Thank you & of course bless you, Phyllis dear. Yes, the obsession betokens some sort of fault line in the psyches of those who entertain it. It cuts deep & (in an era when self-examination on other fronts continues all the rage) goes etiologically unexamined. What part does it play in the self-awareness of those so obsessed? What would they have to face, absent that deflection?
Alma Mahler was a serious flirt but not a courtesan as usually defined. She had close romantic relationships with some men ( Alexander Zemlinsky for one) but I believe she was a virgin when she married Gustav Mahler.
My husband met her in NYC a year or two before she died. He was taken to see her in her town house. On first seeing him she declared “He looks like Alban Berg”. He said she spent the whole time reminiscing about people and events of the early 20th century in Vienna, mostly gossip. I was sorry I was not present.
My husband was also close with Friedelind Wagner, Wagner’s granddaughter. She was a delightful dinner guest. At one of her visits to us for dinner she scolded a guest for smoking (which saved me from having to do it).
Brava! I am sick to death of visiting museums everywhere and finding American mea culpas everywhere. I used to feel fury at these screeds; now I just feel nauseated. When will it end?
Trump is trying. Who knew that he would right wrongs. Enough did, I guess.
He's doing nothing of the sort. Don't fall into the same trap as his maga dupes. Soon you all will find out what he really is. Especially the Jewish people and Israel.
I experienced the same thing in the Museum of American Arts and Crafts in St Petersburg Florida. The photographic exhibit of the depression and dust bowl was so egregiously woke and propagandizing, that i left in disgust. I don’t need the museum curators telling me what to think and feel. The photos were complete in themselves. the commentary was at best insulting, and at worst pure wokism.
Splendid, Phyllis! Don’t forget to lecture in Australia where they brutalize their own indigenous, massacre Jews without blinking, and rant about Palestinestan.
Agree, the self-flagellation of the West (particularly in America) for historical and harmful actions, while never acknowledging the helpful actions is ridiculous and also futile. Critical Race Theory holds that whites can never be non-racist. No matter how much people who are white apologize and grovel, nothing will make them acceptable to CRT believers. The US is castigated for slavery while Islam's thousand years and 3+ centuries of slavery -- still continuing to this day, with women, is ignored. Indigenous peoples who allegedly "live in balance with nature" helped send the megafauna of N and S America into extinction, as indigenous peoples in Australasia did to animals in the islands they colonized. After it outlawed slavery in its lands, the British empire spent billions of pounds to fight slavery. The people wanting reparations for slavery conveniently ignore that Africans sold other Africans into slavery. What about reparations for the Jews robbed of possessions, property, livelihood, health, and even life after the hundreds or thousands of pogroms in country after country? The religions of alleged peace (Islam) and forgiveness (Christianity) behind the cruelty of antisemitism? As for oppressed peoples, few pundits acknowledge the oppression of women through the millennia, and if they do, well, 'there are important things we need to fix first.'
Alice Gribbin's Stack (which I highly recommend!) covers Art in the same vein as yer doin' here with lit. The (de-)Moralizin' message (of wokeness) kinda spoils the eggsperience...
Yer right Phyllis, indeed present the history--context--but not "with" the ahrt at least overtly so ta render it kinda spoilt... Often, too, the history presented favors ALL downtrodden 'cept Da Joos (as ya witnessed)....
Anywhoo, I com'minted on it after a visit ta the Brooklyn Mooseyum wherein the verbiage accompayin' the artwerks wuz so blatantly gallin' an' dismissive of the value intrinsic of the works themselves... deeskustin'! Here's an early Daisy com'mint (sans mah signature vernacular!) sharin' the debbie-downer of the added "CON-text"...
Stunning! The voice of a Lioness. A brilliant mind sharpened for the kill: the rational destruction of warped lies spewed by the dangerous antisemites, right and left!
From email:
Baruch Hashem. We- the people of the wor(l)d- need you!
From email:
Thank you & of course bless you, Phyllis dear. Yes, the obsession betokens some sort of fault line in the psyches of those who entertain it. It cuts deep & (in an era when self-examination on other fronts continues all the rage) goes etiologically unexamined. What part does it play in the self-awareness of those so obsessed? What would they have to face, absent that deflection?
From email:
Terrific piece, Phyllis.
Alma Mahler was a serious flirt but not a courtesan as usually defined. She had close romantic relationships with some men ( Alexander Zemlinsky for one) but I believe she was a virgin when she married Gustav Mahler.
My husband met her in NYC a year or two before she died. He was taken to see her in her town house. On first seeing him she declared “He looks like Alban Berg”. He said she spent the whole time reminiscing about people and events of the early 20th century in Vienna, mostly gossip. I was sorry I was not present.
My husband was also close with Friedelind Wagner, Wagner’s granddaughter. She was a delightful dinner guest. At one of her visits to us for dinner she scolded a guest for smoking (which saved me from having to do it).
Brava! I am sick to death of visiting museums everywhere and finding American mea culpas everywhere. I used to feel fury at these screeds; now I just feel nauseated. When will it end?
Trump is trying. Who knew that he would right wrongs. Enough did, I guess.
He's doing nothing of the sort. Don't fall into the same trap as his maga dupes. Soon you all will find out what he really is. Especially the Jewish people and Israel.
I experienced the same thing in the Museum of American Arts and Crafts in St Petersburg Florida. The photographic exhibit of the depression and dust bowl was so egregiously woke and propagandizing, that i left in disgust. I don’t need the museum curators telling me what to think and feel. The photos were complete in themselves. the commentary was at best insulting, and at worst pure wokism.
Splendid, Phyllis! Don’t forget to lecture in Australia where they brutalize their own indigenous, massacre Jews without blinking, and rant about Palestinestan.
Agree, the self-flagellation of the West (particularly in America) for historical and harmful actions, while never acknowledging the helpful actions is ridiculous and also futile. Critical Race Theory holds that whites can never be non-racist. No matter how much people who are white apologize and grovel, nothing will make them acceptable to CRT believers. The US is castigated for slavery while Islam's thousand years and 3+ centuries of slavery -- still continuing to this day, with women, is ignored. Indigenous peoples who allegedly "live in balance with nature" helped send the megafauna of N and S America into extinction, as indigenous peoples in Australasia did to animals in the islands they colonized. After it outlawed slavery in its lands, the British empire spent billions of pounds to fight slavery. The people wanting reparations for slavery conveniently ignore that Africans sold other Africans into slavery. What about reparations for the Jews robbed of possessions, property, livelihood, health, and even life after the hundreds or thousands of pogroms in country after country? The religions of alleged peace (Islam) and forgiveness (Christianity) behind the cruelty of antisemitism? As for oppressed peoples, few pundits acknowledge the oppression of women through the millennia, and if they do, well, 'there are important things we need to fix first.'
Alice Gribbin's Stack (which I highly recommend!) covers Art in the same vein as yer doin' here with lit. The (de-)Moralizin' message (of wokeness) kinda spoils the eggsperience...
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/great-debasement-art
Yer right Phyllis, indeed present the history--context--but not "with" the ahrt at least overtly so ta render it kinda spoilt... Often, too, the history presented favors ALL downtrodden 'cept Da Joos (as ya witnessed)....
Anywhoo, I com'minted on it after a visit ta the Brooklyn Mooseyum wherein the verbiage accompayin' the artwerks wuz so blatantly gallin' an' dismissive of the value intrinsic of the works themselves... deeskustin'! Here's an early Daisy com'mint (sans mah signature vernacular!) sharin' the debbie-downer of the added "CON-text"...
https://www.alicegribbin.com/p/the-great-debasement/comment/6893608
Stunning! The voice of a Lioness. A brilliant mind sharpened for the kill: the rational destruction of warped lies spewed by the dangerous antisemites, right and left!