, and just likes hurting people willy nilly.

“fuck... that hurt like shit... hey wait... wouldnt some of the electrical arcs hit you and shock you too, given you’re so naked and close to all this...?”

“ya nevermind that food looks real nice and i want a piece of that fuckin turkey”

It’s a real creepy scene, and it cements Fine’s horribleness really well. One of the most pivotal things to take note is that Fine says that people can only communicate with each other universally through pain. Strong, terrible BDSM overtones notwithstanding, this will be a common (though varying in quality) motif of the entire series.

“BITCH YOU THOUGHT WE WAS GUNNA EAT AFTER THAT FUCKIN’ WISECRACK ABOUT GETTING SHOCKED LIKE YOU’RE EVEN FUCKIN’ NIKOLAI TESLA ALL UP IN HERE WE’RE GONNA ELECTRIC SLIDE YOUR ASS TO NEXT WEEK”

“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK”

“WHERE THE FUUUUUUUCK IS HIBIKI?!”

“i was gonna invite her to the circus with the rest of the class ‘cause i felt bad about how i treated her but i guess she’s not here”

“the only clown im interested in is hibiki, in the carnival tent of my own bedroom”

“isn’t being a part of /fit/ great, hibiki? can you just feel the gains?”

“yeah who needs doting wife based significant others when you have your gym bros, right newly acquired father figure?”

Hibiki, having acquired a new brain cell during her training, asks the million dollar question:

“Why the fuck are we relying on schoolgirls to deal with all this stuff?”

“anime just be that way, hibiki. i’m just the wrong protagonist in the wrong show.”

Japan is super big on keeping the Symphogear a secret because they are strong and the world really, really wants a slice of the Symphogear pie. These people are basically walking super-weapons. Tsubasa literally dropped a sword the size of a skyscraper. It’s like the premise of the series of Iron Man films.

“do i get like a superhero name too or”

Something to wrap your head around. This was released around 2012, and while the setting seems to be slightly more futuristic, the world it was made in at the time had not been through the era of social media/smartphones we have right now. It was on the cusp of doing so, which means the idea of decent (yet vertical) amateur footage of things happening wasn’t something in the mainstream yet. Why do I say this?

Because in Symphogear, the fact that Symphogear exist is the biggest open secret in this unidentified city ever. NDAs are passed like hotcakes to keep people’s mouths shut on seeing monster-fighting singing superheroes. And they sing, too! Symphogears as an entity are the most high-profile fighting agents out there. Bright colors, no masks, constant singing, fighting in broad daylight in populated areas. Everybody knows, but no one says a word.

Which means every politician on the face of Japan hates these idiots, but they’re stuck with them out of sheer necessity.

“i swear to god if you bring up sam reimi’s spiderman one more goddamned time”

“look it’s the truth, all anime comes back to sam reimi’s spiderman. fate zero did it. uhhh, fucking...baccano, probably? now us. face it. its pretty much the bible.”

It’s also pointed out that the very concept of a Symphogear is born from a science that didn’t exist, and it probably contributes to political frustration as well.

“im going to microwave all your sam reimi spiderman dvds. im gonna do it. you try me, motherfucker. i didnt go into acting and get into this position to hear lectures about a decades old film franchise nobody cares about anymore.”

“can we stop fighting about the validity of sam reimi’s spiderman for five seconds and get back to helping me thing of a dope as hell superhero name? now, lemme lay one on you: Mister Fister”

Hibiki asks where Code Ryoko is.

“any answer besides Not Here works”

“oh, she left to talk to the americans, why?”

“huh, shes sorta late, actually”

“WHY A BAD BITCH LIKE ME GOTTA GET STUCK IN TRAFFIC LIKE THIS”

In the mother of all Mom Vans, no less.

MEANWHILE... IN METAPHOR LIMBO...

Tsubasa has reached the sea floor of the water metaphor dimension surrounded by water, which is her feelings, which are very gay. Imagine the Mariana Trench but like, deeper. Way deeper. That’s where Tsubasa is.

Leave it to Kazanari “I am literally a sword” Tsubasa to successfully spin the very act of surviving a suicidal move during combat as a failure. That’s a special kind of self loathing right there.

“the sheer force of my love for big ladies is keeping me alive”

Tsubasa asks about the point of Kanade’s sacrifice. Why’d she do it? Why was she so hungry at the end?

She personally shows up to answer that question, because that’s Kanade for you.

“being badass is cool, but you know whats cooler? caring.”

“sharing the sauce... you... you shared the sauce...”

“thats right, tsubasa. i wanted to protect the sauce, but... ultimately... sharing it was better. it wasn’t my sauce, tsubasa. it was everyone’s...”

“im gonna suck on a ketchup packet in your memory, tsubasa”

Kanade’s spirit pulls her out of the dimension of water metaphors as she is slowly undrowning from her emotions.

Tsubasa, like Kanade, was lost in the sauce. But now, after Kanade’s touching peptalk, Tsubasa is lost no longer.

“will i ever see you again in my dreams, kanade...?”

“where there’s a sauce. i’ll be there.”

“ill eat taco bell every day just to see you again kanade”

“and i dont even like taco bell... im more of a chipotle girl...”

After accepting Taco Bell as her lord and savior, she is immediately pulled out of the metaphor zone.

And wakes the fuck up.

“b..... b..... b............”

“Baja Blast....”

#symphogear #symphogear season 1 #anime #comedy #recap

22 notes · View notes

simplymyswank · 5 years ago

Text

Do you know

a Christian Clown?

Thoughts all jumbled?

Upside-down?

Focused on one thing

stubborn, yup.

Walks around

always tripping up.

Clowns pick a verse,

From God’s Word

Bible skewed.

Message obscured

They live by laws

fooled themselves

a distracted plan.

Point at others

silly white glove

Judging dealt

with no love.

Man, that clown

is acting funny,

opinions inflated

looks like a dummy.

Didn’t Jesus

teach the way?

And he said

We would pay?

Only GOD can judge

any man.

Only GOD sees

A perfect plan.

Sad old clowns

Trippin’ on those shoes

Stop mocking God.

You’re lookin’ so bruised

Scoffing at folks

Yet, with no mirror

Sad reflection

Couldn’t be any clearer.

Don’t focus on things

That do no harm

Stop segregating love

With polka dot arms.

You’re an embarrassment

to His greater cause

Cause God said LOVE

above all laws!

Love your neighbor

spread kindness their way.

Don’t judge others

Simply Pray

Give to God

What you can’t change

Stop trying to fix

You can’t rearrange

It’s not your job

To meddle and fuss

In other’s business

To scoff and cuss.

Bless the world

With your shining light

Be different & focused

On what is right!

Don’t read the Bible,

and start making things up

You’re expecting water from

a hole-filled cup

You’ll get nowhere

from a cup with holes

Just a wet shirt

and more lost souls

How sad to be the reason

People didn’t pray

when God commanded us

bring more My way.

Clowns play a roll

either extreme or scary

Don’t be either

be LEGENDARY!

youtube

Clowns.

Be honest. Extreme and funny? Or scary and creepy? It’s one or the other right?

Why? Anything blown up so oversized is not okay. A huge nose? Eyes that are way too big? A super big mouth? Feet that look like snow shoes? It’s boarder-line one or the other. Funny or terrifying.

Clowns

For me, they are scary.

Photo by sachin bharti on Pexels.com

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I don’t like them.

Our church service yesterday discussed taking Bible verses out of context and becoming a litigious Christian. A Christian that takes one verse, blows it way out of context, creates its own set of rules and regulations and then presses on others with vague and grey, human-designed expectations.

Clowns.

Our family has set rules and regulations based on the weaknesses we have in our past. My husband and I don’t drink. It’s a weakness that is deeply ingrained in our family. Both sides have suffered from the disease of alcoholism. So, we personally don’t drink. It never ends well when we do, yet, it took a while to see we had to 100% stop drinking. We hurt each other a lot before we were able to let it go and make that family law. Sounds silly, but you probably can relate if you have suffered from it too.

That’s our personal choice. We don’t press our family law on others, judge them and make them feel awkward. Everyone has their own set of unique set of fingerprints designed and created by God. Their choices and paths are their own. Stressing out, demanding control and pointing fingers are the most insane actions that actually push people away instead of drawing them close. Have you ever tried to cuddle with a cactus?

As a Christian are you walking around with extreme attitudes, crazed and self-inflicted expectations of others and a stand-off attitude to what you see in others? Are you haughty, scoffing and a scary blown-up clown for Christ? Is that what he taught? Is that how he lived? Are you standing out for the wrong reasons?

When I committed my life to God as an adult, I was so passionate that it became like a drug. What put me on my knees in front of God was the lowest point in my life. I was living on adrenaline. While I was in that drug-like state of mind, I pressed my faith on my family in an extreme and desperate way. I was a clown. All I talked about was my faith and how they should change their lives. If they rejected my thoughts, I told them they were stupid and stubborn.

I’m not kidding, that actually happened.

And what resulted from those clown-like actions was so sad. They told me I was crazy and they couldn’t talk to me anymore. They couldn’t relate to the adrenaline drug I was on. I ended up pushing them away from salvation out of fear. They didn’t want to end up like me. We haven’t talked for over a year and when we do there is a barrier, a wall and such guarded discussion. I pray that never happens to any of you.

I feel sad about my actions. I can’t ever change them. But what I can do is try to live in a gentle manner from now on. Remain constant prayer, focused on staying humble and allow them to come to God in their own personal way. Only God can change their hearts now. The scars I left will always be there and I am so sorry for how I acted.

Which made me think about our church service. As Christians we are expected to love above all other laws. There is a distinct difference between love and acceptance, however. Love means not to judge – judging is only for God. Acceptance means that we allow other influences to dilute our God-given laws. Man, there’s a can of worms, eh?

I can’t condone actions that are against the teachings of Jesus. I am not saying that we can go about our business and love sin. We are to love people, nature their souls, carry ourselves as Jesus did and above all try to live a life that is not condescending or judgmental. Haha – I just typed judgmental – check out that word. You have to be mental (ego)- to think you can Judge.

I don’t want to be a clown for Christ. I want to be a loving Christian without the extreme or laughable characteristics that would ostracize me from society. I want to be a gentle night-light for Christ. I pray I am a light that shines evoking a sense of safety, not avoidance.

“A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.” – Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

Solomon asked God for wisdom – and it was granted – here are the words of wise Solomon.

Proverbs 10

13. Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning, but a rod is for the back of one who has no sense.

14. The wise store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.

Clowns Do you know a Christian Clown? Thoughts all jumbled? Upside-down? Focused on one thing stubborn, yup.

#Bible #clown #example #extreme #fool #guide #love #scary #trust #truth #Verse

0 notes

this-is-a-dystopian-parable · 2 years ago

Text

I am delighted to report to all my Clown Bible fans out there that Solomon is, in fact, playing the banjo in his own song

#clown bible

5 notes · View notes

ratherhavetheblues · 7 years ago

Text

KELLY REICHARDT’S MEEK’S CUTOFF “How far do we have to go?”

This film, from 2010, touted as a remarkably “minimalist” presentation in the form of getting real about the gritty hardships of mid-nineteenth-century travel with a view to starting afresh in Oregon Territory, proves to be, in fact, a most modern story. It features three ox-drawn covered wagons, a circus-cowboy-buffoon and scout and three ladies of the convoy in bonnets and gowns so pronounced they resemble an order of nuns. There is, you might appreciate, room for large confusion in getting to the remarkable sophistication being the nub of this work’s working.

Whereas other film investigators in her orbit tend to put all their audacious cards on the table each time out—producing therewith a critical mass of mysterious logic for their fans to digest in relative tranquility—Reichardt harbors a secret trajectory (from out of the iconoclastic territory beloved by her colleagues). And that outer limit does not show up in strength time after time. In fact, to date, it has only appeared twice, in our current effort, and in the very recent, Certain Women (2016). Badasses everywhere you turn; but rarely devising something about badasses beyond the standard appalment and compromised isolation. In Meek’s Cutoff, the desperately lost wagon train captures a lone Indian and proceeds to coerce him to reveal where the water might be. In Certain Women, Jamie (an Indian woman requiring some surveillance to be seen as such) offers to show a lost lawyer where the fun is and gets a rude brush-off which smashes her equilibrium going forward. In the saga of Meek and his would-be cutoff of a supposed primitive nobody, there comes about a turning of the tables, with the outsider having somehow acquired the trappings of an insider. But so much seemingly old-school nail-biting and games-playing obtrudes there that the remarkableness of the loner does not effectively register. However, in the light of Jamie’s being robbed of her unsecured mojo, Meek’s Cutoff (Meek the boss-clown being denied his bid to annihilate the Oregon Indian) brings that “new frontier,” which tripped up Jamie, to an instinctively vivid significance.

Our movie is not without the panoramic splendor of the so-called Wild West, bequeathing to the risk-takers an expansive variant of striking it rich; but it is advisable to trace at the outset a far less disinterested force. The handful, of those now apprised of how terrifyingly they stand in harm’s way, soon focuses down to one player, namely, Emily, wife of Solomon. Her energies had begun to address, far more than the others, how unsatisfactory Meek was; but, with the capture of the wild one from the wild place, her calculative reckoning swings to the lone resident and his being fully aware of where the water is. He’s on a pretty generous rope, and as she approaches him he seems to be inscribing some kind of design or signal on the rock face. She offers him a cup of water, which he accepts. Then she indicates that she could repair one of his deer skin moccasins. He removes the shoe impassively but with a degree of interest. Amidst the impenetrable spoken language impasse, she assures anxious members of the junket (none more drastic than Meek), “I want him to owe me something.” (In the more recent film, the actress, Michelle Williams, stands, when closely watched, as a sharp corporate cookie leading a trusting victim of her company’s stupid carelessness to unwittingly forego his compensation, leading him to financial and confidence ruin. Unsurprisingly, that same attractive and alert actress plays the part of Emily. But this time her adversary is no pushover—right from the get-go of his captivity exuding not only fearlessness but punctuating it with a contemptuous spit on the ground where these pussies have fastened him. The precise denotation of his stand, however, being easily disregarded within the escape melodrama of the clueless crew, one of whom, Thomas, in the first scene. the young husband of a skittish young wife even more skittish than he, who has brought her caged canary along for the ride, carving the word, Lost, on a swatch of deadwood.) Therewith, Emily-the-fixer embarks upon a double motivation—the obvious schmoozing of a reluctant hire; and that essentially hidden devotion to calculative progress atop which she, her present party and the entire edifice of Western (soon-to-be-world-wide) culture worship without effective direction. Smooth going for that big plurality settling for getting fat on good news in science, religion and rescuing the domestically broken. Rough going for those discerning a horrific lostness in such ultimacies.

To get the thriller-suspense content out of the way, we can report that the local stranger does lead them to a spot in the desert supporting greenery, and then leaves without pleasantries from any quarter. Our task here is to closely illuminate the confrontation of something very old, despite burnishing, and something so obscure that, from the perspective of world history, it has never happened. (Academic philosophers and scientists [of the same stripe] have insisted that whatever is going on in the way of the new must boil down to the old. In this way, they constitute a church, ready, like Meek, for exterminating the trespasser; only, circumspect enough to oversee a form of legality, like the reflexive stiff, Beth, in Certain Women, posing a painful wake-up call to Jamie. Meek’s being a dullard does not disqualify him for, in his very name, providing a catchy packet of compelling evidence. He carries along, with his multifaceted bold and crude façade, the biblical thesis, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” That inheritance, being more a locust invasion, speaks to the violence being a blessed event in the eyes of those who seem to be destined to prevail forever.)

The ways of prevailing while being obviated by the so-called meek, are a subtle blend based upon that 3-stage initiative richly adumbrated in Certain Women. That motif proves to be vigorously in bloom in the current film’s desert, initially pertaining to the three wagons and their characteristic moods; and especially arrayed by the three anciently-clad wives. But whereas in the later film the signals tend to be schematic (Jamie’s earthy workaday haven being something else), here, having Emily at the apex, a more modulated and carnal navigation is sent our way. Before mending the moccasin, she carries a dinner to the rope-secured alien. The approach is set in virtually total darkness, but as she finishes her dinner and notices the need to show some class, she also reveals a second fiery lamp, which immediately evokes a huge black cat putting some pop into an exhausted campaign. Before the dining, there was the return of Meek and Solomon on horseback, with their prisoner on foot and secured by each of them with a rope as if he were a self-evident loco beast. That positioning and its rope implicate a runaway speeder in Meek and a more careful kinetic antithesis in Solomon. As Meek’s suggestion to shoot the supposed maniac is outvoted by the three menfolk, “reasoning” that he is an inhabitant of the area and knows all the ins and outs of wellbeing, Emily looks long and hard into the wild one’s eyes and he looks closely at her, being by far the most self-possessed of the bunglers. Thomas, by contrast, rather sullenly mimes the possible transaction of warm blankets for the whereabouts of a water source. The mere fact that the unimpressed subject of various schemers accepts a blanket, sends the boyish voter into a tizzy of cognitive pay dirt. “So there’s the law of the land, Mr. Meek! Barter!” Emily’s boast, about having the key-figure “owe me something,” has to be seen in the context of the captive’s having impressed her with his courage, poise and a presence never before encountered and never to be entirely forgotten. Another way of describing her vigor is that the antithesis of her runaway speeder has become operative.

In due course, the center of the controversy, with gestures, incantations and variant priorities leads them to a prospect requiring lowering the wagons by way of rope-control and gut-wrenching energy. The thrust comprising Glory and William White and their child, Jimmy, who frequently read aloud from the Bible and thereby bring to the lostness a form of certain rescue in the way of first principles, rolls down safely: the thrust comprising Thomas and Milly Gately, the young and the flakey, in the way of decidedly second principles, stays in one piece, still mobile toward the retail aspect of Oregon; but the thrust blending bedrock and tossing the dice—the wagon of Solomon and Emily—(perhaps the malnourished and exhausted figures having spent their grip) gets away from them and their scant inventory (some of it already jettisoned to spare the oxen) becomes a shattered dump. The underestimated leader materializes and looks into a container having flown from the wreck. Meek, who had been pulling macho glares at the supposed serial killer all through the day’s toils, strides to the miscreant, yelling, “Hey, hey! Put that down! It don’t belong to you! Have some respect!” The non-immigrant disregards that source of overt weakling bluster; Emily, having stared down the so-called expert several times (he, typically being heard to declare, “I never slip, I never stumble. Follow a trail in the dark… I’m not of this world, I’m just in it…”), unwittingly adds to the show of force by remarking, “What does it matter?” Meek pulls out his pistol, Solomon demands, “Put it away, Meek, there’s no need.” “I see need,” the other maintains. Meek, seeing that the prey has dropped the container and stood up to face the threat, mocks, “Well, yes! So you got some feelings after all.” Emily trains the still-intact family rifle upon the dead weight’s empty head declaring, “I’d be wary, Stephen Meek…” He backs down with the babble, You people have no idea what you’re dealing with here… Looks like your woman got Indian blood in her, Mr. Tetherow…” And she firmly replies, “We got an idea of what we’re dealing with now.” So much for Meek. But what about the man whose life she just saved? The nearly dead takes this in carefully. The seldom silent snipes, apropos of sustaining the highly questionable (in his eyes), “Well, maybe you like to wager…” That hand-off, as to Albert Einstein snarling at his “uncertainty” foes (embarking on a long, hard journey), brings to the near shoot-out the future scold, “God does not roll dice.”

Neither of the investigators—Emily and the anonymous notable—regard this encounter as a definite blessing. The drift of murmured voices, incomprehensible rhetoric and song, and ringing, grinding, infrequently lilting sounds, describes a joint, and also solitary, endeavor which brings our way a daring discovery—out of season but welcome at any rate. This interplay, between the two who are fascinated with each other, and the two who are fascinated with the ranges embracing them, constitutes the heart of this mysterious film. It is best to approach this singularity in two stages, the first closely linked to the crisis at hand, to be followed by (innuendo-style, as in Certain Women) the off-camera intensity.

The night following her breakaway show of remarkable force, in saving the man seemingly more touched by her little hope-chest than the tragedy on that hillside, is a sleepless one for Emily. In the near-absolute darkness of their bedroom-under-the-stars no one can see, she asks Solomon (in the near-whisper in which the whole transaction occurs), “What do you see out there?...the Indian… trusting him? Ah, it’s insane isn’t it?” He and his name to live up to defers to his spouse, now overtly capable of taking over the reins. (Meek had sneered about, “Your woman got Indian blood in her;” and an overmatched husband had retorted, “She’s got something…”) Solomon can only say, “Hard to see. You think he’s truthful?” She, on the cusp of an unfamiliar and murderously difficult logic, posits (more confidently than she really feels), “The Indian? I can’t say that I do…” He, detecting some unfinished business, puts on the table, “Why’d you put your faith in him?” After a long silence, she draws upon his resources by way of, “You’re doubtful…” But he changes the subject, stating the obvious that Meek (true to his name) is weak.

The biblical stalwart, William, who readily invited them to store their few still-useful goods in his wagon, collapses on a stretch of desert mud flats, and Emily puts aside her insomniac plodding at the rear of the party and brings water to a figure not looking likely to bounce back. Coming beside her is that self-directed puzzler, who proceeds to administer to the victim by a combination of, once again, gesture, incantation and the additional factor of song. At the same time, his eerie goodwill works a tiny portion of magic for her. His voice evokes solitude and endurance; and Emily, still far from ecstasy, knows that a change in the offing is now more than a bloodless wager. (Emphasizing the loosening of rigid protocol, there is Glory White, her shock and tearfulness being seen in a silhouette profile, water and mucus dripping from her nose.) During these moments Emily’s face is concealed by the arresting ancient headpiece. An incubation, not a conclusion. As the caravan resumes, Emily has become more pensive. Then as the guide on foot is seen to have led the non-guide on horseback and the others in their semi-viable lostness to a verdant tree where water can be essayed, Emily, at this eleventh hour, commits her full attention to the one she saved and very possibly could lift her prospects. The patter—from Glory’s child, “Mama, trees can’t grow in salt water!” to childish Thomas, “That’s just it! We’re close but we don’t know what to do!” to Meek’s meekly abdicating with, “I’m taking my orders from Mr. Tetherow… and we’re all taking our orders from him” [the disappearing asset]—is not the point for her at this moment. The discoverer pauses to look at his only kin from than quixotic outfit. And she regards him with the quiet amazement of his having left her with no kin in sight.

Reaching closer precision toward Emily’s fortuitous dilemma constitutes the last stage of this Western with the soundtrack of a space odyssey. The historical event on which this saga was very loosely based pertained to a migration expert, Meek, offering a cutoff from the Oregon Trail westwards, to avoid the supposed incidence of hostile Indians. Those taking his detour would, then, be more danger-averse than the main group opting for the regular trail. (In fact, the safety-first group numbered more than a thousand—our mini-cast being a sort of Dogville mood-piece unit, with the ratio being tight 30’s and 40’s squared-off dimensions, in contrast to wide-screen frisson.) During the early days, Emily takes exception to Meek’s incompetence putting them all in danger, amidst the Oregon High Desert, particularly from inadequate water resources. “I don’t like where we are,” she alone having the temerity to complain to his face. But during the long nights an endless medium of strange and risky dynamics comes to call, and comes to temper the prosaic predilections of our protagonist. In daylight Emily snipes at Solomon for being an “optimist” about the new turn of events. Though she goes on to apologize for the bad form, soon she is pointlessly lashing out about Meek, “Is he ignorant or is he just plain evil?” But in the evening their candle-lit lantern shines by showing two prongs separated by a dark metal frame. That primitive murkiness would, then, be visited by not only the sensibility of cyclical statement (fading to banality and recovering to primality, going for safe advantage and backing up to an unsafe bolt); but, with the centerpiece, convening a blend of the two. Near the outset, the three women meander behind the small wagon-train, inscribing on the rugged terrain the prospect of that same distribution of creative power, so far removed from the prudence and piety of the cutoff proceedings. (To measure how far at this point handsome Emily still had to go, there is her wry pre-dawn remark to Glory across the way, while preparing breakfast, “… like niggers… back again…” This would not be the vocabulary of another rural toiler in the dark, namely, the milkmaid situated in a cave, in Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us [1999], who loves where she is and what she does.)

Amidst grating uncertainty, Emily catches a glimpse of an Indian on horseback on a distant ridge, and she’s so shocked she can’t bring herself to tell the others. Quite soon after, while she’s preoccupied with gathering brushwood for the fire, she nearly runs into the curious and terrifying apparition, who runs to his horse and rushes away. She runs to her rifle, no sang froid in sight, and sends off a couple of volleys, pointless but breaking the ice. When Jimmy more promptly reports seeing him, Meek and Solomon ride down the disconcerting figure and Emily, unlike the others, notes that he is not terrifying. (For one thing, he is smaller than everyone but Jimmy.) In an instant of bad going to worse, then going to rolling the dice, Emily reads that the newcomer is far more composed than her recent frights and complaining. From this point forward she, once again reluctant to speak to an intense matter, attends to that presence. Still a fixture in a wide-spread culture of farming enterprise and homespun religiosity, she can be seen, by that innuendo that suits Reichardt’s rendition of hard going, to picture herself, within the purview of the manipulated and discounted prisoner, as disregarded and manipulated, while an alternative of sorts presents itself. (She, of course, is not included in the reprieve against Meek’s more than simply consigning [cutting off] the intruder from being worth anything; and snippets of conversation reveal that penny-wise and pound-foolish Solomon got her into the maw of Meek’s scarifying to create a market for his services.) Her being far more focused with that shotgun than before enflames the emigration toward an independence confusing and fascinating. The attending to William’s distress confirms what the captive’s poise during the brief slavery had made evident, namely, that though remote in his reckoning and confidence, he was also engaged in connecting, for what they’re worth, with those discharging their hunger for advantageous resources despite eschewing the complementary river of frisson that also comes with the wager. During the showdown, rifle-to-pistol, the pistol, taking a literal stance, maintains, to his hated enemy, “Don’t think you ain’t wagerin’…” This being an ironic pathway to a wildness the Wild West sees as seldom as tenderfoots do. Emily is pointedly not inducted into a tribe or nation of eccentric seers, but instead having a sort of Master Class by a figure as singular as his endeavor.

The tipping point for Emily directly follows her audacious mutiny toward the wonky captain of the dusty wilderness and the wonky followers (close to fainting at her eccentricity). The evening after the menfolk veto Meek’s lust to show some decisiveness by murdering the catch, involving much spewing of clichés about the ruthless sadism of Indians—perhaps, as suggested, and as the innuendo flow would alert us, the same line he used to induce a clientele to hire him as the safety-first choice—Emily and Solomon have their dinner by that seductive light, and she notices the supposed maniac tethered by ropes and without food. As she leaves to provide him with some of their dinner, she, as already mentioned, reveals a second lamp, which, in that blackness, jumps out at us as a big, black cat, sensually decisive and a measure of our protagonist suddenly going places. We can barely see her offering the plate; but we do hear his very hasty, cat-style, consumption of the generosity, and the sharp noise of the metal plate he tosses down, which gives her a start, as if a cat had pounced. Sustaining the nocturnal and engaging uncanniness there is the play of the moonlight, bringing not only immediate good cheer but that nexus of the dialectic—nourishing business, then pristine necessity, then synthesis of pristine business (then back again in infinite variants). A moonlit cloud with two arms receives a full-moon visit, plying first one, then, after a cut, the other corridor of creative energy. A coyote or wolf calls, and the figure having been shown care is moved to speak by both the natural features he knows very well and the new feature he has not taken for granted. In the almost total darkness where he is under arrest his presence becomes a field more than an object. Emily is wakened by these improvisations redolent of a feline solitude and dignity and wakened apace to a new day.

If that latter assurance is a Reichardt innuendo—one of many of the phenomena off-camera in detail but on camera where it counts—the trajectory of Emily’s status as she watches the loner getting even more alone can only be imagined by educated speculation and instinctive experience. Finding potable water? Very probably (the key-man being indifferent to the trek, but not murderously so). Finding their destination? Maybe. (In the historical Cutoff, hundreds died but hundreds survived.) However, as for the real payoff, there is, first of all, Emily’s husband, a notable figure but far from an inspiration for her overstepping a hundred barriers, including activity as a wife no longer a fully obedient chattel, as once tethered (by Tetherow) to his motives and diminished by definition. The real action—a transaction—devolves from her ability to function as an impressive notable by her own reckoning as countering her sworn and unsworn enemies as, with the Indian, irrelevant; and yet, in the breathtakingness of such a split of sensibilities, lovingly consigned to do what can be done with a fleabag constituency. This is the magic (some might call it black magic) taking the stage (whereas Jamie, in Certain Women, still had to learn about push-back for the sake of the lithe and brave, not the meek, in its own contingent way, inheriting the earth.) The final look she casts toward her mentor poses an ox-cart load of bruising shambles and slight confirmation.

Emily’s past and future oscillating could be taken as a personal characteristic; but the myriad sensuous concomitants of her path inform us of something else. She shares Solomon’s conventional wisdom, when bringing forward, “He can’t even imagine what we’ve done, the cities we’ve built…” But her default refrain, “How far do we have to go?” implicates her in a remarkable form of nomadic life. (A portent, of her most vexatious obstacle in that new life, can be seen by way of an early moment of the film where Meek takes exception to Emily’s nailing him for his incompetence. “I feel you have no feelings for me…” She retorts, “I have no feelings at all, Mr. Meek…” When he persists, “That’s just another way of saying you don’t like me,” she is unwittingly exposed for lacking the wit and heart to play to what strengths he has. What strengths he has, however, are largely chimeric. As he menaces the man who might have been part of a thing of beauty before being separated from his horse, Meek strides about in the burning sunlight and the rippling of his shadow shows him at a personal best his ideology cannot tolerate: women… chaos; men…destruction; to an upshot of, “This was written down before we got here…” But, like his unintended gift of the rippling shadows, many faint strengths can be put to use.)

#kelly reichardt

0 notes

christsbride · 7 years ago

Text

Closing the Door to Lust, Part One

Judges 16

Samson was a he-man with a she-weakness. In spite of the fact that he was born of godly parents, set apart from his birth to be a Nazirite, and elevated to the enviable position of judge in Israel, he never conquered his tendency toward lust. On the contrary, it conquered him. Several things that illustrate his lustful bent may be observed from the record of his life in the book of Judges.

1. The first recorded words from his mouth were: I saw a woman (14:2).

2. He was attracted to the opposite sex strictly on the basis of outward appearance: Get her for me, for she looks good to me (14:3).

3. He judged Israel for 20 years, then went right back to his old habit of chasing women—a harlot in Gaza, and finally Delilah (15:20–16:4).

4. He became so preoccupied with his lustful desires, he didn't even know the Lord had departed from him (16:20).

The results of Samson's illicit affairs are familiar to all of us. The strong man of Dan was taken captive and became a slave in the enemy's camp, his eyes were gouged out of his head, and he was appointed to be the grinder in a Philistine prison. Lust, the jailer, binds and blinds and grinds. The swarthy pride of Israel, who once held the highest office in the land, was now the bald-headed clown of Philistia, a pathetic hollow shell of humanity. His eyes would never wander again. His life, once filled with promise and dignity, was now a portrait of hopeless, helpless despair. Chalk up another victim for lust. The perfumed memories of erotic pleasure in Timnah, Gaza, and the infamous valley of Sorek were now overwhelmed by the putrid stench of a Philistine dungeon.

Without realizing it, Solomon wrote another epitaph—this one for Samson's tombstone:

His own iniquities will capture the wicked, And he will be held with the cords of his sin. He will die for lack of instruction, And in the greatness of his folly he will go astray. (Proverbs 5:22–23)

The same words could well be chiseled in the marble over many other tombs. I think, for example, of the silver-throated orator of Rome, Mark Antony. In his early manhood, he was so consumed with lust that his tutor once shouted in disgust:

O Marcus! O colossal child . . . able to conquer the world but unable to resist a temptation!

I think of the gentleman I met several years ago—a fine itinerant Bible teacher. He said he had been keeping a confidential list of men who were once outstanding expositors of the Scripture, capable and respected men of God . . . who have shipwrecked their faith on the shoals of moral defilement. During the previous week, he said, he had entered the name of number 42 in his book. This sad, sordid statistic, he claims, caused him to be extra cautious and discreet in his own life. Perhaps, by now, he has added a couple dozen more.

A chill ran down my spine when he told that story. No one is immune. You're not. I'm not. Lust is no respecter of persons. Whether by savage assault or subtle suggestion, the minds of a wide range of people are vulnerable to its attack. Sharp professional men and women, homemakers, students, carpenters, artists, musicians, pilots, bankers, senators, plumbers, promoters, and preachers as well. Its alluring voice can infiltrate the most intelligent mind and cause its victim to believe its lies and respond to its appeal. And beware—it never gives up . . . it never runs out of ideas. Bolt your front door and it'll rattle at the bedroom window, crawl into the living room through the TV screen, or wink at you out of a magazine in the den.

How do you handle such an aggressive intruder? Try this: when lust suggests a rendezvous, send Jesus Christ as your representative.

Have Him inform your unwanted suitor that you want nothing to do with illicit desire . . . nothing. Have your Lord remind lust that since you and Christ have been united together, you are no longer a slave to sin. (Read Romans 6.) His death and resurrection freed you from sin's stranglehold and gave you a new Master! And that new Master isn't afraid to slam the door in lust's face, no matter how far it has slinked in.

Excerpt taken from Come Before Winter and Share My Hope, copyright © 1985, 1988, 1994 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. For additional information and resources visit us at www.insight.org.

from Chuck Swindoll's Daily Devotional http://ift.tt/2rR6eHx via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Chuck Swindoll's Daily Devotional #Insight for Living

0 notes

ryanellisphoto · 7 years ago

Photo

#67 — Saturday, May 27th, 2017 — Detroit Street Photography Session #67 — Ryan Ellis Photography — Walk and Talk to Tyros #003 — DEMF / Movement / Underground — Street Portraits

10:30 AM until 9:30 PM — 11 admirable hours in the city I am learning to appreciate — 913 photos — 66 videos — 166 “keepers” among photos (18.18% success rate [10% success is my minimum goal]) — I wanted to somewhat evenly capture people, places, and things, but since the city had an event with so many interesting folks in attendance, I found myself chasing the best photos (portraits) as opposed to the most photos of my preliminary targets. — Inspirational track this week: Andrew Luce - “Trouble”

——————————

First things first, I shot on Friday (yesterday), and that lasted until the wee hours of the morning. Needless to say, I was tired today, and I could only muster the strength to come into the city by 10:30 AM. I do not think I have mentioned this before. All of my nerves are longer than their encasing areas, which makes me double jointed everywhere. It also means that it is easier to injure myself, and some injuries will never heal (nerves may become painfully entangled) without surgery. It is called “Morton’s Neuroma.” Hahaha. It makes for odd physical experiences. Sometimes when I walk, my knee gives out. It is quick enough to make me look a bit crazy. Haha. The same goes with my jaw. It will lock often when I am eating, and I have to reset it. Well, long story long, I stubbed a toe on my left foot a few years ago, and it never healed. An X-Ray showed that the nerve was bunched up, which is when I learned about the condition. It is a common condition to be found alongside my Marfan’s Syndrome (which makes me so tall and boney). The pediatrist said it was as if my foot was broken. He said my options were either surgery or a molded shoe insert. I went with the insert, since surgery risked worsening the situation. I only have one pair of inserts, and to walk for very long without them makes me want to cut off my own toe, so I had to stop by the shoe store (Red Wing Shoes), which had both my pairs of boots in for reconditioning (one of which had the inserts in them), to get my shoes for today’s shoot.

Another thing that I am not sure whether I have shared on here before is part of my core way of thinking. My favorite book in the Bible is Proverbs. I also love its lesser (in my opinion) “sequel” Ecclesiastes. I love the terseness of the verses as well as the self-contained nature of their hermeneutical structure. The Proverbs live in my brain like the words of Christ lived in sanitarium-ridden Friedrich Nietzsche’s mind as he wasted away. I cannot shake them, and they hang over my head despite my best efforts at times to do other than what they command.

Ecclesiastes 9:8 (ESV) — 8 Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.

I was always intrigued by this verse from Solomon. I remember my time with the smartest person I have ever met. She had an IQ of 170 at age 14. We tested together. Mine was good but not that good (at age 16). Statistically, at the time, there were 300 others as smart as her in the whole of America. We had wonderful conversations over countless days and nights. We shared a similar story from our lives. When I was young, I shared a room with my brother. Our parents stupidly put up lithographs of early 1900’s circus posters in our room. I am talking about candlelight-uplit smiling clowns. I am not afraid of clowns and have never been afraid of them, but I never looked directly at the posters. They just did not sit right with me as a little kid. Months later, my birthday was coming up, and my mother asked what I wanted for my birthday. I told her, without hesitation, that I wanted the color orange. She said she could not give me a color for my birthday and walked away. The day finally came. She threw me a clown-themed birthday party. Needless to say, I felt I had been betrayed by the color orange, though I did not want to do away with it entirely, so I had to pick a new favorite color to unseat it. I heard that blue was for boys, and since I was a boy, I chose blue. A decade later, I was talking to this smart, smart girl, and she told me the same story, except she had asked for the color white. Knowing her vastly-superior intellect, I secretly committed that white would be my third favorite, respective, color, behind blue and orange. I put forth from then on to make myself appreciate the color white more.

Uniting the almost boundless wisdom of Solomon with the exquisite intelligence of this girl, I chose to wear a white shirt today in the city. Many times, I have bought bright and colorful clothes in keeping with that verse from Ecclesiastes. I want to look happy and be happy and spread happiness. Like the color white, often that goal is something to adjust myself to. I am not, per se, a naturally happy individual, but it is an apex that is not sanely despised when pursued in purity, which is a yet higher zenith to conquer.

Hahahaha. Oh, how long my posts are when they are written quickly!

So, to recap, I wore a white shirt and went to the store for my shoes—I have not even arrived in Detroit yet! Hahahahaha!

——————————

John Owen (a man in my top ten folks of the last 2000 years), eat your heart out. I can ramble with the best of them.

I arrived in Detroit at about 10:30 AM. The perfectionist that I am, I decided to continue the Walk and Talk series instead of returning to a structured lesson. This is because I want to keep doing it while it is fresh on my mind, and I want to find a voice in its approach that I know how to replicate time and again before I am comfortable returning to the other approach.

Between last week and this week, I have spent at least nine hours hand sewing my new (old) camera strap I was given for my new (old) camera (Nikon D600). I am trying to work on a video for this. It is wonderful. It is really good. I should sell straps like it online, except it takes nine hours (for me) to sew one! I am going to be camping this coming week with my best friend since Kindergarten (we embody the Proverb of a friend that sticks closer than a brother; we are David and Jonathan [he can be David for all I care]), which means I will possibly not produce a video next week, since next Saturday is when I leave to come back home.

Oh boy…

——————————

So, I arrived in Detroit at 10:30 AM (“we’re doing it live!” [I hope this unedited lengthiness gives an insight into what hair-brained rabbit trails are otherwise routinely cut when I write]).

My second and I stopped at a local bar with an outlet and ate fried food as my batteries recharged. We used that time to refine the plan for the day. I wanted another go at shooting nouns. I knew there was a music festival in town for the day, and with the good chance of there being many more interesting folks to photograph than anything else, I still kept the other two subjects (places and things) in the intro, because I figured I would be forgiven for straying from my starting plans if the “story” of the day with the people overshadowed all else. Maybe I was too unknowing or too safe to not have forced my stated (on video) plans to overtly coincide with the event for the day from the beginning. Presumption is not wise, so I started from a more achievable place with the nouns target.

Since the D600, which my assistant uses for video, is a worthy stills camera, my assistant was photographing my day out. She has a very good eye for composition. It certainly translates through her winding camera pans in the most recent videos. I have had a bunch of different people come with me through the past several months, and my evergreen joke is that people inevitably get better at photography and videography when they come out with me, but it is a long process. Certainly, she has improved over the past months when she has been with me. I always laugh when I have a new assistant with me that complains of the difficulty of our long, winding days out. Things always get better over time. If you stay with me, you will adjust for the better. Then, the real fun begins. Being able to express yourself through the camera is fulfilling.

I played chess with a man that went by “CDK.” He never elaborated on what it meant, and we had a few nice discussions on art and history and civilization among other things. He beat me at chess and bought my assistant and I each a Pepsi afterwards. What a good man! I will return to face him again in a couple weeks. That chess board is the Philippines, and I am General Douglas MacArthur.

Wanting to parody the flopped Pepsi ad, where a celebrity gave away a Pepsi, I gave away my Pepsi to one of the concert-goers just outside Hart Plaza, where the event was happening. There, I took many portraits while being filmed. I shot bracketed and with my exposure compensation up a stop to make up for the bright backlighting present at that time of the day. Later, I realized my camera was set to meter for a different focal length, and I was shooting at 1000 ISO instead of the proper 100 ISO. This made my photos look like they were on fire, hence some of the heavy use of monochrome in the pictures above. I always joke that when all else fails, make a blown photo black and white to “save” it. I had the ISO so high for photographing the chess game from before.

Last summer, I made this same mistake a few times; I forgot to dial down my ISO after leaving a shaded place. I told myself that I wanted to include some sort of physical indicator on my camera or lens to remind myself to change my ISO again. I still have to come up with what that might be. Maybe a bright hair tie that I will put on the focusing ring? Maybe a bright piece of tape on the lens or body? Basically, I want to get in the habit of putting a reminder on my camera when I raise my ISO that will tip me off that I should lower it when I leave a dark scene.

My assistant was pretty sunburned already after our first round with the attendees of the festival, and I was starting to get dizzy from lack of water, so we retreated to the shade for a spell to have water and a small meal. There, I spilled my coney dog on my white shirt! I went to a nearby bathroom and tried to scrub the stain with soap, but the damage was done. Haha.

When we returned for the second (and last) round of portraits with the concert goers, the police had arrived en masse to control rowdy folks. With the men were also drug-sniffing dogs. The cops had drugs on them that they kept hiding to continually test the dogs’ accuracy. When I finished the portraits and had crossed the street to leave the area, I saw an ambulance race to the festival grounds. A minute later, it was leaving, this time, with a police escort. Someone must have overdosed on drugs.

It had been a joke between my assistant and I all day to guess which folks we saw around us were on some sort of substance just by their clothes and posture. The ambulance brought a sad reality and end to the joking for the night. Not wanting to stay late in a city full of loaded youngsters (some of which, likely, drove there themselves), we drove home early to be safe.

I know that I could have gotten some amazing photos of the kids as the night went on, but we got worthy shots as it was. My desire for completeness will probably always bug me about leaving early. And that is where today’s story ends.

0 notes