#geographically where was the garden of eden

[noovorous]

Is there a work of art more thoroughly decadent than a beautifully made greenhouse? I do not mean those low, simple constructions spanning many acres, meant for mass production of vegetables and flowers or tiny tunnels for producing those for one household. I talk about palm houses, about Eden Project in Cornwall, about Climatron in Missouri Botanical Garden, about Royal Greenhouses of Laeken. Cathedrals of steel, aluminum, glass and transparent plastic.

Duke des Esseintes spends a chapter of À rebours admiring his collection of exotic plants, fresh and bizzare when compared to what was common in his time and place. Further, he admires the work of gardeners who shaped those plants, well aware that their bizzare shapes, colours and textures are work of men who were daring enough to shape what was given to them from nature.

Isn't a fair orangerie, a splendid palmhouse an exagerration of this line of thinking? Isn't it what cathedral is to a wayside shrine? Plants placed where nature did not intend them to be, kept in a climate controlled by human artistry, sealed within a palace of transparent panes bound by filigree of metal. That temple to Apollo and Pomona, that palace of man shaped materials housing man shaped fruits and flowers. Trees growing near each other in defiance of geographic borders, species unchanged for million of years growing next to cultivars that would not exist without thousands of years of human gardeners shaping them. A piece of rainforest, desert and mediterranean orchard all next to each other, separated by a layer of glass from the bitter snow outside.

The Interior of the Palm House on the Pfaueninsel Near Potsdam by Carl Blechen

[zerogate]

As early as 50 C.E., the theologian Philo cautioned against a literal interpretation of the Garden of Eden, writing, “To think that it here meant that God planted vines, or olive trees, or apple trees, or pomegranates, and any trees of such kinds, is mere incurable folly.”

The fourth-century Christian thinker St. Ephraem, in his Hymns on Paradise, similarly cautioned that, “It is with the eye of the mind that I saw paradise...” But theologians who argued for a symbolic reading of “the divine garden” remained a distinct minority. St. Augustine registered the conflicting points of view. “Some interpret [Paradise] in an exclusively corporeal sense,” he wrote. Others give it “an exclusively spiritual meaning,” and still others take it in both senses, “sometimes corporeally and at other times spiritually...” St. Augustine personally favored the literal reading, and shaped the convictions of later generations of Christian theologians who maintained that the earthly paradise had not disappeared, but had only become inaccessible as a result of mankind’s fall from grace.

Centuries later, in 1617, John Salkeld synthesized prevailing views on the reality of the Garden of Eden in his work A Treatise on Paradise and the Principle Contents Thereof. Relying on theological authorities such as St. Augustine, Salkeld set out to prove that the earthly paradise was “a real and corporeal place” and not merely metaphysical. Catholic dogma at the time supported the same literalist point of view, insisting that descriptions of Paradise were “not allegory but history.”John Calvin, the sixteenth-century Protestant reformer, similarly declared that the Garden of Eden was “situated on the Earth, not as some dream in the air.”

In the fifth century St. Augustine admitted that, “It is probable that man has no idea where Paradise was.” Medieval geographers located the lost garden everywhere from the North Pole to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, although the prevailing Church view held that the earthly paradise lay “in the east,” in the regions of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers or in the farthest reaches of Asia, at a great height so as to have been unaffected by the waters of the flood. Like Yangsang, the terrestrial paradise was described as a place of eternal spring, neither hot nor cold and filled with fruit-bearing trees and healing waters. Early in the eighth century, St. John Damascene wrote that Eden “was temperate in climate and bright with the softest and purest of air. It was luxurient with ever-blooming plants, filled with fragrances, flooded with light, and surpassing all conception of sensible fairness and beauty.”

[...]

The belief in a geographical paradise persisted widely until the end of the seventeenth century when the Church conveniently declared that the Garden had been erased from the surface of the planet by the Great Flood. The question then remained not where Paradise lay, but what it meant. Although the expulsion from Paradise is the core western myth, the notion of the fall was a later accretion.

At the end of the second century, Christian writings by St. Theophilas of Antioch and St. Irenaeus reveal an understanding of the story of Genesis prior to the invention of original sin. According to these erudite bishops, Eden was “a means of advancement” for “maturing and becoming perfect.” The eating of the fruit of knowledge did not condemn humankind to suffering, but the act of disobedience ultimately furthered its maturity and capacity to perfect itself. Eden was thus not so much a perfect place, but a place where being could be perfected. Mankind’s departure from the enclosing walls of Paradise and its bucolic luxuries led the first couple to become all that they could be. As the philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote in 1785, it was a necessary transition from an unreflective, animal state to one of full humanity. Freedom, he suggested, begins when the nostalgia for a perfect place ends and one embraces the present moment. 

Nonetheless, Paradise persisted as a perennial dream and an incentive to geographical discovery. The religious dissidents who abandoned a repressive Europe for North America discovered what seemed a blessed land, where history could begin anew. They described New England as being “like the Garden of Eden, a new Eden.” In a more literal sense, when Columbus sailed close to the isthmus of the Orinoco in South America, he believed he had discovered one of the four rivers that issue from Eden. As he wrote to Queen Isabella of Spain during his third expedition, “I believe that the earthly paradise lies here.. which no man can enter except by God’s leave.”

The belief in Eden, the widespread conviction of an impending apocalypse, and the desire for gold and fortune led to voyages of discovery in which explorers saw in the lands that opened before them the shape of a lost paradise. Following Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci (1499-1502) surveyed the coast of Surinam and Brazil and wrote that: “If the earthy paradise exists anywhere on earth, I think it must not be very far from this area.”

Yet as D. H. Lawrence recognized, to believe in Paradise was to consign oneself to Purgatory, to be forever seeking something beyond the horizon, beyond life itself. “Why pin ourselves down on a paradisal ideal?” he wrote in 1953. “It is only ourselves we torture... Love is never a fulfillment. Life is never a thing of continuous bliss. There is no paradise. Fight and laugh and feel bitter and feel bliss.”

--  Ian Baker, The Heart of the World 

[baxtersworld]

OPHIR DECODED, PHILIPPINES IMPRINTED IN THE SCRIPTURE, May 15, 2026

Ophir is a famous Biblical land because of its wealth in terms of natural resources particularly of gold.

Over centuries, there have been many theories pertaining to the exact geographical location of Ophir, the source of gold overlaid in King Solomon's temple.

Biblically, King Solomon had a navy that constantly brought gold from the land of Ophir once every 3 years for the construction of the temple.

1 KINGS 9:27, 28

(27) And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen… with the servants of Solomon.

(28) And they came to OPHIR, and fetched from thence GOLD… and brought it to king Solomon.

1 KINGS 10:14, 11, 22

(14) …of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold,

(11) And the navy also of Hiram, that brought GOLD from OPHIR…

(22) …once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing GOLD, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.

The scripture describes the garden of Eden as being in the land of Havilah, where there is an abundance of gold.

GENESIS 2:8, 10-11

(8) And the LORD God planted a garden EASTWARD in EDEN…

(10) And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted…

(11) The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of HAVILAH, where there is GOLD;

Havilah is the brother of Ophir, and their dwelling is located at Sephar, a mount in the east.

GENESIS 10:29, 30

(29) And OPHIR, and HAVILAH, and Jobab: all these were the sons of Joktan.

(30) And their DWELLING was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar a mount of the EAST.

The word “Ophir” in Strong’s Hebrew #211 means “the name of a son of Joktan, and of a gold region in the east.”

Christ has been portrayed as a ravenous bird that is coming from the east, which also refers to God's people, or His church (Colossians 1:18).

ISAIAH 41:2, 4

(2) Who raised up the RIGHTEOUS MAN from the EAST…

(4) …I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.

ISAIAH 46:10, 11

(10) DECLARING the END from the BEGINNING, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done…

(11) Calling a ravenous bird from the EAST, the man that executeth my counsel from a FAR COUNTRY…

Philippines is one of the far-eastern countries of Asia as being recorded in the World Atlas.

In Tomo III (1519–1522), pages 112–138, of the book Colección general de documentos relativos a las Islas Filipinas existentes en el Archivo de Indias de Sevilla, found in the General Archive of the Indies in Spain, Document No. 98 describes how to locate the land of OPHIR.

The navigational guide starts from the Cape of Good Hope in Africa to India, Burma, Sumatra, the Maluku Islands, Borneo, Sulu, China, then finally OPHIR, which is the Philippines.

As an archipelago, Philippines is comprised of around 7,000 islands.

The triangular number of 7 is 28.

2 + 8 = 10

Taking the cube of numbers 1-10 as per digit will give a sum of 2026, the exact year of Christ’s return.

Historically, on March 16, 1521, the Philippines was rediscovered by a Portuguese navigator who led a Spanish expedition to the East Indies.

MARCH (3rd month) 16, 1521

3 x 16 x 15 x 3 = 2160

3 + 1 + 6 + 1 + 5 + 2 + 1 = 19 (1 + 9 = 10)

216(0) + 10 = 2260 (flipped figure of 2026)

Formerly, the country code for the Philippines was “PHI,” which was later changed to “PHL” in 1976.

Thus, the word “OPHIR” is a prophetic acronym for the “REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES.”

#fypシ #fbreelsfypシ゚ #fbviral #reelsviralシ #reelsfbシ #viralshorts #EternalLife #endtimes #Rapture #ophir #jubilee #Jerusalem #apostolic #apocalypse #Armageddon #revelation #bible #prophecy ##predictions #SignsOfTheTimes #Yeshua #savedbygrace #doomsday

[livevelki]

ICC Cricket World Cup 2023

Cricket, often referred to as a religion in many parts of the world, has a unique ability to unite people across borders, cultures, and backgrounds. Every four years, this unity takes center stage as nations from around the globe come together to compete for cricketing supremacy in the ICC Cricket World Cup. In 2023, the cricketing world will once again be captivated by this grand spectacle, as the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 promises to be a tournament like no other.

The Host Nation

India, the powerhouse of world cricket, will play host to the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup. The nation's fervor for the sport is unrivaled, and its stadiums are known to reverberate with the passion and enthusiasm of millions of fans. From the iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata to the state-of-the-art facilities like the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, the tournament will be played in some of the most historic and modern cricketing venues.

Format

The 2023 Cricket World Cup will feature a total of 10 teams, with the top cricketing nations competing for the prestigious title. The tournament will follow the round-robin format, where each team will play against every other team in a league stage. This format ensures that every match is crucial, as it contributes to a team's position in the points table. The top four teams from the league stage will advance to the semi-finals, followed by the ultimate showdown in the final.

Star-Studded Lineups

One of the most anticipated aspects of any Cricket World Cup is witnessing the world's best cricketers showcasing their talent on the grand stage. The 2023 edition will be no different, with a galaxy of cricketing stars expected to participate. Players like Virat Kohli, Joe Root, Kane Williamson, Babar Azam, Steve Smith, and many more will be vying for glory. It's a platform for these players to etch their names in cricketing history and become the heroes of their respective nations.

Exciting Matchups

The World Cup always promises some thrilling encounters and rivalries that have developed over the years. Matches like India vs. Pakistan, England vs. Australia, and South Africa vs. New Zealand are not just cricket games; they are cultural events. The cricketing world eagerly awaits these contests, as they often deliver nail-biting finishes and unforgettable moments.

Emerging Talents

While the established stars will grab the headlines, every World Cup is also an opportunity for emerging talents to shine. Young cricketers from around the world will use this stage to announce their arrival on the international scene. The World Cup has a history of launching careers and turning relatively unknown players into global sensations. Fans will be eager to see who the breakout stars of the 2023 World Cup will be.

Global Audience

The ICC Cricket World Cup transcends geographical boundaries, attracting a global audience of billions. Whether you are in a bustling cricket stadium in Mumbai or watching from a quiet café in London, the excitement is palpable. The tournament brings people together, fostering camaraderie and healthy competition among fans of different nations.

Conclusion

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 promises to be a memorable event, celebrating the spirit of cricket on a grand scale. It will showcase the talent, dedication, and passion of cricketers from diverse backgrounds and nations. As the cricketing world eagerly awaits the tournament, one thing is certain: the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup will once again captivate hearts, create heroes, and make history in the world of sports. So, get ready to witness the magic of cricket as it unfolds in India, where dreams will be chased, and legends will be born.

[suzilight]

James Turner’s Map of Humanity

from The Map Room Archives: James Turner Explains What He Does

Maps organize information. They pinpoint geographic locations relative to each other. The Map of Humanity also organizes information, but instead of doing it geographically, the map organizes the locations on the basis of moral, emotional, and cultural significance.

From the mythical cradle of human thought in the Garden of Eden, to the farthest reaches of human imagination, the map plots out mankind’s achievements, trials, and tribulations throughout history. We have constructed a world made up of our own actions and beliefs, as much as the one formed by the land we live on. The map of humanity is formed by our thought, our feelings, our dreams, and our nightmares.

The continents of this restructuring rest upon the sea of the unconscious, the stormy basis of our thought. The land that emerges from it is broken into three main continents, each related to an aspect of the human mind: superego, ego, and id.

The superego is dominated by our higher aspirations. It is our moral centre, where our sense of compassion, love, and virtue reside. Hope, family, kindness, and beauty dwell here amongst the peaceful fields and tranquil cities.

The ego is dominated by reason, rational thought, and order. It is the land of science, where nature is harnessed by the human mind; and order and reason hold sway over emotion and passion.

The id is the dark continent, dominated by our primitive, animalistic urges. Here hate, greed, avarice, lust, and bigotry run rampant, and war devolves into atrocity.

This is the world of our making, carved out of our actions, built upon the collective achievements of the human race.

It is an attempt to map the last six thousand years of human history and thought upon a theoretical geography to discover a sense of what kind of civilization humanity has attained. And like the geography of human nations, it is in constant flux, changing and growing as long as mankind walks the face of the earth.

It took over a year to research, continues to expand as I add new places, took 5 months to build, has thousands of locations based on history and fiction. Mammoth project, at least for me. I’m trying to get the thing published but publishers are not cooperating. The struggle continues!

Thanks for the link and have a great day!

[dustedmagazine]

Dust, Volume 7, Number 8

Big Thief

Our August collection of short reviews contains more big names than usual with singles from Big Thief and Dry Cleaning, a digital compilation from Thou, live music from Obits and a side project from members of the Bats and the Clean. Never fear, there are obscurities as well, including an improv guitar player even Bill Meyer had hardly heard of, a Norwegian emo artist in love with Texas and a death metal outfit verging into psychedelia. Our writers, this time including Tim Clarke, Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Ian Mathers, Chris Liberato and Jonathan Shaw, like what they like, big or small, hyped or unknown. We hope you’ll like some of it, too.   

Marc Barreca — The Sleeper Awakes (Scissor Tail)

The Sleeper Wakes by Marc Barreca

Odd connections abound here. One might not expect the usually acoustic-oriented Scissor Tail Recordings to make a vinyl reissue of an electronic ambient music cassette from 1986, any more than one would expect its maker to currently earn his crust as a bankruptcy judge. So, let’s just shed those expectations and get to listening. Unlike so many lower profile electronic recordings from the 1980s, which seemed targeted for a space next to the cash register of a new age bookstore, this album offers a profusion of mysteries that compound the closer you listen to them. It’s not at all obvious what sounds Barreca fed into his Akai sampler. Japanese folk music? Church chimes? A log drum jam? Tugboat engines? One hears hints of such sounds, but they’ve been warped and dredged in a thin coat of murk, so that the predominant experience is one of feeling like you’re dreaming, even if your eyes are wide open.

Bill Meyer

Big Thief — “Little Things” / “Sparrow” (4AD)

Little Things/Sparrow by Big Thief

Who knows how much more music Big Thief might have released in the last 18 months if the pandemic hadn’t tripped them up? Given the creative momentum generated by 2019’s UFOF and Two Hands, it’s fair to assume the band have plenty of music waiting in the wings. “Little Things” and “Sparrow” arrive with no sign of a new album on the horizon, so are probably being released to promote Big Thief’s upcoming US and European tour. Both songs clock in at around five minutes and handle musical repetition in different satisfying ways. Reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac’s “Everything,” but hyped up on caffeine, “Little Things” feels like an exciting new direction for the band. It cycles through its whirlpooling, modulated acoustic guitar over and over, the frantic little sequence of chords never changing; the interest comes from the ways in which the rest of the instruments bob and weave in the ever-shifting, psychedelic mix. “Sparrow” is a more traditional Big Thief song, sparse and sad. Its melancholic sway is enlivened by some beautiful wavering vocal harmonies as Adrianne Lenker paints a picture of a Garden of Eden populated by sparrows, owls and eagles, culminating in Adam blaming Eve for humankind’s fall from grace.

Tim Clarke

Simão Costa — Beat Without Byte: (Un)Learning Machine (Cipsela)

Beat With Out Byte by Simão Costa

Piano preparation often makes use of modest resources — bolts and combs, strings or maybe just a raincoat tossed into the instrument’s innards. By contrast, Simão Costa’s set-up looks like took all of the entries in a robotics assembly competition and set them to work agitating a snarl of cables that met the pirated telecommunication requirements for an especially crowded favela. But whether it’s twitching motors or Costa’s own hands doing the work, the sounds that come out of his sound remarkably rich and cohesive. He stirs drifting hums, metallic sonorities, and stomping rhythms into a bracingly immediate sonic onslaught.

Bill Meyer

Cots — Disturbing Body (Boiled)

Disturbing Body by Cots

Disturbing Body is the low-key debut album by Montreal-based musician Steph Yates, who enlisted Sandro Perri to produce. Where the songs are pared back to mostly just vocals and peppy major-seventh chords on nylon-string guitar — such as “Bitter Part of the Fruit” and “Midnight at the Station” — comparisons with bossa-nova classics such as “The Girl From Ipanema” inevitably arise. Where the tempo is slower, the chord voicings are less sun-dappled, and Perri’s arrangements call upon a wider palette of instrumental colors, the songs venture into more interesting terrain, calling to mind a less haunted Broadcast. There’s an eerie sway to the opening title track, backed by rich piano chords and clattering cymbal textures. Fender Rhodes and the light clack of a rhythm track give “Inertia of a Dream” an uneasy momentum. And forlorn trumpet, percussion and piano situate “Last Sip” at closing time in a forgotten jazz club. There’s something evasive yet subtly intoxicating at work here, the album’s ten songs breezing past in half an hour, leaving plenty of unanswered questions in their wake.

Tim Clarke

Dry Cleaning — “Bug Eggs” / “Tony Speaks!” (4AD)

Bug Eggs/Tony Speaks! by Dry Cleaning

A few months on from the release of their excellent debut album, New Long Leg, Dry Cleaning have put out two more songs from the same sessions, which are featured as bonus tracks on the Japanese edition. For a band whose unique appeal is mostly attributed to Florence Shaw’s surreal lyrics and deadpan delivery, it’s heartening to hear further evidence that it’s the complete cocktail of musical ingredients — Shaw plus Tom Dowse’s inventive guitar, Lewis Maynard’s satisfyingly thick bass, and Nick Buxton’s driving drums — that alchemizes into their winning sound. The verse guitar chords of “Bug Eggs” are naggingly similar to New Long Leg’s “More Big Birds,” while the instrumental chorus has a yearning feel akin to album highlight “Her Hippo.” Maynard’s bass tone on “Tony Speaks!” is absolutely filthy, swallowing up most of the mix until Dowse’s guitar bares its teeth in a swarm of squalling wah-wah, while Shaw’s lyrics muse upon the decline of heavy industry, the environment, and crisps.

Tim Clarke

Flight Mode — TX, ’98 (Sound As Language)

TX, '98 by Flight Mode

In 1998, well before he started Little Hands of Asphalt, Sjur Lyseid spent a year in Texas at the height of the emo wave, skateboarding and going to house shows and listening to the Get Up Kids. TX, ’98 is the Norwegian’s tribute to that coming of age experience, the giddy euphorias of mid-teenage freedom filtered through bittersweet subsequent experience. “Sixteen” is the banger, all crunchy, twitchy exhilarating guitars and vulnerable pop tunefulness, its clangor breaking for wistful reminiscence, but “Fossil Fuel” waxes lyrical, its guitar riffs splintering into radiant shards, its lyrics capturing those youthful years when anything seems possible and also, somehow, the later recognition that perhaps it isn’t. It’s an interesting tension between the now-is-everything hedonism of adolescence and the rueful remembering of adulthood, encapsulate in a chorus that goes, “Well wait and see if there’s no more history/and just defend the present tense.”

Jennifer Kelly

Drew Gardner— S-T (Eiderdown Records)

S/T by Drew Gardner

Drew Gardner has been popping up all over lately, on Elkhorn’s snowed in acoustic jam Storm Sessions and the electrified follow-up Sun Cycle and as one of Jeffrey Alexander’s Heavy Lidders. Here, it’s just him and his guitar plus a like-minded rhythm section (that’s Ryan Jewell on drums and Garcia Peoples’ Andy Cush on bass), spinning off dreamy, folk-into-interstellar-journeys like “Calyx” and “Kelp Highway.” Gardner puts some muscle into some of his grooves, running close to Chris Forsyth’s wide-angle electric boogie in “Bird Food.” “The Road to Eastern Garden,” though, is pure limpid transcendence, Buddhist monastery bells jangling as Gardner’s warm, inquiring melodic line intersects with rubbery bends on bass. Give this one a little time to sit, but don’t miss it.

Jennifer Kelly

Hearth — Melt (Clean Feed)

Melt by Hearth

This pan-European quartet’s name suggests domesticity, but the fact that none of its members lives in the country of their birth probably says more about the breadth of their music. The closest geographic point of reference for the sounds that pianist Kaja Draksler, trumpeter Susana Santos Silva, and saxophonists Ada Rave and Mette Rasmussen’s make together would be Chicago’s south side. Their dynamic blend of angular structures, extended instrumental techniques, and obscurely theatrical enactments brings to mind the Art Ensemble of Chicago, even though the sounds on this concert-length recording rarely echo the AEC’s. But it is similarly charged with mystery and collective identity.

Bill Meyer

Klaus Lang / Konus Quartett — Drei Allmenden (Cubus)

Drei Allmenden (translation: Three Commons) treats the act of commission as an opportunity to create common cause. For composer and keyboardist Klaus Lang, this is a chance to push back against a long trend of separation and stratification, with musicians bound to realize the composer’s whim, no matter the cost. Invoking works from the 16th century, he penned something simple, flexible and open to embellishment. Then he pitched in with Konus Quartett, a Swiss saxophone ensemble, to get the job done. The three-part piece, which lasts 43 sublime minutes, amply rewards the submersion of ego. Lang’s slowly morphing harmonium drones and Konus’ long reed tones sound like one instrument, enriched by tendrils of sound that rise up and then sink back into the music’s body.

Bill Meyer

Lynch, Moore, Riley — Secant / Tangent (dx/dy)

Secant | Tangent by Sue Lynch, N.O. Moore, Crystabel Riley

Electric guitarist N.O. Moore is barely known in these parts. I’ve only heard him on one album with Eddie Prévost a couple years back, and the other two musicians, not at all. But on the strength of this robust performance, which was recorded at London’s Icklectick venue, it would be a loss to keep it that way. They combine acoustic sounds with electronics, courtesy of guitar effects and amplification, in an exceedingly natural fashion. Each musician also gets into the other’s business in ways that correspond to the one spicy suggestion made by one cook that elevates another’s dish to the next level. Susan Lynch’s clarinet and flute compliment Moore’s radiophonic/feedback sounds like two flashes of lightning illuminating the same dark cloud, and her vigorously pecking saxophone attack mixes with Crystabel’s cascading beats like idiosyncratically tuned drums. This is one of the first albums to be released on Moore’s dx/dy label; keep your eye out for more.

Bill Meyer

Maco Sica / Hamid Drake Tatsu Aoki & Thymme Jones—Ourania (Feeding Tube)

OURANIA by Mako Sica / Hamid Drake featuring Tatsu Aoki & Thymme Jones

Ourania is named for the muse associated with astronomy in Greek mythology, and the album has an aim for the stars quality. In 2020, Chicago’s Mako Sica lost not only the chance to play concerts, but one third of its number. Core members Brent Fuscaldo (electric bass, voice, harmonica, percussion) and Przemyslaw Krys Drazek (electric trumpet, electric guitar, mandolin) could have just hunkered down with their respective TV sets. Instead, they booked themselves three other musicians who make rising above circumstances a core practice. The duo convened at Electrical Audio with Hamid Drake (drums, percussion, Tatsu Aoki (upright bass, shamisen), and Thymme Jones (piano, organ, balloon, trumpet, voice, recorder, percussion), rolled tape for a couple hours, and walked out with this album. The 85 minute-long recording (edited to about half that length on vinyl, but the LP comes with a download card) exudes a vibe of calm, even beatitude, with twin trumpets and Fuscaldo’s echo-laden, nearly word-free vocals weaving though a sequence of patient grooves like migrational birds on the glide.

Bill Meyer

Mar Caribe — Hymn of the Mar Caribe (Mar Caribe)

Hymn of the Mar Caribe b/w Rondo for Unemployment by mar caribe

Some musicians burn to make something new; others generate attention-getting sounds designed to maximize the potential of their other earning activities; and others, well, they just want you to sway along with their version of the good sounds. Mar Caribe falls into that last category. This Chicago-based instrumental ensemble has spent most of the last decade maintaining a robust performance schedule, and it would seem that recording is pretty much an afterthought; a photo of the test pressing for this 7” was posted in May 2019, but the release show didn’t happen until August 2021. Sure, COVID can be blamed for part of the delay, but one suspects that mostly, these guys just want to play, and they didn’t bother to stuff the singles in the sleeves until they knew when they’d next be leaning over a merch table. The titular suspends anthemic brass and pedal steel over a swinging double bass cadence, and if there was a moment during the night when the band invited the audience to pledge allegiance to their favorite drink, this is what they’d be playing while they asked. Guitars lead on the flip side, whose busy twists and turns belie the implied laziness of the title, “Rondo For Unemployment.”

Bill Meyer

Mint Julep — In a Deep and Dreamless Sleep (Western Vinyl)

In A Deep And Dreamless Sleep by Mint Julep

These songs traverse a hazy, dreamlike space, diffusing dance beats, dream-y vocals and synth pulses into inchoate sensation that nonetheless retains enough rhythmic propulsion to keep your heart rate up. “A Rising Sun” filters jangly guitar and bass through a sizzle of static, letting tambourine thump gently somewhere off camera, as voices soothe and reassure. “Mirage” pounds a four-on-the-floor, but quietly, angelically, like a disco visited through astral projection or maybe a really rave-y iteration of heaven. There’s an ominous undercurrent to “Longshore Drift,” in its growly, sub-bass-y hum, but glittering bits of synth sprinkle over like fairy dust. This is indefinitely gorgeous stuff, ethereal but surprisingly energizing. Dance or drift, take your pick.

Jennifer Kelly

Monocot — Directions We Know (Feeding Tube)

Direction We Know by Monocot

Directions We Know is an LP of free-form freak-outs generated by an instrumental duo that includes one musician who you might expect to perpetuate such a ruckus, and one that you might not. The more likely character is drummer Jayson Gerycz, who may be known for keeping time with the Cloud Nothings, but has shown a willingness to wax colorizing in the company of Anthony Pasquarosa, Jen Powers and Matthew Rolin. The happy surprise is Rosali Middleman, whose singer-songwriter efforts have kept her guitar playing firmly in service of her songs. She doesn’t exactly abandon lyricism in Monocot, but the tunes serve as launching ramps for exuberant lunges into the realm of voltage-saturated sound. On “Ruby Throated,” the first of the record’s four extended jams, Middleman lofts rippling peals over a near-boil of  drums and churning loops. By the time you get to “Multidimensional Solutions,” the last and longest track, her wah-wah-dipped streams of sound have taken on a blackened quality, as though her overheating tubes have burned every note.

Bill Meyer

Obits — Die at the Zoo (Outer Battery)

Die At The Zoo by Obits

Few aughts rock bands held more promise than Obits. The four-piece headed by Hot Snakes’ Rick Froberg and Edsel’s Sohrab Habibion emerged in 2005 with a stinging, stripped-back, blues-touched sound. Froberg’s feral snarl rode a surfy, twitchy amplified onslaught, that was, by 2012 a finely tuned machine. I caught one of the live shows following Moody, Standard and Poor at small club in Northampton the same year this was recorded (so small that I was sitting on a couch next to Froberg, oblivious, for 20 minutes before the show), and what struck me was how well the band played together. The records sound chaotic, and that was certainly there in performance, but the cuts and stops were perfect, the surfy instrumental breaks (“New August”) absolutely in tune. At the time this set was recorded in the Brisbane punk landmark known as the Zoo, the band was near the peak of its considerable powers—and regrettably near the end of its run. Die at the Zoo is reasonably well recorded, rough enough to capture the band’s raucous energy, skilled enough so you can understand the words and hear all the parts. It hits all the highlights, blistering early cuts like “Widow of My Dreams,” and “Pine On,” the blues cover “Milk Cow Blues,” and later, slightly more melodic ragers like “Everything Looks Better in the Morning” and “You Gotta Lose.” The guitar work is particularly sharp throughout, its straight-on chug breaking into fiery blues licks and surfy whammy explosions. It’s a poignant reminder of a time when American rock bands played ferocious shows halfway across the world (or anywhere) as a matter of course and a fitting eulogy for Obits.

Jennifer Kelly

A Place To Bury Strangers — Hologram (Dedstrange)

Hologram EP by A Place To Bury Strangers

A Place To Bury Strangers returns with a new rhythm section and renewed focus on the elements that made its version of revivalism the loudest if not brashest of the New York aughties. Sarah and John Fedowitz on drums and bass join Oliver Ackerman on the five track EP Hologram which is the most concise and vital APTBS release for a while. For all the criticism of copyism thrown at the band since their early days, APTBS has always been as much about Ackerman’s production skills and feel for texture as musical originality and the songs on Hologram sound fantastic at volume. Beneath the sonic onslaught of fuzz and reverb, not a brick is misplaced in this intricately constructed sonic wall. True “I Might Have” is pure Jesus & Mary Chain and “In My Hive” a Wax Trax take on Spector but Hologram is an endorphin rush of guitar driven noise bound to make one forget the world, if only for a while.

Andrew Forell

Praises — EP4 (Hand Drawn Dracula)

Jesse Crowe’s work as Praises has been ongoing since 2014, but has shifted in tone, instrumentation and emphasis since then. While the first two EPs have more of a full, rock band feel, the third one and 2018’s full-length In This Year: Ten of Swords took things in a more electronic, sometimes industrial direction. It was an even better fit for the rest, probing creativity evident in Praises’ work, and 3/4s of the new EP4 are in a pleasingly similar vein. The echoing, ringing denunciations of “We Let Go” and “A World on Fire” are fine examples of Praises’ existing strengths, but the opening “Apples for My Love” is immediately captivating in a very different way. Gauzy and rapturous, it’s a reverie that keeps the satisfying textural detail of the other songs but turns them to different ends. It’s not something that was missing from Crowe’s work before — again, the other tracks here are also very good — but a reminder that what Praises has shown before is not the extent of what they can do.

Ian Mathers

The Sundae Painters — The First SP Single (Leather Jacket)

“This is a supergroup, is it not?” someone asked the Sundae Painters bassist Paul Kean on social media last year, to which he responded, “Some may choose that title. We prefer superglue.” Kaye Woodward, his wife and longtime bandmate in both The Bats and Minisnap, takes the lead vocal on “Thin Air,” one of the pair of A-sides found on their new band’s debut seven-inch. From the outset, Kean’s unmistakable bass playing and Hamish Kilgour’s (The Clean/Mad Scene) drumming lock into a psychedelic march, with the other instruments weaving like kites above, vying for position on the same breeze. “You fight your way down/You fight your way up/You wait for the dust to settle,” Woodward sings. A few gentle strums cut their way through the parade, and a guitar calls out gull-like from above, before everything trails off as if something potent has just kicked in. On the flip side, “Aversion” has an old friend-like familiarity to it, soundwise (if not lengthwise) sitting somewhere between VU’s “The Gift” and “Sister Ray.” Things begin a little stand-offish, though, like you’ve interrupted a guitar pontificating to a rapt audience — it turns its head to look you over, falling momentarily silent, before picking right back up where it left off. Kilgour’s spoken vocals join the conversation, as the song builds towards a groovy kind of fever pitch. “You look a little stoned,” he says, before responding to his own observation. “Well me I’m a little bit groggy/But it ain’t too foggy/I can see some way of getting out of here.” By this point, both guitars (played by Woodward and Tall Dwarfs’ Alec Bathgate) are full-on screeching and howling, and as the song sputters to a sudden finish, our man’s left waiting for someone to buy him “a ride out the gate.”

Chris Liberato    

Thou — Hightower (Self-released)

Hightower by Thou

Hightower is the latest in a string of digital compilations from Thou, most of which collect songs that have been previously released on small-batch splits, 7” records and other hyper-obscure media that briefly circulated through the metal underground. You might be tempted to pronounce that a cynical cash-grab, but Thou has posted Hightower (along with previous compilations, like Algiers, Oakland and Blessings of the Highest Order, a killer collection of Nirvana covers) on their official Bandcamp page as a name-yo’-price download. Thanks, band. Beyond convenience, Hightower has an additional, if a sort of inside-baseball, attraction. The band has re-recorded a few of its older songs with its latest, three-guitar line-up. Longtime listeners will recognize “Smoke Pigs” and “Fucking Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean,” which already sounded terrifyingly massive back in 2008 and 2007, respectively. The expanded instrumentation, new arrangements and better production give the songs even more power and depth, all the way down to the bottom of the effing ocean. Yikes. And there are a few additional touches, like K.C. Stafford’s clean vocals on “Fucking Chained…,” which provide an effective complement to Bryan Funck’s inimitably scabrous howl. Rarely has being pummeled and feeling bummed out been so vivifying.

Jonathan Shaw

Tropical Fuck Storm — Deep States (Joyful Noise)

Deep States by Tropical Fuck Storm

Fueled by exasperation as much as anger, the new album by Melbourne’s Tropical Fuck Storm rounds on the myriad ways in which the world has become a “Bumma Sanger” as leader Gareth Liddiard puts it on the eponymous song about COVID lockdown. A roiling meld of psychedelic garage garnished with elements of hip hop and electronic noise it’s close in method and mood if not sound to another Australian provocateur JG Thirwell whose Foetus project girded maximalist surfaces with rigid discipline. If the Tropical Fuck Storm sought to mirror current conditions, they succeed but lack of clarity in both production and intent makes Deep States a frustrating experience. Backing vocals from Fiona Kitschin (bass), Erica Dunn (keys and guitar) and Lauren Hammel (drums) leaven Liddiard’s blokey pronouncements and there are some good sounds and biting words but the band’s determination to overelaborate and underdevelop musical ideas makes this album seem like a lost opportunity.

Andrew Forell

Marta Warelis / Carlos “Zingaro” / Helena Espvall /Marcelo dos Reis — Turquoise Dream (JACC)

Turquoise Dream by Marta Warelis, Carlos "Zíngaro", Helena Espvall, Marcelo dos Reis

Turquoise Dream documents an example of an encounter that is a mainstay of avant-garde jazz festivals, in which out of towners mix it up locals that they may or may not know. This particular concert, which took place at the Jazz ao Centro Festival in 2019, is one such encounter that deserves to live past the night when it transpired. It featured three stringed instrument players who live in Portugal and a Polish pianist who is based in Holland. But they don’t sound like strangers at all. Violinist Zingaro, cellist Espvall, and guitarist dos Reis blend like flashes of sunlight reflecting off of waves, adding up to a sound that is bright and ever-changing. Warelis, who is equally resourceful with her head under the lid of her piano as she is at the keyboard, adding fleet but substantial responses to her hosts’ quicksilver interactions. The result is music that is resolutely abstract but closely engaged.

Bill Meyer

Wharflurch — Psychedelic Realms ov Hell (Gurgling Gore)

PSYCHEDELIC REALMS OV HELL by Wharflurch

Wharflurch is just plain fun to say — but there are at least two ways in which the name also makes sense for the band that has chosen it: it has a bilious, nauseous quality that matches the vibe of the pustulent death metal you’ll hear on Psychedelic Realms ov Hell; and if you separate the words, you can conjure a sodden, rotten wooden structure, swaying vertiginously over a marshy expanse of water, which is filled with alligators and decaying organic material. Imagine that sway, and that stink, and then imagine yourself collapsing into the viscous fluid, soon to be gator chow. Sounds like Florida, and that’s exactly from whence Wharflurch has emerged. Which also makes sense. Is Wharflurch’s music “psychedelic”? Depends on what you hear in that word. If you want to see hippies dancing ecstatically on a verdant, sun-drenched stretch of Golden Gate Park, then no. But if you have spent any time in the warped, dementedly distorted spaces that psychedelics can open (less happily perhaps, but very powerfully), then yes. Wharflurch likes to accent its meaty riffs and muscular thumps with weird flutters and electronic effects that frequently have a gastric, flatulent quality to them. The saturated and sickly pinks and greens on the album art do a pretty good job of capturing the music’s tones. So do the song titles: “Stoned Ape Apocalypse,” “Bog Body Boletus,” “Phantasmagorical Fumes.” Still game? I’m sorry. But I’ll also be standing right there next to you, on that wobbly, lurching wharf, watching the gators swim near.

Jonathan Shaw

Whisper Room — Lunokhod (Midira Records)

Lunokhod by Whisper Room

That the title of Whisper Room’s fifth album is taken from Soviet lunar rovers makes a certain sense, given how potentially frustrating it might have been for the trio to be working at such a distance. Generally their other records are recorded live, in one room, seeing Aidan Baker (guitar), Jakob Thiesen (drums) and Neil Wiernik (bass) exploring simultaneously, hitting whatever junctions of psychedelic/shoegazing/motorik sound come to them. With Baker in Berlin and travel understandably limiited, this time they recorded their parts separately, layering them together (and bringing in sound designer Scott Deathe to add the kind of pedal processing their sound engineer normally does live). The result certainly sounds as collaborative as ever, seven seamless tracks making up nearly an hour that makes the journey from the friendly, clattering percussion of “Lunokhod01” to the centrifugal ambience of “Lunokhod07” feel perfectly natural. Even though it explores just as much inner and outer space as Whisper Room ever have, there’s something very approachable about Lunokhod that makes it one of their best.

Ian Mathers

[kabane52]

Good evening, I used to be an old earth creationist but now I've embraced the YEC view but I've still some questions about the extent of the Flood. The description of the Eden rivers in Genesis matches with the topography of Mesopotamia as it is today (4 rivers Tigres Euphrates Gihon Phison- the first two are known, Gihon is in Iran and Phison is a dried river in Saudi Arabia). So how is it possible that a worldwide Flood has left the topography of Mesopotamia relatively untouched? Thanks a lot.

Hi there- good question!

As to the issue of the topography: Mesopotamia seems to be the indisputable focal point of human civilization's outward radiation. This in itself is interesting, as every tradition of a universal flood imports the locale to its own backyard, but the Mesopotamian setting for Noah's disembarking is the only plausible one. Civilizations tend to appear earlier relative to their closeness to the Ararat region.

How is it that these rivers survived the flood? I don't believe they did. Instead, these locations are named after important geographical features in the antediluvian world. One doesn't need to go far to find this phenomenon- New York. Given the centrality of the Tigris and Euphrates in the preflood world, it's not surprising that we find rivers in Mesopotamia named after them.

----------

As far as I am aware, those candidates you mentioned for the Pishon and Gihon are debated, but most importantly, these four rivers do not match the topography described for Eden, where all four rivers are flowing down from a mountain where it begins as one river splitting into four in the garden. That Eden is on a mountain can be seen in the text of Genesis (the "up-down" language is consistent, as it is for Canaan and Egypt) through repeated and consistent clues, but we are told so explicitly in Ezekiel 28.

-----------------

But we are given an indisputable example within Genesis of this phenomenon- new names being given from antediluvian place-names:

(Genesis 2:11) The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.

(Genesis 10:7) The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan.

(Genesis 10:29) Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan.

We see that two separate sons are named after a pre-flood country. After these children father their respective nations, Havilah again becomes a place-name- identified in Genesis 25. But given that we have an incontrovertible example of a single name being used for at least three different subjects (two people and at least one place) within the book of Genesis, the prima facie case for the identity of the topography pre and post flood weakens to the point of nonexistence. It's not a strikingly disjunctive feature relative to what we ought to expect.

[cantdwellonanyofit]

Sledgefu Fic Dedicated to @stolperzunge

Hello @stolperzunge!! I decided to finally make an account. I’m the anon that has been messaging you Sledgefu asks for a couple of days XD 

I finally wrote a fic, and wanted to share it with you. Let me know what you think! It’s based on all of the meta we have been talking about recently.

Please note the warnings in the tags. There’s some mention of suicidal thoughts, dissociation, internalized homophobia, and descriptions of gore related to the war. This was meant to be a oneshot and has turned into a multi-chapter fic already. :| Creative criticism is requested and would be appreciated.

Rating: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh R? For now?

He couldn't sleep. If it wasn't the nightmares, it was the intrusive thoughts. The thoughts were always gently sliding their hands around his throat like an enemy sneaking up on him in the dark. Trying to snuff him out before his comrades could hear. The dreams were worse. They waited until he was lulled into a false sense of calm, warm, security. Finally too tired to fight them off. Blackness opened up to screaming women holding babies. Blood rained from the ceiling of a hut while a woman reached her hands towards him. She begged in a language he couldn't understand. But blind panic was the same in every language. He could see it in her eyes, and he couldn't wipe it out. He couldn't stand to put either of them out of their misery. So he planted his feet and watched until the hut crushed her in front of him. Paralyzed by his fear and angry at his weakness. He would jolt awake, and every morning the anger and shame followed him into waking life.

He used to be a morning person before the war. He'd wake up before sunrise with a cup of coffee. He'd take Deacon on his morning walk. He enjoyed the solitude of morning, and watching the world wake up around him. It was like he and the world slept and woke together in the same rhythm. Everything felt aligned. But now the silence was like screaming. His mind would race while he tried to deal with the onslaught of thoughts and dream laden memories. He began to confuse what he really witnessed in the war with what he dreamt. But he didn't much think it mattered. The feelings that overwhelmed him were the same. He hated himself. He hated what he had brought on himself. He resented his mother for not understanding. He was angry at his father for being forgiving. Didn't his father know what he had done? Who he had become? He crawled in his own skin every waking moment.

He didn't go to Sid with his problems. Sid was busy creating his life with Mary. Gene couldn't bear to burden Sid with his troubles when Sid was just trying to forget and move on. He knew Sid also had trouble with sleep. But unlike Gene, Sid tried not to torture himself about the things he saw and did in the war. 

"You can't dwell on it. You can't dwell on any of it.” Ack Ack had said. And it seemed like everyone but Gene was able to abide by that law. The only person in the world who seemed able to pull Gene out of his moods had abandoned him. When Gene woke up on the train to a gentle shove, he expected Snafu's big blue eyes to be staring a hole in him. Like they always did. But instead, he realized another soldier had nudged him awake to ask if he was meant to be disembarking the train. They had arrived in Alabama. Gene looked around confused for a moment before the soldier repeated himself. But Gene wasn't listening. Where had Snafu gone? He couldn't have left without waking him. It wasn't possible.

But it had been possible, and now here he was. Alone. Like he deserved to be. God was punishing him, and Gene couldn't blame him. He'd killed countless people. And by the end of the war, he didn't much care about the damage he caused. He wanted to kill every Jap left with his bare hands. He wanted to make them feel as helpless as he did. He often thought back to his conversation with Leckie. 

"God created Japs too, right? Yellow slants who've tried to kill me on many occasions. Japs come from the garden of Eden too?" 

God had sent Gene on a mission to kill Japs for what they had done. But he also sent the Japs to bomb Pearl Harbor in the first place. And Gene no longer had any idea what God wanted from either side. Were they all meant to die? Had he survived by accident when God had deemed him disposable? And now God cursed him with these thoughts and dreams. To haunt him for daring to make it out. Maybe they had all been too dirty for God's love in the first place. He knew he'd never again feel the safety of that embrace. He tucked his bible away under his bed months ago after unpacking his suitcase. He couldn't bear to open it. He worried it would burn his hands if he even tried. He was no longer welcome in God's plans. He just knew it.

So, with no faith, no plans, no life, he withered away. He spent hours staring at the walls, off into the distance as he sat outside. And he tortured himself with his thoughts and his lack of purpose. He had no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life. He wondered if God meant for him to commit suicide. If he had somehow messed up God's plan for him to die. If someone else had died in his place. If he no longer had God's love, then killing himself wouldn't matter. But he lacked any motivation to go through with it. It was as if he was meant to remain stuck between life and death. A ghost among the living. 

He knew God had more than one reason to reject him. Not only had he lived when he was meant to die, but he had been born homosexual. He was doomed from birth. He knew something was wrong when he was 6 years old and Betty Cannon had kissed him on the cheek, and he had cried. Sid would nudge him and point out the pretty girls at school, and Gene couldn't have cared less about them. He'd tease Sid for being a pervert and they'd laugh. His sinful nature was further solidified when he gazed at the nurse on Pavuvu. He demanded himself to feel something for her. She was beautiful. She had a kind voice. His mind recoiled as he tried to imagine kissing her, sliding off her clean hospital whites. He felt repulsed. "Alright, you had your looksey," the lieutenant had jeered. If Gene could've glared a hole through that lieutenants body he would've.

If he could've grabbed that asshole by the head and slammed it repeatedly into every damn cup on the table he would've. ‘I feel nothing, I see nothing, I am nothing,’ he would've screamed at him. Can't you see it written all over me? I'm a sinner, you fool. He couldn't ignore the fire in the pit of his stomach every time Snafu leaned against him. Played along with his jokes. Watched him. Snafu always watched his every move. And it drove Gene crazy. Gene thought about what Snafu's curls would feel like in his fingers. What his sweat would taste like as Gene ran his tongue along Snafu's neck. Along that fucking smirk. He went mad with lust thinking of all the things Snafu could do to him. So when he gazed at that fuckin' nurse and felt nothing another piece of him snapped off and was taken by the ocean. He was ruined, and God knew it.

All through his thoughts Gene found himself biking. As he came to, he realized he was approaching Sid's house. It had to be no later than 0500. He hesitated at the start of the driveway. This was crazy. He couldn't bother Sid. But then he felt his right foot swing over the left side of his bike to land beside his left foot on the ground. He began steering and walking towards the front door. He was like a man possessed. Before he could stop himself, he knocked three times in succession. He waited. What the hell are you doing? His mind screamed at him. He was about to knock again when the door slowly opened. Sid was holding his rifle, but quickly lowered the butt of it to the ground when he realized who was at the door.

"Eugene, you scared the daylights out of me. I heard the bike coming along the drive and just about jumped in the bushes to scout." Sid was laughing, but Gene was not. Sid's smile slowly faded. "Get in here," Sid made to grab for Gene's arm but Gene blurted out, "Can you take me to the train station?" Sid's brows came together in confusion. Or maybe it was concern. Sid's hand halted in the air, "You need me to do what now?" Sid's hand landed gently on Gene's bicep. He tugged him gently through the doorway and into the kitchen. "Have a seat." Sid moved to the stove and grabbed the kettle. "We can have coffee and talk it."

Gene was already shaking his head. "I don't need to talk about it. I need you to do this for me. I don't have a car and it'll take me days to bike there." Sid was pouring coffee anyway. "What are you going to do at the train station?" Sid asked.

"Ride the train." Gene answered, curtly. Sid laughed, and set the cup beside Gene. Sid added hot water to his own cup which had likely gotten cold while Sid had watched a stranger approaching his home from the window. Gene could tell the curtain was off-kilter, as if someone had pulled it aside in an attempt to spy without being seen. Gene felt guilty for worrying Sid. He'd have felt guiltier if he woke Sid up, but it seemed Sid had no better luck sleeping than Gene did. "Ride the train where, you smartass." Gene debated whether he should be honest about his intentions. He trusted Sid. He and Sid had been friends since Gene could remember. Sid had always been on Gene's side. But this would be asking something else entirely of Sid. It would be asking Sid to see him for all of his sins, and accept him anyway. If God couldn't manage, he doubted Sid could. "Louisiana." Gene answered. He provided no context. He planned to provide no further geographical context. Sid didn't know about Snafu. He wouldn't even have guessed what Gene's plans were even if Gene told him he was going to New Orleans. But this secret pounded loud in his ears. Matching the beat of his heart. He felt like he was shouting the word Louisiana so he could be heard over the thumping of his heart. He was laid bare in front of God and his best friend. And he planned to deceive both of them. He really was beyond saving.

"Louisiana?" Sid answered. "What's in Louisiana that has you sneaking up to my front door and demanding I drive you down to the station this instant? Did you meet someone you haven't told me about?" Sid's eyes were mischievous. They were full of hope. Hope that Gene had something or someone out there to look forward to. Would they be so full of hope if Sid knew it was a man that Gene ached for? "You could say that," Gene found himself replying. He was skirting the truth. He was living in half truths and short responses. He was a man to be hanged but he kept outrunning the law. "You sly dog!" Sid slapped his knee and scooted his chair back so fast it made an awful screech. There was a thump from where Gene assumed was the bedroom, when Mary emerged from the doorway in her silken robe. Gene would've blushed had he been his old self. Had he been anyone at all anymore.

"What in the Lord's good name is going on out here?" She didn't seem to be mad, but rather playing at it. "Eugene Sledge, is that you causing trouble in my house?" Gene caused trouble everywhere. That's what the devil did when he got inside your soul. He made you destroy yourself and those around you. His lips lifted in one corner in a true Snafu impression. "Sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to cause such a disturbance." He stood and bowed gently to her. "Sid and I were just about to head out to the train station." Gene looked down at his untouched coffee and thought to hand it to Mary. She might as well enjoy it before it gets cold. Sid stood up and grabbed his coat. It seemed letting Sid believe this was for a woman had propelled him into action. "I won't be long," he kissed Mary on the cheek. Sid grabbed his keys from the same hook his jacket had been on. "Well, come on now lover boy we best be gettin' on." Gene couldn't move fast enough to get out of his seat. He needed to keep moving before his mind came to. Before he hopped on his bike and rode all the way back home and never came back out again. This was his only chance to act. "Lover boy?" Mary smiled, "Gene, that's wonderful. I wish you the best." Gene cringed inwardly. "Thanks." He mumbled. It was a benefit to him that everyone thought him shy. His guilt could easily be mistaken for sheepishness.

He nearly squeezed himself through the front door at the same time as Sid. He took long strides to the car, and grabbed the handle before Sid had even reached the car to unlock it. "Alright, alright, I'm comin'!" Sid had picked up the pace to unlock the door and climb in. He leaned to the right and opened Gene's door for him. Gene immediately flung himself into the seat and fastened his seatbelt before he could run away. Strapped himself in good. "I'll take your bike home later for you." Gene nearly threw up. He hadn't even told his parents he was going on a walk. And now he was planning to leave the state entirely. His mother would call the police. "Shit, Sid. I forgot to tell them I was leaving. I didn't even leave a note." Gene began attempting to unbuckle himself. He needed to get home. If the police came for him and found him with Snafu they'd be arrested. They'd be blue discharged. He didn't know which one was worse. Sid stopped his hand, "I'll tell 'em when I drop your bike off. Don't worry about it. I'll be home and back to your place before they even realize you're gone."

Gene steadied his hand under the pressure of Sid's. Sid would probably never touch his hand again if he knew. He'd never jokingly wrestle with him. He'd be too afraid he'd catch what Gene had. That Gene would be attracted to him. That Gene would ruin everything like he always did. This was just another secret he would have to take to God before he was banished to hell. Why couldn't he get the devil out of him? But despite his inner chastising, Gene let his body rest in his seat. Sinking into the leather and willing himself to calm down. No one knew. No one would know. Sid would take care of him like he always did. Sid, who trusted him, while Gene wore a liar's face. Gene had no idea if Snafu was even still in New Orleans. Gene had no idea if Snafu even wanted to see him. Snafu had left him on the train after all. Gene had probably read into ever stare, every gentle touch, every time Snafu seemed to cut in the shower line until suddenly Gene and Snafu were undressed and standing close. Every time they searched desperately for each other on the battlefield, or in the line of fire, until they knew the other was still breathing. Both sneaking glances, but doing well to hide it. He had imagined all of it in his sick homosexual mind.

"You alright?" Sid asked, glancing sideways at Gene. Unbeknownst to Gene, he had been wearing a pained expression and holding his breath. "I'm sure she'll be delighted to see you. You don't need to be so nervous." Gene almost laughed. Sid had no idea what he was saying. He had no idea at all. "I'm just tired. I haven't slept well in ages." Gene responded, changing the subject. He couldn't stand telling Sid anymore lies than he had to. And there was no way to explain the worry without explaining the truth. "Yeah, I hear you there. Some nights I get a couple hours. Some nights it feels I get a solid couple minutes. Mary's understanding about it." Gene's mind wandered to whether he and Snafu would keep each other up at night with their nightmares. With their stirring. Maybe they'd both stay up together knowing what it was like in each other's brains. Maybe they'd get real good at distracting each other instead. Gene would give anything to let Snafu use him as a distraction. Gene could wrap his legs around Snafu. He could let Snafu move inside of him until they both forgot about everything but each other.

"I'm happy you two have each other," Gene shouted over his thoughts. Sid laughed at him. "Well, I'm overjoyed you want the whole world to know how happy you are for us, Eugene." He was ripping apart at the seams and it was only a matter of time before he lost the ability to pull himself to reality. He had to get away from Sid. From this town. From these burdens. Luckily, the rest of the drive remained uneventful as Sid let Gene get lost in his thoughts, and Gene willed his thoughts to stay in his head. He worried every thought was writing itself out on his face. On every inch of exposed skin. And when he stepped out of the car to say goodbye to Sid, the truth would be there staring back at him. And Sid would stare on, horrified. Until he called out for the police, and Gene was taken away. All his rights stripped, as if he had never existed at all. Just as God had intended.

They pulled into the station, when Sid slammed on the breaks and the car jolted. "Eugene, you don't have any bags with you! How did I not notice? What the hell are you going to do? You can't show up to your lady looking like that." Gene's head snapped to look at Sid. "How dare you? I've never looked so good?" He left his mouth slightly agape in mock horror at what Sid had insinuated. Sid laughed in return. "You haven't shaved, and I think you slept in those clothes." Gene hadn't even thought about clothes. About belongings. He guessed he'd have to start over when he got to Louisiana. "I bet they dress differently down there anyway. I'll consult the best shopkeepers around when I arrive." Gene wanted to get on that train before he changed his mind. If they left to go to his house to grab clothes he'd never come back.

"Do you even have any money?" Gene could've kicked himself. He really brought nothing. He wouldn't even be able to leave if he wanted to. Sid leaned slightly and dug in his coat pocket until he pulled out a wad of bills with a rubber band around them. Sid had a lot of distrust for banks, and often kept cash on him or hidden in his home. "No," Gene was already protesting. He would go home. He would forget this foolishness. "Yes, take it." Sid was pushing the money into Gene's coat pocket. "Absolutely not, stop it. I won't take money from yo-" Sid unfastened Gene's seatbelt and then pushed open his own car door and stepped out. "Sid!" Gene threw his door open and their eyes met over the roof of the car. "I can't take this." Gene couldn't lie to his friend and then rob him of his money too. "Eugene. If you don't take the money and get the hell out of this town I will take it personally. You can't stay here and keep doing this. Look at you. This is your chance to start over. Don't you want that? I'd do anything to get you back. This is the least I can do for you. Now get your ass up to that counter, get your tickets, and get out of my hair before I drag your scrawny ass up there and embarrass you in front of all of these decent folk."

"Sid--"

"I mean it!" Gene snapped his mouth shut. "I won't take no for an answer. Now get."

Gene came around to Sid's side of the car. "I'll never be able to repay you." Sid wrapped an arm around him in a gentle hug. This may be the last time Sid would ever touch him without disgust. Without questioning what dirty thoughts Gene took away from these interactions. Gene loved Sid, but never in that way. He was his brother. But Sid would never understand that distinction. Sid would be horrified by every time Gene had ever touched him. Gene hugged Sid, hard. He loved him like family. The thought of losing Sid crushed him. He tried to pour every ounce of his love into Sid with one hug. 'Please,' he mentally begged, 'Please know that I'll never be able to repay you for all the love you've given me. I've lied to you. I've deceived you. You're pure, and I'm rotten, and I deserve none of this.' Sid hugged him back with a similar strength before pushing Gene gently to arms length and putting a hand on each bicep. "You write to me, Eugene. You tell me everything." Gene nearly crumbled under the weight of his lies. He'd never be able to tell Sid everything. Even if he died to.

"I will," he lied. He was becoming a pro at this.

Sid stepped to the left and turned around to rest against the drivers side of the car. Giving Gene the room to leave and head towards the counter. Gene took the opportunity before he could stop himself. He approached the long line to wait for his turn. He stole a glance at Sid who waved goodbye at him, and got in the drivers seat. Sid must've wanted to keep his promise to return to his house for Gene's bike, and notify Gene's parents before they worried. Gene again mentally thanked Sid for every single thing he ever did for him, and moved one step closer towards his future.

[homedevises]

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Dave Newman “Esquires is a blithely run alive music venue.”

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[witchesoz]

What we know of Oz: Book 1, generalities

Let’s begin with the first Oz book L. Frank Baum ever wrote: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900. There will be a lot to say for this one, so I’ll split it into several parts. # The world of Oz is supposed to be one of a “modern American fairytale”. Baum’s ambition was to offer American children “local” fairytales and a literary world unique to the New World, rivaling with the old fairy tales of Europe. This is why the world of Oz reuses so many tropes and ideas from typical fairy tales (witches and wizards, magical objects and beings, talking animals…) yet updates them, reinvents them and twists them to make the tale differ from the traditions of the Old World – for example, take the idea of a “good witch”. This was something never done before, or at least without as much media coverage. Up until now, witches had always been depicted in children literature as wicked and evil beings, and Baum’s decision to present a good and benevolent witch was revolutionary (that is why Dorothy is so shocked upon hearing that there are good witches in Oz). # Oz is a land of colors and a land of life. In this book, there is a clear visual opposition between the Kansas, the “civilized world”, and the one of Oz. Oz is like a lost Eden Garden, filled with greenery and animals, vibrant with colors and life and sounds, while Kansas is a world utterly grey and gray, all the colors washed off or bleached, a place of harshness, dust and old age. Just compare this description of Kansas: “When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.” With the one of the place Dorothy’s house lands in: “Midst of a country of marvelous beauty. Lovely patches of greensward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage. A small brook, running and sparkling.” # But where the hell is Oz? The location of Oz has been a big debate for years now. And in fact the first book seems to imply that Oz is located somewhere in the United-States! 

You see, the tornado that carries away Dorothy (and not a cyclone. Baum made a mistake by calling it a cyclone when it is a tornado) isn’t some magical portal to another dimension here – it is merely a real tornado, that physically made Dorothy’s house change place. And given that a tornado can’t go far, it is highly possible that Oz is on the North American continent, maybe even inside the United-States! It seems reinforced by the fact that the Wizard of Oz actually came from Nebraska and was too carried away by winds to Oz… Outside of that we know that Oz is cut from the rest of the world by a great desert that surrounds it – there are no mentions of magically deadly sands or things like that, though. In the first book, the desert is merely considered too big and too wide to be crossed. We also know that this isolation allowed Oz to not be “civilized” – the Witch of the North explains that they could keep their magic and their wizards and witches due to Oz being an “uncivilized” country, while civilized countries saw all their magic practitioners disappear. The exact meaning of “civilized” is quite unknown, and still up to debate – it probably means the advance of science and technology in this precise case. A very interesting fact to note is that the Witch of the North mentions that the land of Oz was “cut off” from the rest of the world a long time ago – which implies strongly that Oz was, a long time ago, connected to the rest of the world, and that the desert wasn’t always there. At least we know that it was cut off a long time before Kansas was even made – a theory one could make would be that the land of Oz was always there in the center of the North American continent and that it was isolated when the colonization happened, which could have been the bringing of “civilization” but this is just a wacky theory I’m making. # The Munchkins aren’t the only small people in Oz. At least, in this book. As you will see, many peoples are described as small – the Munchkins, the Witch of the North, the Guardian of the Gates, the Quadlings… Or rather, they are described the same size as Dorothy, who is a “very well grown child for her age” (even though her age isn’t specified… in the first books she seems to be around eleven or twelve years old, but in later books she is rather between fourteen and sixteen). This is a very important point to understand this first book – when Oz was conceived in Baum’s mind, it was created as a world the size of a child. Everyone is the size of Dorothy, everything happens at her level, and thus the threat is less scary and she can be treated as an adult. This idea was reinforced by the original illustrations that represented ALL of the characters as roughly the size of Dorothy, from the Wicked Witch to Glinda. However, in the later books, Baum obviously had to abandon this idea since Dorothy wasn’t the only protagonist anymore, Dorothy ended up growing up, and he also needed a bit more diversity in his cast (he couldn’t just have small people everywhere all the time).

  # Oz is not an unified country. When a character uses the term “Land of Oz”, it usually refers to the entirety of the lands inside the great desert. But this Land of Oz is made up of five different regions, each associated with a specific geographical point, a specific color and a specific population. In the East live the Munchkins whose color is blue, in the West live the Winkies whose color is yellow, in the South live the Quadlings whose color is red. In the first book, the North is actually left undescribed – we would only discover later that the North is the land of the Gillikins, whose color is purple. And at the center of Oz there are the lands surrounding the City of Emeralds, whose population doesn’t have a particular name, but is of course associated with the color green. A very interesting fact must be pointed out: this central region has quite an ambiguous position. We know in this book that the Emerald City, which is basically the fifth region itself, was built for the Wizard of Oz, while the other four regions existed long before that. As a result, it may explain why this region is quite different from the others –  it has its own specific color but its inhabitants don’t have any specific name like the Munchkins or the Winkies, and are merely Ozians. Now the question is: did a green region exist before the Wizard came or was the green region created around the City of Emeralds? But I’m afraid we won’t get the answer. On a similar note, the different regions, while all part of the greater whole that is the Land of Oz, are still treated as independent areas, as their own lands and countries. Each has their own ruler, their own population, their own names. And there is no idea here that a region rules over the others – in later books the Land of Oz became a kingdom, dominated by an Ozian King living in the Emerald City, but in this first book the Emerald City isn’t the capital of Oz, and isn’t ruling over all Oz. The Wizard is specifically said to only rule over his City, and each country has its own ruler and keeps to itself. To cut it short, Oz seems to be much more a confederation of states than a federation or a feudal system like it would become later. # And just like there are four main regions in Oz, there are four Witches too – at least, by the time Dorothy arrives. Each Witch corresponds to one of the four regions/cardinal point (in fact the television series Emerald City referred to them fittingly as the Cardinal Witches): one in the North, one in the South, one in the East and one in the West. These Witches are divided into two categories: the Good Witches (represented by the one in the North and the one in the South), and Wicked Witches (represented by those in the East and in the West). Forget already about this idea that “only wicked witches are ugly”, that was put in for the movie – and the movie also mixed up the two good Witches, of the North and South, into one, which created some plot holes. But what exactly is a Witch? Now, this is a good question… the word Witch is always put with a capital in the book, just like the terms of any important character (the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Guardian of the Gates) but also just like any word used to refer to the Ozian population (a Munchkin, a Winkie…). We also know that the Witches have a specific color associated to them – white. This was why Dorothy was mistaken for a Witch, because she was wearing white. (And yes, it also means that the Wicked Witches wear white in the book, that was another idea Baum used to “upgrade” the idea of witches). All of these indications clearly show that they are different from normal Ozians, either a simple different social group at the same level as the Munchkins and Quadlings, either an entirely different species. One thing is sure: the Witches are HIGHLY respected in Oz, or at least very high in terms of social position. Of the four Witches we meet, three are rulers of their own countries (East, West and Glinda). While the Witch of the North is not mentionned to rule over the North (she just calls it her "home"), the Munchkins still bow down lowly to her when she leaves. And when the Munchkins believe Dorothy to be a Witch, they are too afraid to even go near her, and it is the Good Witch that has to take the first step.

A personal note I want to make is about the choice of the term “wicked”. It was probably for the alliteration, but wicked has quite a connotation you know? It isn’t like calling someone “evil”. Someone who is evil is bad passively, by nature, by essence. But “wickedness” is an active form of badness, one done in action. A wicked person will dedicate themselves to cause harm and disasters and to make people suffer, it is similar to the world maleficent (“that does evil”) and malevolent (“that wants evil”). Such an analysis allows a lot of theories to arise… is a witch good by nature and chooses to become wicked? Or is a witch neutral but then has to choose between good and wicked? It should also be noted that in Baum’s books, the Witches actually can’t go back to being good once they are classified Wicked. Indeed, while other Ozian villains reformed, sometimes after having their memory wiped out, the Wicked Witches always stayed bad and evil, always. So maybe they are indeed evil at core? Or maybe once a witch choses to be wicked she can’t go back? Again, there is a lot of theories possible, ESPECIALLY since the Witches lack any kind of backstory. 

We don’t know where they come from, we don’t know if they were always witches, we don’t know if they have family, none of that. (Because yes, in the original books, the Witches are all unrelated to each other, there are no “avenge my sister” plot).

Another point I would like to make: in the book, the term “Sorceress” is used apparently as a synonym for the word “Witch”. Indeed, the Witch of the North welcomes Dorothy as “great Sorceress” (see the cap), Boq mentions that Dorothy must be a “great sorceress” (without cap) since she is wearing white and has the silver shoes, and in later books Glinda prefers to be called a “Sorceress”, with cap, than a Witch. It seems in general that Sorceress is a more… “neutral” and more “polite” term for Witch, with less connotations, or used when one ignores if a Witch is bad or good. Some theories going around think that “sorceress” is a term used to designate those that practice magic because they learned of it, studied it and acquired magical powers, while “witch” refers to beings able to do magic due to natural abilities, due to their fundamentally magic nature. It could be right – after all, Gayelette is referred to as a sorceress without being called a “Witch” (at least if my memory serves me right, I’ll have to recheck that). However, there is also the difficult part of The Witch of the North’s backstory. When she talks about the civilization, she mentions that before it the world had “witches, wizards, sorceresses and magicians”, and that by staying uncivilized Oz could keep its “witches and wizard” – no mention of sorceresses or magicians. She speaks of them as if they were separate categories, the witches paired with the wizards and the sorceresses with the magicians. Maybe sorceress is an alternate word for witch, and magician for wizard, but their clear separation seems to insist on a difference… again, the theory of “study VS nature” may be applied here. It is possible that witches and wizards are the male and female beings naturally able to do magic, while sorceress and magician refer to those that learned and studied the art of magic. To be honest this whole classification isn’t clear in the first book, more elements from later books should help us see better in this matter – but right now all one needs to know is that Oz has Witches and Wizards.

[catholicartistsnyc]

Meet Indiana-based Artist Daniel Mitsui

DANIEL PAUL MITSUI is a Hobart, Indiana-based artist specializing in ink drawing on calfskin and paper.  His work is mostly religious in subject, inspired by medieval illuminated manuscripts, panel paintings and tapestries. www.danielmitsui.com

CATHOLIC ARTIST CONNECTION: Where are you from originally, and what brought you to Hobart, IN?

DANIEL MITSUI: I was born at Fort Benning, Georgia, where my father was an infantry officer. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and lived in Chicago for most of my adult life. About two and a half years ago, I moved with my wife and four kids to Hobart, Indiana, which is sort of the easternmost edge of Chicagoland.

How do understand your vocation as a Catholic artist? "Catholic Art" can mean a number of different things: art that happens to be made by a Catholic, whatever it is; art that communicates Catholic ideas and values; art that explicitly treats the Catholic religion as its subject; or art that is considered "sacred" art, meaning that it is intended to communicate religious truth and to assist prayer.

Most of my artwork is of this last kind, so I understand my task as twofold. First, I do my best to follow an established tradition as far as composition and arrangement are concerned. Sacred art should corroborate sacred scripture and liturgy, and the exegesis of the Church Fathers - because it too is a means by which the memory of Jesus Christ's revelation is carried forward through the centuries.

Second, I do my best to make the art as beautiful as possible, because the experience of beauty is a way for men and women in a fallen world to remember dimly the prelapsarian world, and to grow in their desire for reunion with God. As I wrote in one of my lectures:

It is important "not to consider sacred art a completed task, not to consider any historical artifact to be a supreme model to be imitated without improvement. To make art ever more beautiful is not to take it away from its source in history, but to take it back to its source in Heaven. Sacred art does not have a geographic or chronological center; it has, rather, two foci, like a planetary orbit. These correspond to tradition and beauty. One is the foot of the Cross; the other is the Garden of Eden."

I am Catholic, and an artist, so I have no objection to being called a "Catholic artist.” However, I do not want to make an advertisement of my personal faith or piety, to suggest to other Catholics that they ought to buy or commission artwork from me because of the sort of person I am, rather than because of the artwork's own merits. An artist who would make an advertisement of his personal faith or piety has received his reward.

At this time, my personal mission is to complete a large cycle of 235 drawings, together making an iconographic summary of the Old and New Testaments and illustrating the events that are most prominent in sacred liturgy and patristic exegesis. I call this the Summula Pictoria, and I plan to spend the next twelve years of so working to complete it, alongside other commissions. I already have spent more than two years on it, mostly on preliminary research and design work.

Where have you found support in the Church for your vocation as an artist? The Catholic Church is of course much more than its institutional structures; it is all the faithful. Most of my patronage comes from private individuals rather than parishes and dioceses. I do receive some commissions  from ecclesiastical institutions - in 2011 I even completed a large project for the Vatican - but I do not go out of my way to secure them. In ecclesiastical institutions, there tend to be committees involved, and a whole lot of politics; the usual result is that an artist spends time preparing proposals, reserving his most interesting ideas, and just fighting for permission to make the best artwork possible. I feel sorry for artists like architects and sacred musicians who, by the nature of their medium, have to do this. I avoid it whenever possible.

I choose to make artwork that is small enough and inexpensive enough that private individuals can commission and buy it. I think this may be the future of Catholic art patronage; there is not much reason to think that ecclesiastical institutions will be able to provide it much longer. You can look at the demographic changes, at the money lost both through diminishing donations and lawsuits because of clerical scandals, at the amount of artwork already available as salvage from closed parishes - none of this suggests that ecclesiastical institutions will become great patrons of new sacred art any time soon.

How can the Church be more welcoming to artists? I think that sacred art should have four qualities: it should be traditional and beautiful, as I said already; and it should be real and interesting.

What the clergy and theologians of the Church could do to help artists is to advance an argument for art that has these qualities. They have not advanced this argument much lately, and a good number of them probably don't even believe it.

By "real" I mean that sacred art ought, at least as an ideal, to be made by real human hands or voices. Music sung or played in person is a different thing, and a better thing, than an electronic recording. A picture drawn by hand is qualitatively superior to picture printed by a computer. There is at least a rule on the books that liturgical music needs to be sung or played live, not off of a CD, but even there a lot of fake things are broadly tolerated: bell sound effects played from speakers in a tower, or synthesizers dressed up in casings to look like pipe organs. Visual artists don't even have this sort of rule in place for them. Printing technology - both 2D and 3D - is now so sophisticated that I worry about it displacing human artists, without the clergy or theologians objecting.

I fear that some time soon, one of the great artistic or architectural treasures of Christianity will be ruined - more completely and irreparably than Notre Dame de Paris -  and that in response to demands that it be rebuilt exactly as it was before, living artists will dismissed from the task as untrustworthy. Instead, a computer model will be constructed from the photographic record, and everything will be 3D printed in concrete or faux wood. Once that happens, a precedent is set, and living artists and architects thenceforth will compete, most likely at an economic disadvantage, against computers imitating the old masters.

I don’t oppose reproductions themselves; I have digital prints on display in my own home, and I sell digital prints of my own artwork. I listen to recordings of music. I do oppose the idea that these can, in themselves, provide a sufficient experience of art and music. I oppose the idea that sacred art and music can be fostered through attitudes that would have made their existence impossible in the first place.

By "interesting," I mean that art and music should command attention. So many Catholics have gotten it into their minds that the very definition of prayer or worship is "thinking pious thoughts to oneself.” They close their eyes and obsess about whether they can think those pious thoughts through to a conclusion without noticing anything else. With this mindset, art and music are praised as"prayerful" simply for being easy to ignore. Art or music that are particularly excellent are condemned as "distracting.”

This, really, is wrongheaded. Distractions from prayer are foremost interior, the result of our own loud and busy and selfish thoughts. Sacred art or music that draw us out of our own thoughts, that make us notice their beauty, are fulfilling their purpose; they are bringing us closer to the source of all beauty, God.

I can't remember the last time I heard a living priest of theologian say as much.

How can the artistic world be more welcoming to artists of faith? I don't really think that it makes sense to speak of an artistic world as opposed to any other world, at least when it comes to sacred art.

This art is meant to be in churches, or in homes, or in any places where people pray - that is to say, anywhere. It belongs to everyone. I have no objection to seeing my artwork in galleries or museums, but I don't seek out those spaces; I try to make my artwork available to anyone, as directly as possible.

How do you afford housing as an artist? The medium in which I chose to work - small scale ink drawing - does not require a very large working space, and uses no toxic materials or dangerous equipment. So really, all I need is a room in which to work. It doesn't need to be a space outside the home, or away from my kids.

So affording housing as an artist is, for me, the same as affording housing in general. I moved to my current home after my wife and I decided that our family was too large to stay in apartments any more; we have four children, and wanted a yard of our own for them. We wanted to be near Chicago, but everything on the Illinois side of the border was too expensive. It took about six months of house hunting, and one temporary move, before we found what we wanted, and we had to borrow most of the money to buy it. So I don't know that I should be giving out advice, except perhaps to urban artists who are "apartment poor" like I used to be, not to let that situation go on too long.

I advise any artists who are still early enough in their careers not to be wedded to a particular medium to consider how their choice of medium will affect what sort of living space they will need eventually, especially if they hope to have a family. If you want to paint pictures or make prints that require pigments or chemicals too toxic to have around young children or pregnant women, that is something you should be prepared to deal with in advance.

How do you financially support yourself as an artist? My artwork is my livelihood. About half of my income is from commissioned drawing, and about half from print sales, licensing and book royalties. I do teach, write and lecture on occasion, but this is not a significant part of my income. I've never had a residency or a grant, and I do not seek them out.

I've had my own website, www.danielmitsui.com, since maybe 2005, and use this as the primary means of displaying, selling and promoting my work.

What are your top 3 pieces of advice for Catholic artists? In one of my lectures, Heavenly Outlook, I gave three pieces of advice to anyone who want to appreciate or make sacred art, and I will repeat them here:

First, never treat art like data. Second, be guided by holy writ and by tradition itself: liturgical prayer, the writings of the church fathers and the art of the past. Third, do not consider sacred art a completed task. Do not consider any historical artifact to be a supreme model to be imitated without improvement. Please pray for me, and for my family.

[alejandrorivasv]

BABYLON GEOGRAPHICALLY

The first Babylon was built in the Chaldean region near the Euphrates and dominated the entire territory between Iran and the Mediterranean Sea, almost everything we know today as “the Middle East”, and it is exactly that same territory where the Babylon will be built end of the apocalypse Its “throne” is to say “its capital” will be on the water, literally, because it will be built as much of Dubai is built today: on the water, it will be specifically near the city of Tire, off the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

Biblically the geography of Babylon is established by three factors: first because in that area was the Garden of Eden, second because in that area was the first Babylon ruled at that time by Nebuchadnezzar, and third because it is the area surrounding the City of GOD : Jerusalem and Israel.

Global warming will melt the poles by drastically increasing the level of the ocean by literally flooding many cities around the world, which will force buildings to be built using the technology used to build dubai on water. The land will become desertic, without trees and without planting, this added to the excessive ultraviolet rays of the sun and other political factors will force the immigration of millions of people to these new "floating" cities and some others that will remain in the few places still fertile of the earth, so there will be an arid world with several mega cities on the water. The most common type of transportation will be water, so all things will be transported underwaterand so will we humans.

BABYLON SCIENTIFICALLY

Babylon will be the place of influence par excellence, just as the US is synonymous with electronic commerce or China is synonymous with technology, Babylon will be synonymous with five things: commerce, technology, luxury, artificiality and idolatry.

COMMERCE

All nations will want to trade with Babylon. The people of Babylon will have resources to trade, but above all they will have the mentality of consumerism, it will be a place of world sale, and everyone will want to sell and buy there. The city will buy everything from abroad, and they will take everything from submarine ships. Money will be the base of Babylon.

LUXURY

There will be no more luxurious place than this future Babylon. His “purple” garment is precisely a Biblical symbol of this luxury and splendor, since Biblically it is the color of royalty and millionaires. Compare it today with Dubai and its skyscrapers and luxury hotels, it will be a city designed for vanity and everything will splurge pleasure and luxury. Compare it to the tower of Babel, this city will represent pride and vanity and supposed human “superiority.” It will have extremely high towers, (perhaps thinking of avoiding further increases in sea level).

TECHNOLOGY

It will have the latest in technology. It will be the representation of human technology on earth, everything will be technologized. The nations will see it as the center of technology and science, and everything it produces in those areas will be adopted by the rest of the nations. Technology will be revered, literally, because everything there will be artificial.

ARTIFICIALITY

Everything will be artificial and the artificial will be glorified. The natural will not only have been devastated to a great extent by the climatic change and the waste of resources by the human being, but also by law it will be exalted as “superior” everything created by man because the natural will be so scarce that it will be worshiped as divine if you have it.Food, oxygen, clothing, plants, bodies, brains, hearts, genders, genes, DNA, soil, homes, currency, media and locomotion … etc, etc, everything will be artificially re-created by man.

IDOLATRY

The basis of the ideology of the future is anti-GOD, and therefore idolater and sorceress. While it is true that there will be a mixture of beliefs such that each one will have their own god in which to believe, we must also observe three additional factors: the spiritualization that will literally make anything or object “venerable”, the veneration itself of human being and the worship of the beast and the antiChrist emerged from that beast.The basis is to understand that idol is everything that is revered that is not GOD, so idolatry can be a statue of a fictional deity of the cosmos, venerate mother earth, an extraterrestrial amulet, venerate the sun or a system of government new; Idolatry is … revere anything except GOD, our unique and unequaled CREATOR. The new age spiritism will involve every idea, object and technology of Babylon.

POLITICS

It will rule the world. It will influence all cities. It will establish rulers and have political relations with all nations.

BABYLON BIBLICALLY

Babylon will be a physical, tangible, geographically defined CITY, with very tall buildings and built on water. It will be a city formed by an anti-Biblical system that many call “new world order” and that the Bible calls “the beast” and symbolizes it as a grotesque animal with seven heads and ten horns. From this beast will come both the CITY of Babylon and the antiChrist. In short: the ideology of the new world order will be impregnated in Babylon and in the mind of the antiChrist.

It is important to reaffirm something: not necessarily Babylon will be called “Babylon”, but even if it is called “center”, “human”, “earth” or whatever, in the eyes of GOD it will be Babylon, because it will be geographically in the area that GOD established as Babylon, just as Israel will always be geographically Israel in the eyes of GOD even if that region is modified in size, name or activity.

Babylon will be destroyed in the end. Completely, in a masterfully Divine way: it will be destroyed by the same system that created it. Just as GOD puts and away kings, just as GOD has allowed the destruction of Israel and then its reunification and victory, and just as GOD used kingdoms like Egypt or Babylon to temporarily punish Israel and then punished Egypt and Babylon for their evil, likewise, in apocalypse, GOD will make that strategy: he will use a beast to punish his rebellious people (we) and then punish that beast for his evil.

Summing up: the new world order will be completed in about 200 years, from that system will come an anti-Christ and a CITY known Biblically as “Babylon,” which will be admired by the whole world, and then “temporarily ruled” by the anti-Christ and 10 kings, which in the end will be the same 10 kings that GOD will use to destroy Babylon first burned, then flooded, until it is left desolate turned into a jungle, along with those nations that mixed with it.

[lenamolfesi]

The Pacific Ocean: Meet the 'Stingray Queen'. Stunning model kisses and cuddles deadly stingrays naked underwater - but they never attack 'because she is their leader'. Rava Ray, 27, was born on the small South Pacific Island Mo'orea and grew up diving with marine creatures. She often chooses to dive naked and stunning photographs show her interacting with venomous stingrays. A Tahitian model Ms Ray said she holds stingrays 'dearest to her heart' and has been bitten by one, but never stung. Yeh, Ms Ray admitted she has been bitten by a stingray in the past, but said it was a 'total accident'. Rava Ray also learnt to 'share the water' with sharks, whales, turtles and dolphins. She said she has never felt anxious being close dangerous marine creatures and does not believe it is an animal's first instinct to attack a person. 'I don't think I've ever posed a threat to an animal or been in a situation where I would have been attacked,' she said. 'I've never been attacked by their barb,' she said. 'When you're swimming around wild animals sometimes aren't sure how to interact. It's the same as the way we might accidentally scratch them with our fingernail. In my perfect world, I would dive nude every time, but it takes a special type of photographer to capture it in a way I find tasteful,' she told for us. This is as biblical the Millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ in Future. Imagine a world where there is complete, total, enforced, and permanent peace, where joy abounds and good health prevails, so much so that people live for hundreds of years. Imagine a world where the curse is removed, where the environment is restored to the pristine purity of the Garden of Eden, where peace reigns even in the animal kingdom, so that “the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them” (Isaiah 11:6). Humanly speaking, that description may seem far-fetched, a utopian fantasy that could never be reality. Yet it accurately describes conditions during the future earthly kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. She said there is something 'timeless' about being naked in the water and also enjoys shedding a bikini to avoid representing a particular brand. 'Beauty is about being vulnerable,' she said. Pape'ete, Tahiti Photo by John Garza

© World Geographic Magazin

[patricianandclerk]

Because copying and pasting I absolutely ran out of space, I'd love the director's cut for Furnishing Eden, the bit starting with 'They’d realized, on the same night, that they’d both been planning it.' and ending with 'They’d stared at one another, and then they’d stared at their respective handfuls of research, before slowly exchanging them.'?

Reblog this if you want readers to come into your ask box and ask for the “director’s commentary” on a particular story, section of a story, or set of lines.  

Furnishing Eden. 

They’d realized, on the same night, that they’d both been planning it. It had been five months after the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t, where Crowley had arrived on Aziraphale’s doorstep just as Aziraphale was leaving.

Okay, so, listen. 

One of the things I really love about Crowley and Aziraphale is how the both of them actually are extremely similar to one another - they both have Extreme Anxiety, they both feel out of place with Heaven/Hell respectively and keep being more accidentally human than they mean to, and they’re both just so... ridiculous with one another.

But what I love big time is how they do the exact same thing in parallel to one another, and because they like to convince themselves (Aziraphale is especially guilty of this) that they’re not the same, they don’t communicate it, and I die!

Aziraphale had had a sheaf of neatly-printed notes in his plump hands: what they would need for land, what they would need in the house, some ideal places in England; he’d noted down adverts for various cottages for sale, with printed phone numbers, carefully written down addresses; he’d noted down a moving company where they might rent a van.

I utterly adore like... This whole concept, honestly, of Aziraphale’s specific priorities: he tends to really require regimented order in his life, but more than that, he feels a big need to follow the rules, as a human, and I just... I die, honestly, over like...

The way that Aziraphale orders everything in his life, and the fact that like... I absolutely think he spent a lot time laboriously looking through real estate listings, and the thing is, he’s so... particular. He thinks about dimensions and he thinks about space: one of the biggest things he considered was the fact that Crowley would need a lot of land and space to build and to garden, but also that there was enough space for their furniture, and he sat there with a tape measure in his lap and did calculations, and figured out the amount of petrol that it’d cost to drive from one place to the other, and then looking at vans, and so on. 

And he’s just so! Particular. And snippy. 

And the thing is, he very specifically didn’t think about aesthetics, or about plants, because he knew that if Crowley agreed, he’d do that stuff. And that’s the thing I adore so much too - they’re aware of their respective blank spaces, and rely on the other one to fill them in. 

Crowley had had a ring-binder in his skinny arms: the space they would need for Aziraphale’s library, neatly mapped; colour schemes for every room, with swatches of wallpaper and paint samples; a design for his greenhouse, with a plotting map; some codes for IKEA and Argos, to make ordering things a little easier, if they got around to it…

And THEN. Obviously! Crowley didn’t even fucking think of like, where to buy a house, or what kind of house it would be, or where it would be geographically.

He just came in like, “here, have some swatches, if we bought a house together, this is how I would decorate it!” because he also relied on Aziraphale to fill in the blank space, to actually do the Backbone stuff because he knew if he did that stuff he’d fuck it up.

But he looked at furniture, for the both of them, because he knew Aziraphale would vaguely go, “oh, I like x and y, I kinda like the concept of z”, and wouldn’t be able to pick out specific things because he’s too indecisive and he doesn’t know where to look for these things nowadays, but Crowley has such good taste so he lets Crowley do it... 

They’d stared at one another, and then they’d stared at their respective handfuls of research, before slowly exchanging them.

And then!

Like.

The surprise here isn’t that each of them filled in the gaps, because they were always hoping for it - the surprise is that they were both filling in the gaps for another before they even REALIZED they were both looking for the same thing, and I just love that concept for the both of them!

They’re gloriously in love!

[basicsofislam]

ISLAM 101: Muslim Culture and Character: Embracing The World: Part 3

CHARITABLE TRUSTS IN MEDIEVAL ISLAM

All over the vast Islamic world, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, various services that are fundamentally important to society have been financed and maintained through charitable trusts.

Godliness and virtue is not that you turn your faces towards east or west; but godliness and virtue is to believe in God and the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the Prophets; to spend of your substance out of love for Him for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and for the liberation of slaves; to be steadfast in prayer and practice regular charity; to fulfill the contracts you have made; and to be persevering and patient in hardship and disease, and throughout all periods of stress. Such are the people who are true (in their faith), and those are they who achieved righteousness, piety, and due reverence for God. (Qur’an 2:177)

All cultures and religions instruct their followers to help the poor and leave behind an everlasting source of good deeds (Dallal 2004, 13-43). Originating from a desire to improve others’ well-being, charity is an altruistic behavior (Becker 1974, 1063-1091) of gift exchanges between individuals that encourages social order and stability (Mauss 1950). This essential principle comprises two main categories in Islam: Zakat, obligatory alms for Muslims with a certain level of wealth, and sadaqa, highly recommended voluntary donations, one of the most popular forms of which are philanthropic foundations.

Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta (d.1369) was struck by the dedication of the inhabitants of Damascus to all forms of countless foundations, such as legacies devoted by people who could not travel to Mecca to pay others’ pilgrimage; foundations providing girls from poor backgrounds with all the requirements for their marriage; foundations devoted to purchasing the freedom of Muslim prisoners; others for paying the maintenance of roads, and many more (Ibn Battutah 2006). Once, he saw a young boy drop a porcelain plate, which broke. The passer-bys told the boy to take the pieces to the foundation for utensils. Consequently, the boy got a refund, equal to the value of a new plate. The residents, in their great numbers, also provided endowments for schools, hospitals, and mosques. It was a city, Ibn Battuta tells us, where the social spirit was at its optimum.

The word waqf (plural awqaf), means to cause a thing to stop and stand still, to withhold, or to prevent; and the word applies “to endow the property rights of a good [while dedicating its benefits] to the public service perpetually, and to prevent others from obtaining its property rights”. Awqaf are considered an expression of piety, not because their activities are inherently religious, but because they are governed by a law considered sacred. In Islamic terminology, waqf is described as the detention of an entity from ownership forever, by considering it as the property of God, while devoting all its possible gifts of income to some charitable purpose for the community.

However defined, waqf institutions stand out as one of the greatest achievements of Islamic civilization. Although this was not a new concept introduced by Islam, the system to allocate, administer, and dispense the usufruct was unique. All over the vast Islamic world, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, various services that are fundamentally important to society have been financed and maintained through awqaf, some of which have even survived for more than a millennium, providing the needy with basic needs such as food, education, and shelter, and improvements like lighthouses, cemeteries, public baths, drinking fountains, mosques, bridges, roads, aqueducts and so on, enhancing peace and harmony.

Once established, the public aims of a waqf become binding, cannot be altered or revoked, even by the founder, and everyone, even the head of state, has to obey these deeds. Eliminating the waqf character of property entails a complicated process, and is restricted to an exchange of another property of equivalent value and equivalent service to the community, in addition to a local court’s approval. Diverting waqf revenues to other purposes is not within the authority of the waqf administration or a supervisory court. Should a waqf purpose becomes unfeasible, its revenue is spent on the closest purpose available, both conceptually and geographically; and if this is not workable, the benefits go to the needy, which is assumed as the default intent (Kahf).

Some examples: Historical data suggest that foundations were first observed as religious establishments where people worshipped together, followed by other applications in society; some believe that some awqaf were founded by Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him, about 1860 BCE. The first waqf in Islam is the Mosque of Quba in Medina, built in 622 AD, upon arrival of God’s Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, who demonstrated the primary examples of awqaf in Islam. He had first donated seven orchards in Mukhairiq, then his share from date gardens in Fadak and Khaibar, all for charitable purposes.

Following these exemplary actions, his Companions, (may Allah be pleased with them all) and followers have continuously given to many various, worthy causes. For instance, many wells were bought from individuals and were designated for public service. As Uthman ibn ‘Affan reports, “The Prophet, peace be upon him, arrived in Madinah and realized that the city had very little drinking water, except the water of Bi’r Ruma (Ruma Well). He asked, ‘Who will purchase Bi’r Ruma to equally share the water drawn therefrom with his fellow Muslims and shall be rewarded with a better well in the Garden (of Eden)?’ Then I bought it from my own money.”

Another circulated tradition in Bukhari and Muslim, the two most authenticated collections of hadith, refers to what is considered the first Islamic land waqf. Upon his request, Umar ibn al-Khattab is advised by the Prophet, to retain the corpus [of the land] but dedicate its fruits [in the way] of God. Consequently, he dedicated the land, indicating that it should not be sold, given away as a gift, or inherited; and the revenue from the land should be used as the charity for the poor, for emancipating slaves, for wanderers, and for other social needs. Later, during Umar’s caliphate, Bilal suggested to divide the conquered villages and take the fifth for the treasury. Umar, however, refused and decided to make them waqf for the sustenance of warriors and for all Muslims.

Having been advised about its benefits, the Prophet’s Companions never stopped putting their wealth in bequests; they did this to such a degree that Jabir, another Companion, said, “Any of the Prophet’s Companions who could afford it made endowments”. It is remarkable that the Prophet advised one of his Companions, Abu Zarr, who did not have any belongings at all, to ‘add some more water in [his] soup, and offer'” (Muslim, Birr, 142).

Since then, awqaf have been one of the pillars of Islamic society. The establishment of different kinds of awqaf that serve as institutions of social cooperation and solidarity were utilized, which supported an array of activities from scientific movements to the protection of inlets, and they became a financial source for many socioeconomic sectors and for the beneficence of the needy. They were a model for the contemporary nonprofit sector.

To elaborate an illustration of the services offered, awqaf ensured that diverse services were supplied for free. Awqaf also allowed for huge innovations, such as mobile hospitals, which moved from village to village, as well as emergency teams. The revenue of certain bequests, which could include shops, mills, caravanserais, or even entire villages, would pay for the maintenance and operating costs, and sometimes would supply a small stipend to the patient upon dismissal. An example deed states that “The hospital shall keep all patients until they completely recover. All costs are to be borne by the hospital, whether the people are residents or foreigners, rich or poor, employed or unemployed, physically or mentally ill… There are no conditions of consideration and payment: none is objected to or even indirectly hinted at for non-payment. The entire service is through the magnificence of Allah, the generous one”.

Motivations behind awqaf Though the word waqf is not used in the Qur’an, there are many verses that constitute a foundation for its actions, such as “to lend willingly,” “to spend in the cause of God,” “to spend of your substance out of love for Him for your kin, for orphans, for the needy,” “to feed the poor,” “to give for charity,” and especially, “to compete in building hayrat (charitable acts).” Due to the extreme emphasis upon charity within Islam, as an act of devotion to God, foundations have flourished, displaying an exceptional development and performing comprehensive services to society.

It is stated in a heartening saying of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that, “The most auspicious person is the one who is of the assistance of others.” Hence, a contribution to the welfare of the community is considered an act that brings a person closer to God. Another hadith declares that launching an establishment for social gain would be beneficial for the founder, even after death: “Once a son of Adam dies, none of his deeds will be of him except an ongoing charity, a useful knowledge, or a pious child who prays for him.” The ongoing charity here is interpreted as waqf.

The waqf body is intended to prevent the temporary possessions of this world from vanishing, by withholding them in the name, and for the sake of, God as a continuous charity. There is no obligation of any kind behind this action stemming from altruistic behavior, but a sense of responsibility towards humanity, a conscientious sense of serving others, and competing in charity; in other words, such values as compassion, mutual assistance, solidarity, the pleasure of comforting a living thing both materially and spiritually, and the free will of a person embracing these values as principles, have been an element of Islamic culture, motivating a person to transform some or all of his or her personal assets into pious foundations to serve society.

Seeking proximity to God has been the main rationale of awqaf. In some cases, the founders named awqaf after themselves in the hope of being remembered by (and thus receiving prayers from) upcoming generations – though in general, anonymity is preferred. For instance, it was a common practice for the rich, especially during Ramadan, to pay debts of people in need, without revealing who they were, asking local shopkeepers to calculate the total balance on randomly picked pages of their records of receivable accounts. The overall purpose has been altruism rather than fame since it is believed that impurity of intention might spoil the dedication of the gift, whose sole purpose is to please God.

[cheapjerseys28-blog]

opinion everyday at work

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