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hexusproductions · 2 years ago

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@turnaboutace the original ask got eaten when I tried to save it. But THANK YOU, nobody’s given me the chance to explain this and I’ve been dying to do so

(I did have to put this under a Read More because of length 😅. But there's a TLDR at the end for anyone who wants the short version!)

Parson Pantomime is an OC I use for a few random settings. His core concept is that he’s a clown priest. Here’s the playlist for him (still a little under construction, but for the most part whole):

Parson is part of a big, multi-generational entertainer family. It started with his grandfather, who was motivated to take on that career after he received years of blessings from something, something that Grandad and the Parson family continue to worship as a god. Even though Grandad no longer feels directly connected to their Great Being, their former connection is the reason behind Grandad’s continued health and long lifespan.

Parson has grown up in this family, and he’s gone into the same profession and the same devout worshipping. But Parson is also a terribly curious learner, he loves to soak up knowledge. He became obsessed with the mystery of what the Great Being is, so he left home on a quest to discover the truth (and defeat any supernatural evil he comes across along the way, but that wasn’t a goal he originally had when he set out).

He has powers of his own, namely magic and a resistance to pain (more of a resistance to death, really. Semi-immortality). Parson believes, as does the rest of his family, that these are more gifts from their deity. Here’s where things start to seem fishy: Their great being is heavily associated with entertainment, theatre, circus and carnivals, etc. Parson’s magic primarily has imagery of storms, lighthouses, and the ocean.

The character playlist for Parson of course features a lot of songs with themes related to religion, stormy seas, and his search for the truth behind his god. There’s an overarching quest through the playlist for something, a desperation that can’t be satisfied until he knows, and he’ll stubbornly try to bulldoze through any obstacle that gets in his way. Fun little detail number two: A couple of those songs reference that quest being to find “her” or a woman.

The Pantomime Family’s ‘god’ is in fact an entity called The Mirth. It’s not a deity and has no consciousness to speak of, but it’s an embodiment of spreading good-cheer and laughter. Every few decades or centuries it chooses a host to personify it in the physical world. (For any DC Comics fans in the audience, The Mirth is inspired by the character Swamp Thing, who is the host of The Green [plants and nature])

Parson’s grandfather is a former avatar of The Mirth, which granted him immortality and a limited influence over reality (primarily conjuring things out of thin air) for the timespan that he hosted the being. The Mirth moved on naturally and all ties to the family are completely severed, except for any lingering effects of a human touched by pseudo-divinity, i.e. Grandad’s improved health and lifespan, which he then passed onto his children and grandchildren.

Fester Jester is the current Avatar of the Mirth, an undead clown who is virtually indestructible and has near-limitless power over reality as long as she is inside of a circus tent.

Here I have to introduce one of the most important people in Parson’s life who he has never met: Fester Jester.

FJ’s playlist contains several songs by the band Tardigrade Inferno. I love the band, their dark cabaret style has the right vibe for FJ, and I think the lead singer has a voice that would fit her. Parson has “The Tardigrade Song” on his playlist, because the lyrics fit, and because it’s an indirect connection to Tardigrade Inferno and the closely-associated Fester Jester. Fester Jester also has a song on her playlist by the same artist as The Tardigrade Song, linking her back to Parson.

The “she” personification (which I mentioned earlier) of what Parson is searching for is just as much Fester Jester as any ancient scroll or tapestry: a “she” (more specifically she/they) who literally personifies Parson’s Great Being. They have never met, but they feel a pull towards each other, something forging a deep connection between them, which at the same time repels them apart like two magnets with identical poles.

So spoiler alert for Parson’s overall story arc: There is no higher power giving him his magic. It’s not The Mirth, it’s not another deity who saw a hollow worshipper and decided to take advantage of the opportunity. As I said before, one of the gifts that the avatars receive is a limited influence over reality, being able to make changes based on the host’s will. Parson has an ember of pseudo-divinity within him, passed down from his grandfather. He is manifesting power into being through sheer, bull-headed willpower that is indistinguishable from known magic. The stormy theming in his power and in his character playlist, containing songs about vacant and abandoned places of worship (which are in fact very early tracks in the playlist) point towards this fact from the beginning.

Parson has NO IDEA that everything he believes isn’t true, or that when he does find the answer to his massive life-long quest, it’ll be unsatisfying and unrewarding. He has a big storm coming, and the man is going to have an existential breakdown when it hits.

TLDR: Parson’s character playlist not only represents who he is as a character, but provides clues towards the truth behind his deity and his quest.

#thank you for asking!#I am SO sorry about the length. Hopefully this is comprehensible #as I said this is the first time I've gotten the opportunity to talk about Parson's full story #Parson Pantomime

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dfroza · 5 months ago

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A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures

for the 25th of july 2024 with a paired chapter from each Testament (the First & the New Covenant) of the Bible

[the letter of Titus, chapter 1 • the book of Numbers, chapter 28]

along with Today’s reading from the ancient books of Proverbs and Psalms with Proverbs 25 and Psalm 25 coinciding with the day of the month, accompanied by Psalm 36 for the 36th day of Astronomical Summer, and Psalm 57 for day 207 of the year (with the consummate book of 150 Psalms in its 2nd revolution this year)

A post by John Parsons:

There is a secret and unsettling temptation to regard God as a sort of “Santa Claus” figure who rewards those who have been “nice” but withholds his blessing from the “naughty”... God helps the “good” but punishes the bad. An implication of this assumption is that God blesses the worthy, so if our prayers and petitions seemingly go unanswered, we tend to blame ourselves for being unworthy or unfaithful... We may then try to bargain with God by promising to change and to turn ourselves into better people. “If you will help me, then I will reciprocate by doing good.” We reason that if we do good to others, then God will do good to us. This idea translates the notion that “God helps those who help themselves.” We trust in the “law of karma” as the means for spiritual cause and effect.

Karma or “merit based” theology fails us, however, whenever bad things happen to good people, such as when a young child dies from an incurable illness. In such tragic cases people tend to look “beneath” appearances and posit hidden factors designed to deny or to appease the pain of the moment. Thus certain forms of Hinduism, for example, ascribe the suffering of innocent people to bad actions done in a previous life, while the “holier-than-thou” types (such as Job’s friends) would persist that hidden sin was ultimately the cause for the suffering...

Yeshua said “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:14), though it is important that we do not lapse into “magical thinking” when we hear these words. God is not some cosmic “genie in a bottle” that we can conjure up (through our religious rituals, our promises, etc.) to meet our needs but is a loving Heavenly Father who cares for our ultimate good.

“If you ask anything” therefore does not stand as an unqualified promise, and indeed, we often do not get what we want because we are not asking in the Name of Yeshua, that is, according to his vision, direction and will. “This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15).

But this becomes a point of testing for us. What if we have prayed earnestly for God to do something to help but the help does not come to pass? What if we have prayed with utmost urgency for the healing of a loved one but they die? What if we suffer from painful illness, or get divorced, or lose our jobs -- even though we have prayed to God for the very opposite? This is a serious matter that needs to be considered, for if we assume that God only gives to the worthy and disregards the faithless, then we will be tempted to despair and question whether we “really” believe, after all... Questioning whether you “really” believe leads to nagging questions about whether you “really, really” believe, ad infinitum (see James 1:3-8).

The will of God is to exercise faith in Yeshua as the healer of your life: “This is the work of God (τὸ ἔργον τοῦ θεοῦ), that you believe in the one whom he has sent" (John 6:29). The work of God is the miracle of faith, and true faith surrenders everything in trust to God’s will. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9-10). This is the beginning of the “Disciples’ prayer.”

“Faith is the foundation (i.e., ὑπόστασις: the "substance," reality, underlying essence, etc.) of hope, the conviction of the unseen... “By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, and was not found, because God had taken him; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would draw near must believe that he exists and rewards (μισθαποδότης) those who seek him” (Heb. 11:1,5-6). At first glance these verses may seem to support a theology of karma, but it is important to see that the conditions to be known by God are given by God himself in the impartation of the gift of faith (Eph. 2:8-10; Rom. 4:16; John 4:10; Exod. 33:19). The reward here is that of truly knowing God - being “translated” from the realm of death and despair to “walking with God” in realm of the Spirit, as the life of Enoch demonstrated.

Note that God is pleased when we seek his Presence, that is, when we look past the ephemera and ambiguity of the phenomenal world for the truth about spiritual reality (2 Cor. 4:18). For our part, faith resolves to confession (ὁμολογέω), that is, aligning our perspective and focus to agree with the revelation and message of divine truth and verbally declaring our conviction. We must say that we believe, and affirm it with all our heart (see Rom. 10:9). As it says, "I will make Your faithfulness known with my mouth" (Psalm 89:1). Even in times of testing, and particularly at such times, we trust God is in control of all that happens to us, both the good and the bad. “The trial of your faith is more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire” (1 Pet. 1:7). As Job confessed: יְהוָה נָתַן וַיהוָה לָקָח יְהִי שֵׁם יְהוָה מְבֹרָךְ - "the LORD has given and the LORD has taken away: may the Name of the LORD be blessed (Job 1:21).

Whenever we encounter tribulation, or experience some crisis of faith, let us reaffirm aloud: "I believe in God’s promise..." Physically expressing our faith is itself an act of faith, and this encourages us to trust in God’s healing reward even in the present struggle or darkness. Amen. “Seek the LORD and His strength; ask for His Presence at all times” (Psalm 105:4).

[ Hebrew for Christians ]

========

Psalm 105:4 reading:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Blessing_Cards/psalm105-4-jjp.mp3

Hebrew page:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Blessing_Cards/psalm105-4-lesson.pdf

7.24.24 • Facebook

from Today’s email by Israel365

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

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insidethestardc · 6 months ago

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2 surprise Cowboys who could get extended before the big 3 We are a shade over three weeks away from the start of Dallas Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, California on July 25th and Cowboys Nation is giddy with anticipation. There isn't much to write abou... #DallasCowboys

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cocacola-cowboy · 2 years ago

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Jack Parsons is low key my favorite mad scientist, dude was into everything from creating JPL to conjuring a hot wife named Marjorie and embedding himself in the occult

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64bitgamer · 2 years ago

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lailoken · 4 years ago

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“The Conjuring Parsons & Cunning Clergy:

Just as the perceived boundaries between witches’ and 'cunning-folk' are decidedly blurred in West Country tradition, so too, surprisingly perhaps for some, were t distinctions between folk-magicians and Christian clergy.

Churches themselves, as homes to rituals of divine communion, union, blessing, exorcism and the passage of the dead, are places of useful power and magic. Its water, made holy by its blessing within church rites, was highly sought after for use within acts of popular magic; most often for the purposes of protection and curative magic. Church holy water was so routinely taken for such unauthorised magical uses, that fonts were fitted with lockable covers from the Middle Ages. The Eucharist and the chrism, also being blessed and holy substances, were similarly of use to magical practitioners, and so these, like the holy water, were also ordered to be kept under lock and key.

The Christian saints had in many ways taken on roles akin to elder gods; being often heavily associated with the land and magical loci such as holy wells. The lives of the saints abound with tales of miraculous acts bonded to certain loci, and they were widely petitioned for aid in various acts of magic and divinatory practices. Saintly relics became most sought after as potent magical objects, and even their statues might be scraped to produce powders for use in magical curatives.

It makes sense then that the men who mediated the power of God and the saints, and who administered the rites of the Church would be seen by some to be magicians themselves. Indeed, there were many clergymen who actively practiced in ways that made them virtually indistinguishable from 'cunning men', and in Devon these were known as the conjuring parsons.

Some practiced as astrologers; a service which, despite the disapproval the Church held for such things, they saw as an extension of their normal duty towards their parishioners. One Devonian example of an 'astrologising parson' was the north Devon clergyman known as Parson Joc. His personal notebook, preserved after his death, revealed details of the horary calculations he would draw up for the people of his parish. Those clergymen who possessed a more overt reputation for magic often held extensive libraries of books which were rumoured to contain numerous occult volumes and grimoires. These books of power, and the trouble that could arise if they were pried into by the 'uninitiated', feature in a number of popular stories surrounding the conjuring parsons.

One such story is associated with the Reverend William Cunningham, a 19th century incumbent of Bratton. The story tells that while he was absent from his home, his maid, out of curiosity, summoned the bravery to peruse one of the reverend's occult tomes. Inadvertently it seems she had managed to summon two spirits; for a pair of strange creatures like chickens’ materialised in the kitchen, and she was forced to confess to the reverend what she had done in order that he would then banish them.

The Reverend Franke Parker, known as 'Old Parson Parker' served the parish of Luffincott in the far west of Devon in the 1830s. Like the Reverend William Cunningham, he too possessed a library of magical books, but also possessed, by some mysterious means, the ability to know when someone was prying into his collection. It is said that whilst delivering a sermon, he suddenly stopped and ran from the church back to the rectory much to the surprise of his flock, for he had sensed that his maid was reading one of his occult books. He rushed into his library just in time to stop her before any magical mishap might have occurred.

Some of the magical powers and inclinations attributed to old Parson Parker would appear to paint him more in the hue of a traditional witch rather than that of your average 'cunning man', for he was said to posses the ability to 'shape shift' into animal form. Indeed, the local policeman is said to have discovered the parson sitting on his chair and barking like a dog. Perhaps incriminating, and certainly difficult to explain, is more the situation another visitor to the rectory found him in: laying in his bed surrounded by the bodies of dead toads.

Shortly before his death, Parker is said to have declared that he would return from the world of spirit in the form of an animal, such as that of a dog, a rat or a white rabbit. When he died aged eighty in 1883, so serious was the concern that he would make his promised bestial reappearances, that his body was interred in a grave dug to a depth of seventeen feet as a preventative measure.

Perhaps one of Devon's most famous conjuring parsons is the Reverend Harris, or Parson Harris of Hennock; a small village on the south-eastern flank of Dartmoor with beautiful views over the Teign Valley. Parson Harris was regarded as a 'wizard, and was consulted by the people of his parish for his skills in conjuring, particularly it seems in order to identify thieves and retrieve stolen property.

In one case at least however, it was psychology rather than conjuring that he employed to identify a thief, yet it was his reputation as a conjuror that secured the efficacy of the exercise. A farmer named Tuckett went to see the parson one day; seeking his aid regarding three geese which had been stolen from his farm. The parson reassured the farmer, telling him that the man who had taken his geese shall soon be 'put to open shame’.

On the following Sunday morning, the parson climbed into his pulpit and proclaimed loudly before the seated congregation; ‘I give you all to know that Farmer Tuckett has had three geese stolen. I have consulted my books and drawn my figures, and I have so conjured it that three feathers of thickey geese shall now, my this very instant, stick to the nose of the thief! Of course, the guilty party instinctively raised their hand to their nose and the parson, watching for this very reaction, immediately pointed his finger and boomed out across the church 'there is the man who stole the geese!’

On another occasion, Farmer Loveys called on Parson Harris for help as his fine gander had been stolen from his farm the previous night. The parson set about consulting his occult tomes before drawing a magic circle in which he uttered a strange incantation. He then walked over to his library window and opened it just as the missing gander was flung through to land at his feet, all plucked, trussed, and on the spit ready for roasting.

Another tale, perhaps a different version of the previous one, tells of the parson being consulted about a missing cockerel, which its owner was sure must have been stolen. Parson Harris told the man not to worry, for not only would he conjure the bird to be returned to him, he would cause the thief to reveal himself as well. When the man returned to his home, he was followed by his neighbour who came running through the door carrying the half roasted bird.

A particularly interesting story concerning the Parson hints at a dichotomy between his magical artes and his position as a cleric.

He couldn't help but notice one Saturday that his maid, Polly, was caught in a deep melancholy; sobbing to herself now and then. When Harris asked the girl what was the matter, she explained that she was missing her boyfriend terribly; as he had left for Exeter to enter into service.

Feeling sorry for the girl, and of course not wanting an interminably miserable maid about the house, he promised to conjure the young man back home to her. However, the Sunday rolled by and there was no sign of the return of her lover; leaving the maid completely inconsolable, and much shaken in her faith in her master's powers. She went to bed and sobbed herself to sleep.

As Dawn approached however, she was awoken by someone desperately banging on the door outside; it was her lover John, exhausted and drenched with perspiration. The parson's conjuration had not worked upon him until at nightfall when he removed his coat; for in one of its pockets was his Bible. As soon as he took off his coat, he had been compelled to run all the way from Exeter to the parson's home. The young man's Bible had acted as a protective charm against the parson's 'unholy' spell.”

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Silent as the Trees:

Devonshire Witchcract, Folklore & Magic

by Gemma Gary

#conjuring parsons #cunning clergy #Gemma Gary #silent as the trees #Devonshire magic #Devonshire witchcraft #traditional withcraft #witchcraft #magic #quote

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crimeculturepodcast · 2 years ago

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If you liked watching this, read this (horror/thriller)

The Flight Attendant - Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

Scooby Doo - Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

Silence of the Lambs - None Shall Sleep by Ellie Marney

Beetlejuice - Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

Get Out - The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass

The Blair Witch Project - Our Last Echoes by Kate Alice Marshall

Scream - Harrow Lake by Kate Ellis, My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones, The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky, Final Girls by Riley Sager, The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones or The Devil and Winnie Flynn by David Ostow

Unfriended - You’re So Dead by Ash Parsons

Shaun of The Dead - Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks

Saw - Security by Gina Wohlsdorf

The Conjuring - The Grip of It by Jac Jemc

The Descent - The River at Night by Erica Ferenick, The Ruins by Scott Smith

The Craft - Furies by Katie Lowe

(more to come!)

#crime culture #crime #culture #podcast #true crime #true crime podcast #tcc #pop culture #episode 254 #books #read this #recommendations #horror #thriller #horror movies

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bitter69uk · 2 years ago

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I’ve always yearned to see The Sex Symbol (1974), the thinly veiled made-for-TV biopic of Marilyn Monroe starring kitschy sex kitten Connie Stevens. And a decent-ish print is currently viewable on YouTube! I watched it last night and it’s every bit as gloriously tasteless, exploitative, tacky and deranged as I could have dreamed!

It’s definitely been done “on the cheap”. Minimal effort is taken to conjure the forties or the fifties. Stevens (as doomed sex goddess “Kelly Williams”) looks ultra-early seventies Las Vegas throughout (shaggy coiffure, blue eye shadow, frosted pink lipstick). Her costumes (and wigs and hairpieces) are very Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue.

Reliably hammy Shelley Winters co-stars as cruel gossip columnist Agatha Murphy (Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons rolled into one), who torments Kelly. And weirdly, exploitation / horror director William Castle crops up in an acting role!

We’re presumably meant to find Kelly a tragic figure, but she’s insufferable! On the final night of her life, Kelly rages, “I’m a star!”, swills booze, pops fistfuls of pills, goes on crying jags and snaps at her Spanish-speaking maids. Much of the time she’s in bed shrieking into a pink telephone, like the worst-possible version of Jean Cocteau’s La Voix Humaine.

Stevens’ shrill, one-note “I’m-a-victim” performance never evokes Marilyn (there’s a sequence where Kelly goes on a cross country publicity tour and beguiles reporters with her ditzy blonde persona that feels like a chapter from the Jayne Mansfield story rather than Monroe’s). She does, though, recall Pia Zadora, Joey Heatherton, Catherine O’Hara parodying Joey Heatherton as Lola Heatherton – and Connie Stevens herself! Surprisingly, there’s a totally gratuitous tits-and-ass nude scene towards the end. (The Sex Symbol received a European cinematic release padded with bonus material, which is the version on YouTube. My research finds the original ABC version was one hour and 14-minutes. This one is one hour and 47-minutes). I can’t wait to watch it again!

Watch it here.

#connie stevens #marilyn monroe #biopic #marilyn monroe biopic #the sex symbol #sex kitten #sex kitten gone berserk #bad movies we love #bad movies for bad people #lobotomy room #shock value #bad taste #vintage sleaze #shelley winters

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jenniferstolzer · 2 years ago

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Frosty's Winter Wonderland

So I'm watching Frosty's Winter Wonderland, which is the Rankin Bass special in which Frosty takes a wife. Watching this as an adult raises so many questions. First off, I just want to mention that Crystal was built to Frosty's specifications from height to clothes to even her name. She is a tailored spouse for this snowman, but he realizes pretty quickly that she can look exactly as he wants but isn't a good life partner until she's got a mind of her own. And also she came out more clever than he is. Jury's still out on whether or not she can count.

But what I really wanted to make a note of is the simultaneous restraint and absolute flippancy with which these children wield their new lifegiving powers. You kids have cracked the secret to bringing snow to life (and it's some kind of inherited magic hat/love combination) and instead of making just an army of snow people to play with, they share their two snow people friends even though Frosty obviously has a favorite couple of kids that he spends the most time with. No one gets jealous that he's always giving rides to the girl with the hat?

But then when it's time to get married, the Parson is like "I can't marry snow people, we need to CONJURE A COMPLETELY NEW LIFEFORM to do this service for you." So they build a Snow Parson and bring him to life with the honest to god Bible (begs the question if anyone dropped a new testament in the snow and suddenly been pursued by sentient snow drifts) and once his service is complete, he's just gone. Just... vanished.

Did... did they disassemble him when they were done? Did the Parson rip his King James out of the Snow Parson's hand and with it pull the spark of life from his snow body? Did the Snow Parson beg? Was he aware that he was being killed?

Justice for the Snow Parson.

#jen blogs life #frosty the snowman

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abysscontemporary · 3 years ago

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The Dais Of Our Knives

Years ago At Sotheby’s

I ran into a journalist I knew from the art scene.

They told me they’d been away For six months Traveling.

We continued chatting.

As if they’d never been away.

In March 2020, I stopped by Team Gallery to see its Petra Cortright and Will Sheldon solo exhibitions. The adventure was extraordinary.

Cortright is typically known for her paintings, which initially look handmade but then reveal themselves to have been composed electronically and fabricated on a substrate. The synergy between the two is often pleasantly confounding, and the dichotomy between the tactility and the hands-off technique is perplexingly rewarding.

At Team, Cortright fabricated each layer of a digital composition that she had printed on a one-fold tabloid. The layers were suspended from a procession of dowels, installed just below the ceiling. In doing so, she physicalized the display of layers that one might see on the computer screen of a 2D designer if such a designer were to isolate each layer on, respectively, a sequence of dedicated pages.

(Think of how Damian Ortega’s mobile of the principal components of an automobile was presented at the 2003 Venice Biennale. Here, however, Cortright presents large-scale facsimiles of every single component of her two-dimensional work.)

Some layers were pure abstractions, and other depicted landscapes. The irregularity of the shapes brought them into such sharp relief that they were rendered into still life objects. Again, in an inventive way, Cortright found a way to bewilder and delight a gallery audience.

Will Sheldon’s paintings depicted scenes of either fantasies or highly embellished realities. The artist’s gift for conflating the two prompted me to alternately take in the entire exhibition all at once and lean forward to investigate and marvel at each work’s details.

It would be simple to categorize Sheldon’s paintings as being purely Gothic because so much about them is about observations of the present and visualizations of life in the future. In the same way that one might recount about how during the course of a day they’d had a certain dream, promenaded through several neighborhoods within a town or a city, and contemplated a spectacular and speculative environment, Sheldon brings such narrative-like non-narratives to each of his canvases. Some of the spider webs, if looked upon closely, are sparkling. The scenes of the city (that arise behind the threshold of the dark forest that the viewer seems to be immersed within) exist in states of innocence – the kinds that one is unlikely to be cynical about.

As a painter, Sheldon has a remarkable touch. His craft skills can be admired, and what they deliver are sublime, modern-day, transgressive, pictorial enchantments.

Also in March 2020, I visited Foxy Production to see its solo exhibition of paintings by Srijon Chowdhury. Uncannily, many of this artist’s works feature an extraordinary surprise - a supernatural glow that emanates from the canvas as if it were both natural and fantastic (i.e., a specimen of fantasy). Chowdhury’s works appear to be simply about flowers, figures in nature, and intimate family scenes. However, through his subjects, his works are pulsating vessels – vehicles for vital forces. In this, he shares one of two things in common with Mark Rothko; the other is that Chowdhury is based in Portland, Oregon, the city where Rothko lived after emigrating from Russia.

Chowdhury’s grand tableau, “Pale Rider,” is a commanding work that was presented on the feature wall of the gallery. Measuring 7 feet high by 16 feet across, this painting has the power of a major work of medieval stained glass. “Pale Rider” depicts a nude equestrienne, riding a galloping horse through a free-form landscape of colorful flowers behind the plane of a fence of green ironwork, formed by words and geometric, abstract shapes. Here, the lady’s the one with the long mane. As a guiding force upon this equine creation-in-motion, she is riding in a streamlined, recumbent manner and holding a scythe in her left hand, beyond the plane of the horse. “Pale Rider” is other-worldly. The artist’s attention to detail makes it worthwhile to look at the painting up-close. Threads flow through and around the fence, and the lushness of the greenery in the background conjures up the most exalted of spring and summer days.

In August 2020, I returned to Foxy Production to see “Sex and love with a psychologist,” its solo exhibition of paintings by Sojourner Truth Parsons. It was like a blast from the early 1980’s, as seen through a lens of present-day thinking. Modern and graphic – as in what it is that a graphic artist produces – Parsons’ paintings depict portraits in high relief of studio interiors, and stylized cityscapes. They evoke the downtown Manhattan scene that had been brought to life by “The SoHo Weekly News” and the pre-Conde Nast “Details” Magazine. They don’t directly reference the decade, but the feeling is there. What makes them so engaging is how Parsons appears to have assumed that what was once transgressive in that half-decade is now conceptually and practically settled culture. The result is a very present symphony of beautiful technique and lively but simple colors: powder pink, black, and sky or powder blue.

Parsons’ approach to depicting studies and finished works, as installed on the walls of art studios, is fascinating. The representations of strips of artist’s tape and the works they support upon the walls where they’re displayed are endearing. The shapes are subtly but distinctively choreographed, and the process of decoding what these forms are about is very rewarding. The presence of the unseen individuals who live, work, and/or play in these environments is palpable. A viewer is never alone while engaging with Parsons’ work. Parsons’ works are rich in spirit and modernistically atmospheric.

In November 2020, I visited Hesse Flatow to see “Sincerely,” Aglaé Bassens’ solo exhibition of paintings. As a follow-up to her 2018 solo exhibition, “You Can See Better From Here,” at Crush Curatorial, it was a pleasure to see this artist move upwards and laterally, as her vision and technique has ascended, and her range of exploration of subject matter and technique has expanded in unexpected and intriguing dimensions.

What Bassens captures are moments: a burning cigarette butt, on a black surface in an ostensibly nocturnal interior; a car passenger’s view of an iced-over windshield and a dashboard on a winter day; a chaise longue and a matching chair (designed for poolside lounging), stretched out on grassy meadow, bordered by a forest, on an overcast summer afternoon. Each of her works is clearly a representation, and each is unmistakenly a painting.

Without knowing the title of the burning cigarette painting, one could marvel at its details for at least an hour. The wrinkled cigarette paper, the slightly crushed filter, the white-hot butt end, and the casually rising smoke are spectacles in themselves. The black surface upon which the cigarette rests is implicitly a table – a plinth upon which this common object is, for an instance, ennobled; it could never be anything as profane as a floor.

To see the car interior painting and the chaises longues tableau is to sense the seasons the subjects inhabit and to witness how with an economy of expression and the power of suggestion Bassens’ paint strokes bring these scenes to life and invigorate a viewer’s awareness of her actions and the works’ properties.

The body of work exhibited here hangs upon an invisible thread. Bassens’ paintings are portraits of the intangible. To encounter her interpretation of a collapsed, wind-blown beach umbrella and her partial view of a pair of blue garden chairs, outside on a rainy night is to experience the creation and manipulation of her subjects by humankind and the forces of nature that bring them to entropy. To witness Bassens’ mastery of her medium is to recognize the difference that paintings make as meaningful presences themselves.

In February 2021, I made a special trip to Marinaro Gallery to see “A Shift In the House,” a solo exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Lindsay Burke. In 2017, Burke’s dynamic paintings were stand-outs at Hunter College’s second-year, MFA group exhibition, and the provocative, semi-figurative, semi-abstract paintings she’d produced for her 2018 debut at Marinaro were subversively seductive and sophisticated. Burke’s most recent exhibition marked a turning point for the artist and, for art audiences, it represented a major highlight of the season.

Burke’s paintings revolved around the sleight of mind, eye, and hand in the conception, production, and reception of visual and physical creations. Homes, details of fixtures and studio implements, and landscapes are depicted amidst levels of abstractions that alternately draw the viewer towards the recognition of overall patterns and minute and discrete details.

Close examinations reveal brush strokes that resemble the kind that are made as test markings – what an artist daubs on an errant surface before making a commitment onto an actual work-in-progress. However, the marks that Burke makes are decisive. They are closely rendered, and they are what altogether becomes each overall work, a marvel that is astonishingly self-referential. They can remind a viewer of many things, but they are unique and exceptional unto themselves.

To compare Burke’s paintings to those of the modern pointillists would be reasonable but off-target. More aptly, one might compare the paintings from “A Shift In the House” to those of Jasper Johns; taken individually and altogether, they can enchant and impress in their entirety, and from up-close, they can truly engage the eye and the mind.

In February 2021, I visited Microscope Gallery and saw “Transmutations,” a remarkable exhibition of works of sculpture by Yasue Maetake. In its expansive location in Bushwick, Microscope succeeded in creating a grand tour of phenomena of great intrigue – highly unified works, composed of materials that existed on the surface of the mind (i.e., the recognizable) and those that existed in the deepest and most faraway galaxies of the imagination – the poetic and the unknowable.

They conjured up memories of photographs of expressionistic figurative works, produced in the mid- to late-1950’s – manifestations – as the writer of a Museum of Modern Art catalogue noted – of post-war anguish. Maetake’s works, though, are elegant and poised. Individually and collectively, they are almost baroque. More certainly, they are dynamic.

Upon learning that portions of many of the works are composed of camel’s bones, I thought of Nancy Graves’ large representations of camels in motion, and the contemporary character of Maetake’s oeuvre clicked, establishing itself into place with the great shift that occurred in art in 1970 and propelled wave after wave of innovative concepts and practices in each intervening decade. This body of work resides in the classical – owing to its profoundly pre-visualized and masterfully realized orderly character – and within the exuberantly enchanted space of the kinds of sculpture that could be made only today.

The harmony and the dissonance of each of Maetake’s works exist like movements in a symphony. Their constituent elements are too fine to be called “components,” and they often draw in the viewer without ever really calling attention to themselves. Her works are unique and exceptional, and they appear to be exotic, yet relatable and familiar. To encounter Maetake’s work in this half-kunst-kabinett and half-lair was an extraordinary and memorable experience.

In March 2021, I visited Kravets/Wehby Gallery to see Allison Zuckerman’s solo exhibition, “Gone Wild.” Consisting of wall-mounted tableaux and free-standing works of sculpture, a high-spirited galaxy of new and captivating creations was on view in the same space where Zuckerman had made her sensational debut only four years beforehand. In this new chapter of her ever-advancing journey, Zuckerman has pivoted from a variety of points and moved towards a greater sense of attention towards form and material.

The subject matter is still certainly there. Her super-metamorphosed, female figures of the fine arts reign on each planet of a painting, and they appear to be syntactically oriented further out on the ends of the branches of the greater dimensions where she’s been venturing. One of the most interesting exploratory movements observed here was the way Zuckerman intertwined “actual” painting with “virtual” painting in creating impressions that exceed each individually, and, in doing so, she enters the realm of orchestrating spectacle. Stated in a more oblique way, Zuckerman is sparking the imagination, as directors do in cinema and expanded, live theater.

Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Pierre Melville, for example, were adept at integrating visual sleights of hand into their films. Although they deliberately showed the seams of montages in certain key scenes in their movies, they inexplicably created impressions that were undeniably effective even though they were more plausible than they should have been. In Hitchcock’s “Marnie,” the scene in which Marnie appears to be in danger while riding atop her frightened, runaway horse, the tension is oddly palpable; the mechanics of the editing of the images are unexpectedly visible, but Hitchcock succeeds in generating the suspense that’s necessary for heightening the viewer’s engagement in the story and carrying the viewer forward through the journey of the balance of the film. In Melville’s “Le Samouraï,” a nightclub owner is confronted in his office by hitman Jef Costello and is then seen pulling out his handgun first; however, in the successive montage, it is Costello who gets off the fatal shot that kills his intended target. The sequence is startling, and it jars the logic of the viewer; nevertheless, the viewer comes to not only accept the results but embrace them, as Melville chose to confound the viewer by not making the sights and sounds of the showdown conspicuous or obvious. The shock of Costello’s success and the miracle of his survival sharply impress the audience despite the visual and auditory discrepancies to which they have been presented with great suddenness.

In Cyril Teste’s stage adaptation of John Cassavetes’s film, “Opening Night,” presented at the French Institute / Alliance Française’s Florence Gould Hall in 2019, live acting is happening at the same time on the stage as video projections, many of which are sourced by the livestreaming video camera that is operated by a cameraperson who can be plainly seen by the audience but not acknowledged at all by the play’s characters. The left wing of the theater-within-the-theater of the play-within-the play is only partially visible to the audience, but the scenes there are entirely seen and heard through the technology that’s at-hand. Likewise, scenes taking place entirely behind the stage set are interpretively presented for the audience; the action and dialogue there are heard, as they may be customarily received in certain film scenes, such as those that are spasmodically illuminated by flashlights in pitch black conditions (e.g., “Le Beau Serge,” “The Blair Witch Project”). Alternately, scenes are also taking place at the center of the stage; they depict the actors playing characters in the play-within-the play and themselves, living out the challenges of their own lives as real people. The shifts from one mode to the next allow for the audience to interpret what’s happening and where. Despite it all, the performances of the actors – notably Isabelle Adjani, as Myrtle Gordon, and Frédéric Pierrot, as Maurice – brilliantly carry the audience through the play’s emotional roller coaster ride with both traditional, live stagecraft (e.g., classical vocal delivery, effective physical presence) and the enhancements that Teste’s filmic interventions convey.

In reconciling the many techniques that Zuckerman brings to a viewer, the evidence of the means and materials in the production of her works may be readily gathered and assessed, but, inexplicably, they deliver a variety of unexpected and often wondrous sensations. Each work delivers at one point or another in the viewing process a big payoff or a fireworks-show sequence of bursts of discoveries and unforeseen emotional responses.

This goes beyond the kind of examination that one might have while viewing the paintings of Giorgio Morandi or Diego Velázquez or the photographs of August Sander, as up-close and far-off perspectives of their works concern materials that are uniform throughout. The experience of regarding what was presented at “Gone Wild” was about transcending the employment of both paints and digital substrates and arriving at the harmonies that have been enchantingly realized by the artist’s generation of a succession of spectacles in at a time and place where one may be anticipating something reasonable.

In late July 2021, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see “Alice Neel: People Come First.” After viewing all of the works in the show, I circled back to its “beginning,” and, from the center of each gallery space, I saw patterns of the abstract backgrounds of Neel’s portrait works, more or less lining the room. It was something that one can only sense spatially within an actual exhibition space.

I’ve often spoken about how a painting exhibition is more than a collection of images, rendered on canvas, framed or unframed. It’s the deployment of the works within a physical space that an exhibitor is presenting to an audience – and, by “presenting,” I mean gifting, treating, and delivering something special.

I’d been away from the Met for two years.

In seeing this Neel retrospective, it was as if I’d never been away at all.

Team Gallery “Petra Cortwrigth: borderline auroroa borealist” 5 March - 2 May 2020 “Will Sheldon: Trouble After Dark” 5 March - 6 June 2021

Foxy Production “Srijon Chowdhury” 5 March - 31 May 2020 “Sojourner Truth Parsons: Sex and Love With a Psychologist” 9 July - 22 August 2020

Hesse Flatow “Aglaé Bassens: Sincerely,” 22 October - 21 November 2020

Marinaro Gallery “Lindsay Burke: A Shift In the House” 28 January - 28 February 2021

Microscope Gallery “Yasue Maetake: Transmutations” 29 January - 19 March 2021

Kravets | Wehby Gallery “Allison Zuckerman: Gone Wild” 27 February - 2 April 2021

The Metropolitan Museum of Art “Alice Neel: People Come First” 22 March - 1 August 2021

Barry N. Neuman

New York August 2021

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