The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond

Loch Lomond (18^th century Scottish love song)

By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes,
Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond,
Where me and my true love were ever wont to gae,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.

Chorus:
O ye’ll tak’ the high road, and I’ll tak’ the low road,
And I’ll be in Scotland a’fore ye,
But me and my true love will never meet again,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.

‘Twas there that we parted, in yon shady glen,
On the steep, steep side o’ Ben Lomond,
Where in soft purple hue, the highland hills we view,
And the moon coming out in the gloaming.

Chorus

The wee birdies sing and the wildflowers spring,
And in sunshine the waters are sleeping.
But the broken heart it kens nae second spring again,
Though the waeful may cease frae their grieving.

Chorus
O ye’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road,
And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye.
But me and my true love will never meet again,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.

Στις ωραίες όχθες της Λοχ Λόμοντ

(Παραδοσιακό της Σκωτίας, ερωτικό μοιρολόι)

Εκεί στις πανώριες τις όχθες, τις πλαγιές

στο ηλιόφως που πέφτει στη Λοχ Λόμοντ

η αγάπη μου και γώ πηγαίναμε μαζί

στις πεντάμορφες όχθες της Λοχ Λόμοντ

Ω, πάρε το δρόμο σου συ κι’ ακολουθώ

και θά ‘μαι στη Σκωτία πριν να φτάσεις

μα η αγάπη μου και εγώ δε θα σμίξουμε ξανά

στις πανώριες τις όχθες της Λοχ Λόμοντ

Χωρίσαμε ‘κεί στην πλαγιά τη σκοτεινή

στο σκιερό το λαγκάδι του Μπεν Λόμοντ

στ’ απαλό πορφυρό, τους λόφους τους μαβιούς

καθώς νύχτωνε κυττώντας τη σελήνη.

Τα πουλιά κελαηδούν, τ’ αγριολούλουδα ανθούν

τα νερά στο ηλιόφως κοιμούνται

μα η καρδιά που πονά δε γνωρίζει αναπαμό

τι κι αν πάψει θρηνώντας να δακρύζει.

Ω, πάρ’ το δρόμο σου εσύ κι’ ακολουθώ

θα ‘μαι κει στη Σκωτία πριν φτάσεις

μα η αγάπη μου και εγώ δε θα σμίξουμε ξανά

στις πανέμορφες τις όχθες της Λοχ Λόμοντ.

1745 (Jacobite Rebellion)  Version:

O wither away my bonnie May
Sae late an' sae far in the gloamin'
The mist gather grey o'er moorland and brae
O wither sae far are ye roamin'?

Chorus:
O ye'll tak the high road an' I'll tak the low
I'll be in Scotland afore ye
For me and my true love will never meet again
By the bonnie bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond

I trusted my ain love last night in the broom
My Donald wha' loves me sae dearly
For the morrow he will march for Edinburgh toon
Tae fecht for his King and Prince Charlie

O well may I weep for yestreen in my sleep
we stood bride and bridegroom together
But his arms and his breath were as cold as the death
And his heart's blood ran red in the heather

(chorus)

As dauntless in battle as tender in love
He'd yield ne'er a foor toe the foeman
But never again frae the field o' the slain (from)
Tae his Moira will he come by Loch Lomond  

The thistle may bloom, the King hae his ain
And fond lovers may meet in the gloamin'
And me and my true love will yet meet again
Far above the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond

Παραλλαγή:

 

Ω πούθε μακριά αγάπη μου γλυκειά

ποιό να σε ‘κρύψε Μάη μου σκοτάδι

η ομίχλη βαριά πέφτει πάνω στην πλαγιά

ω πούθε να πλανιέσαι καρδιά μου

 

Βρεθήκαμε ξανά στο δάσο χτες αργά

μ’ εκείνον που στ’ αλήθεια με λατρεύει

που αύριο ξεκινάει, στο Εδιμβούργο για να πάει

να πολεμήσει γι’ αυτόν που βασιλεύει

 

 

Ω κλαίω γιατί είχα δει στον ύπνο μου εχτές

γαμπρό και νύφη τους δυό μας στ’ όνειρό μου

μα του πάγωσε η πνοή, τα μπράτσα του νεκρά

το αίμα του άλικο στα ρείκια.

 

στη μάχη ειν’ αψύς, στην αγάπη τρυφερός

δεν έκανε πίσω στους εχθρούς μας

αλλά πίσω ξανά απ’ τη μάχη δε γυρνά

τη Μόιρα του να βρει στη Λοχ Λομοντ

 

T’ αγκάθια πάλι ανθούν, ρηγάδες κυβερνούν

τ’ απόβραδο άλλα σμίγουνε ζευγάρια

μα εκείνον π’ αγαπώ δε θα τον ξαναιδώ

ψηλά παν’ απ’ τις όχθες της Λοχ Λομοντ.

Andrew Lang (1844 – 1912) version (1876)

There’s an ending o’ the dance, and fair Morag’s safe in France,

And the Clans they hae paid the lawing,

And the wuddy has her ain, and we twa are left alane,

Free o’ Carlisle gaol in the dawing.

For my love’s heart brake in twa, when she kenned the Cause’s fa’,

And she sleeps where there’s never nane shall waken,

Where the glen lies a’ in wrack, wi’ the houses toom and black,

And her father’s ha’s forsaken.

While there’s heather on the hill shall my vengeance ne’er be still,

While a bush hides the glint o’ a gun, lad;

Wi’ the men o’ Sergeant Môr shall I work to pay the score,

Till I wither on the wuddy in the sun, lad!

Ετελείωσ’ ο χορός και ο Μεγάλος ασφαλής

στη Γαλλία κι οι φατριές την πληρώσαν

οι κρεμάλες πια χορτάτες κι’ οι δικοί μας ξαποσταίνουν

του Καρλάιλ τη φυλακή όσοι γλυτώσαν

Της αγάπης μου η ψυχή πάει για το Σκοπό κι’ αυτή

και κοιμάτ’ εκεί που πια δε θα ξυπνήσει

σε κοιλάδα ερημική με τα σπίτια αδειανά

του πατέρα της το δώμα ερημωμένο

Όσο ρείκια βγάν’ η γή ο γδικιωμός μου θα βαστεί, παλληκάρι

όσο κρύβουν τα κλαριά όπλου λάμψη

στο αντάρτικο εγώ θα παλεύω όσο ζω

κι’ ας πεθάνω στη θηλιά, παλληκάρι!

Red Is The Rose (Irish version)

Come over the hills, my bonny Irish lass
Come over the hills to your darling
You choose the road, love, and I’ll make the vow
And I’ll be your true love forever

Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows
Fair is the lily of the valley
Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne
But my love is fairer than any

‘Twas down by Killarney‘s green woods that we strayed
When the moon and the stars they were shining
The moon shone its rays on her locks of golden hair
And she swore she’d be my love forever

Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows
Fair is the lily of the valley
Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne
But my love is fairer than any

It’s not for the parting that my sister pains
It’s not for the grief of my mother
Tis all for the loss of my bonny Irish lass
That my heart is breaking forever

(It’s not for the parting of my sister Kate
It’s not for the loss of my mother
It’s all for the loss of my bonnie Irish lass
That is leaving old Ireland forever).

Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows
Fair is the lily of the valley
Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne
But my love is fairer than any

Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows
Fair is the lily of the valley
Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne
But my love is fairer than any

Κόκκινο Ειν’ Το Ρόδο (Ιρλανδική παραλλαγή)

Κατέβα τα βουνά, Ιρλανδή μου ομορφιά

ναρθείς απ’ την πλαγιά στον καλό σου

το δρόμο να διαβείς και γω θα σ’ ορκιστώ

και θα ‘μαι δικός σου για πάντα

στα δάση του Κιλλάρνεϊ εσμίξαμεν οι δυό

στο φως απ’ το φεγγάρι και τ’ άστρα

που φώτιζαν λαμπρά τα ξανθά της τα μαλλιά

σαν μου ‘ταξε αγάπη για πάντα

Κόκκινο το ρόδο π’ ανθίζει πέρα εκεί

πανώριο το κρίνο της κοιλάδας

του Μπόιν το νερό κυλάει λαγαρό

μα η αγάπη μου είναι πι’ όμορφη απ’ όλα

Δεν είν’ για τον καϋμό της δόλιας μου αδερφής

δεν είναι για της μάνας μου τη λύπη

μα είν’ για το χαμό της Ιρλανδής μου ομορφιάς

που ράγισε η καρδιά μου για πάντα

(Δεν είναι ο χωρισμός της αδελφής μου Κέιτ

δεν είναι που τη μάνα μου έχω χάσει

μα που ‘χω χάσει εσένα Ιρλανδή μου ομορφιά

και φεύγεις απ’ τον τόπο μας για πάντα)

Κόκκινο το ρόδο π’ ανθίζει πέρα εκεί

πανώρια είναι τα κρίνα της κοιλάδας

του Μπόιν το νερό κυλάει λαγαρό

μα η αγάπη μου είναι πι’ όμορφη απ’ όλα

Άλικο το ρόδο στον κήπο πέρα εκεί

πανώριο το κρίνο στην κοιλάδα

του Μπόιν το νερό κυλάει λαγαρό

μα η αγάπη μου είναι η πι’ όμορφη απ’ όλα

On Raglan Road

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I saw her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I passed along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion’s pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay
Oh I loved too much and by such by such is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that’s known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint without stint for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May.

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had loved not as I should a creature made of clay
When the angel woos the clay he’d lose his wings at the dawn of day.


Patrick Kavanagh / Luke Kelly / The Dubliners

The Original Melody: The Dawning of the Day

Στη Ράγκλαν την αντίκρυσα μια μέρα φθινοπώρου,

πρώτη φορά και τόνιωσα τα σκούρα της μαλλιά

μια μέρα πως θα υφαίνανε για μένανε παγίδα

και θα μετάνιωνα πικρά, τον κίνδυνο τον είδα,

μα ήταν αργά όταν πέρασα σε δρόμο μαγεμένο

και είπα ας πέσει η πίκρα την αυγή σα φύλλο μαραμένο.

Στη Γκράφτον το φθινόπωρο γλιστρήσαμε στην άκρη

μαζί κι οι δυό ανάλαφρα στο χείλος του γκρεμού,

εκεί που φαίνεται ο βυθός του πάθους τι αξίζει

και ο λόγος της υπόσχεσης πόσο βαριά ζυγίζει.

Πλάθ’ η αφέντρα των καρδιών πίτες αλλά ούτ’ εγώ

δεν άργησα ξοπίσω της με το σανό στ’ αλώνι

γιατί πολύ αγάπησα. κι έτσι, μ’ αυτά και κείνα

η ευτυχία χάνεται, πετιέται, μαραζώνει.

Δώρα του νου της χάρισα και τα κρυφά σημάδια

‘κείνα που ξέρουν μοναχά οι αληθινοί θεοί

οι καλλιτέχνες, ποιητές των ήχων και της πέτρας

λόγο και χρώμα απλόχερα, ποιήματα να πει

με τ΄όνομά της έδωσα, και τα μαλλιά τα σκούρα

σαν του Μαγιού τα σύννεφα απάνω απ τα λειβάδια.

Σ’ ένα δρομάκι ήσυχο τη βλέπω να βαδίζει

τώρα, που εκεί φαντάσματα παλιά συναπαντιούνται

μακριά από μένα βιαστικά, τόσο που πρέπει ο νους μου

ν’ αποδεχτεί ότι αγάπησα ένα πλάσμα από πηλό

όχι όπως έπρεπε γιατί όταν άγγελος ποθήσει

φτιάξη από λάσπη γήινο, θα χάσει τα φτερά του

σαν έρθει το ξημέρωμα, το φως της χαραυγής.

‘Dark Haired Miriam Ran Away’

“synthetic sights and fish dim eyes, and all deaths loud display”
(θεάματα συνθετικά, θολά ψαρίσια μάτια και όλα του χάρου τα οικτρά, φανταχτερά κομμάτια)

Hair & Women: a history of abuse, body shaming, and patriarchy

Sonia: ‘I’m so much more comfortable in my natural state.’

 

A major component of “femininity” in the United States today is a hairless body, a norm that developed in the United States between 1915–1945. (Women and Their Body Hair).

hairlessness serves […] both to demarcate the masculine from the feminine, and to construct the ‘appropriately’ feminine woman as primarily concerned with her appearance, as ‘tamed’, and as less than fully adult. (Gender and body hair: constructing the feminine woman). 

Hair removal, at its core, is a form of gendered social control. It’s not a coincidence that the pressure for women to modify their body hair has risen in tandem with their liberties, Herzig argues. She writes that the effect of this hairlessness norm is to “produce feelings of inadequacy and vulnerability, the sense that women’s bodies are problematic the way they naturally are.” (The Casualties of Women’s War on Body Hair).

“Research into women’s personal grooming habits is, in many ways the study of systems of inequality…a woman’s body is imperfect unless it is somehow modified.” (The Taboo History of Women’s Body Hair in Art). 

Katie, one of the supporting female characters, exposes her fiery-red armpit hair as she leans back on a couch in an indolent, laidback position. Unsurprisingly, this causes the boys surrounding her to fall about laughing. Unfazed by their reaction, she poses the straightforward question: ‘What, you never seen a real woman before?’

This struck me as a significant moment in a film where it is unusual to see any body hair at all, and where, moreover, the female body is frequently objectified. It provoked me to reflect on women being told that they are most desirable when they look like prepubescent, hairless girls. Now that’s what I call unusual.

It got easier for me as the month went on. I kept reminding myself that in 2020, women should be at a point where they are able to own how they look. They shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed by something which naturally occurs from a young age (as early as eight years old, for some).

It’s hard to understand why we are labelled as ‘lazy’ and ‘unhygienic’ when we fail to meet this strange standard which, for some reason, men aren’t held to. At the end of the day, what is so inherently intimidating and wrong about body hair?  (Women and the Body Hair Taboo). 

Sonia, like many women of south-Asian heritage, has “grown up conscious of body hair my whole life”. Darker hair is more visible and requires more work to achieve a hairless look.

“Another beauty standard for south-Asian women is the focus on fair skin. I have black hair, so having dark body hair makes my skin look darker. Those two are linked. If you’re fair, you’re beautiful. Just look at Bollywood; all the actresses are fair.” When she was younger, school friends and relatives would often point out her body hair, with comments or offers to remove it. “Even as a baby I was really hairy,” she says. “People called me ‘mouseling’. My mum told me that my grandma performed a treatment on me using atta [a flour-and-water mix used to make chapattis] which she massaged all over my body and then removed to remove the hair. It would have been painful and I would have cried a lot, but it probably has removed a lot of the hair I would have had.

“As a teenager I had really low self-esteem,” she says. “I would spend time at home looking in the mirror, noticing hair in different places, such as my belly. I remember that when I was in year 9 one of the boys asked if I was doing Movember. That hurt because he went out of his way to say it.”

“I’ve come to a point where I’m so much more comfortable in my own skin and in my own natural state,” she says, although she admits she still has her moments. “After last year I still wasn’t comfortable with my facial hair. I’m still not, but I’ve been trying to keep up with just growing it out. I found out that some of my boyfriend’s housemates were making comments pitying my boyfriend and saying they feel sorry for him, which was extremely upsetting.”

Despite this, she says: “This movement has allowed me to reclaim what I was ashamed of as a kid.” 

“The body hair images we see are often still quite glamorous. And I wonder why is it that for something to be accepted and normalised, it has to be glamorised and made to seem beautiful. But maybe movements like this reframe what is beautiful.” She hopes that in the future women won’t have to toil so much to feel good about themselves. (‘I feel liberated’: the women celebrating their body hair). 

what may have put the issue over the top was the famous WWII pinup of Betty Grable displaying her awesome gams. Showing off one’s legs became a patriotic act. That plus shorter skirts and sheer stockings, which looked dorky with leg hair beneath, made the anti-hair pitch an easy sell.

Some argue that there’s more to this than short skirts and sleeveless dresses. Cecil’s colleague Marg Meikle (Dear Answer Lady, 1992) notes that Greek statues of women in antiquity had no pubic hair, suggesting that hairlessness was some sort of ideal of feminine beauty embedded in Western culture. If so, a lot of Western culture never got the message. Greek women today (and Mediterranean women generally) don’t shave their hair. The practice has been confined largely to English-speaking women of North America and Great Britain, although one hears it’s slowly spreading elsewhere.

So what’s the deal with Anglo-Saxons? Some lingering vestige of Victorian prudery? (Who decided women should shave their legs and underarms?) 

The publisher of the Ladies Home Journal, Cyrus Curtis, told advertisers that the purpose of the magazine was to give manufacturers a way to market their products to women, not for the benefit of American women. The goal of advertisers was to not only fulfill women’s needs; it was to create new ones.

Advertisements suggesting that women remove hair under the arm, and explaining how and why to do so, were published as early as 1908, and ran more steadily beginning in 1914.

Underarm hair in these ads was called “objectionable”, “unwelcome”, “embarrassing”, “unsightly” and “unclean”; and its removal indicated a person who had “charm” and “the last touch of ‘feminine loveliness'” and was “modest“, “dainty and perfectly groomed”; the practice was for “refined women” and “women of fashion. (History of removal of leg and underarm hair in the United States). 

in an essay titled Lady Love Your Cunt (1971), Greer further clarified the problem of vaginal oppression: “Primitive man feared the vagina […] It looks bad. Shave it. Pluck it. Cover it with your hand […] It smells bad. Wash it. Scour it. Douche it. DEODORIZE it. It tastes bad. Wash it some more. It’s sloppy. Mop it. It’s dry. Lubricate it. The language of pornography is full of cunt-hatred. […] If you doubt that the cunt is hated and feared by most of the population, how will you explain the hundreds of pounds spent in persuading women that they have an intimate deodorant problem? [Women are told] that cunts smell bad, not just when dirty or menstruating, but all the time”. (Cunt: a Cultural History of the C-Word). 

Body shame, as beauty becomes ethics, becomes shame of the self. It is much more serious. (Body Hair Is Natural. Society Thinking Otherwise Is Dangerous). 

 

More:

Did Renaissance Women Remove Their Body Hair? 

Caucasian Female Body Hair and American Culture

“Hair or Bare? The History of American Women and Hair Removal, 1914-1934

 

 

 

“beauty standards”

Euro-pean Theocracy

“The Polish interior minister, Joachim Brudziński, announced on Twitter on [6th of May 2019] that a person had been arrested for “carrying out a profanation of the Virgin Mary of Częstochowa”.

The “Black Madonna of Częstochowa” is a revered Byzantine icon that resides in the monastery of Jasna Góra, a UN world heritage site and Poland’s holiest Catholic shrine.

Brudziński, who described the posters as “cultural barbarism” when they appeared overnight in April, said: “Telling stories about freedom and ‘tolerance’ doesn’t give anyone the right to offend the feelings of believers.”

Poland’s ruling rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS) has sought to mobilize its core electorate in the run-up to the European elections by raising the specter of the country being overwhelmed by western liberal social values.

“We are dealing with a direct attack on the family and children – the sexualization of children, that entire LBGT movement, gender,” said the PiS leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, speaking to supporters last month. “This is imported, but they today actually threaten our identity, our nation, its continuation and therefore the Polish state.”

(Yeah, I know where you heard that before…)

PiS (Law and Justice) is a nationalist, conservative, Christian democratic and right-wing populist political party; currently, it’s the largest political party in the Polish parliament and its leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, is the country’s prime minister.

 

 

yummy!

 

A similar story played out in Greece in December last year, when a night club announced a Christmas eve party, to presumably celebrate the recent abolition of the blasphemy law in the country. The event was advertised with a poster depicting a masterpiece of Eastern religious iconography which has been digitally altered, adding lipstick, eye shadow, rouge on the cheeks and earrings on the portrait of Jesus.

Shock! Horror! The idea that God could be (gasp) gay or female! Heaven forbid!

Orthodox masculinity was triggered.

I read the same claims about “cultural barbarism”, “insulting the religious feeling”, “desecration of an artistic masterpiece”, “cheap/safe manipulation” etc.

The religious were “offended”. Their faith was “insulted”. Their precious, oh so insecure imaginary friend’s symbol got a booboo…The party was canceled after the organizers received death, arson and lynch threats. They had to delete their page from social media. They were targeted like people who dare “desecrate” flags in protest. Wait – what? Surely that’s happening in some backward theocracy – not in secular, progressive Europe?

No surprise, as far as Greece is concerned, at least. Women are still not allowed on The Monastic Republic of Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain of Men, a remnant of theocratic Byzantium in Northern Greece. Although women contribute via taxation to the upkeep and restoration of these monasteries, via EU subsidies. So much for equal rights…

 

Let’s step back a bit.

 

Countless images of universally acclaimed works of art, many far more famous worldwide than these two artifacts, both religious and secular (like national flags or their images), are used in public dialogue and protest; and for that very purpose – democratic, free speech & expression – they have been and are being continuously, critically, humoristically, even hubristically, iconoclastically, ironically, intentionally copied, altered, digitally or otherwise manipulated – to make a point, to satirically draw attention to a social issue, to raise awareness, to shock, to make people think, to provoke discussion, to speak truth to power, to challenge, make fun of, or parody academic, established, authoritarian, social norms, national symbols, icons or sacred cows.

Isn’t religion and religious beliefs one of those sacred cows that freedom of expression should be free to criticize, question, debate, denounce, refute, even insult and ridicule? Isn’t that precisely the reason secular democracies get rid of blasphemy laws? Isn’t that why Je Suis Charlie?

How can we justify censorship of art (or even anti-art, like the anti-capitalist Dada art movement) in order to exempt the religious sensibilities from the legitimate assaults by intellectual freedom and critical thought?

 

 

 

 

I personally welcome these artistic interventions – they are not just legitimate, they are necessary – we need them in order to evolve beyond the religious slavery: they protest and expose Patriarchy, its self-assumed, established sanctity and its authoritarian, dogmatic, homophobic, scare-mongering tyranny. It is the Abrahamic religions and their carte blanche free rein to abuse, indoctrinate, proselytize, exploit and brainwash people from childhood and subject them to their poisonous bigotry, to irrational fears and hatred of everyone who is “different” (women, gays, trans, infidels, atheists) causing immeasurable mental, physical and psychological harm through the malicious concepts of guilt, sin, eternal damnation and all the other putrid misanthropic Death Cult dogmas they preach – and to do so tax-free.

No idea and no belief should be exempt from criticism and ridicule. And least of all the religious, ergo irrational ones: they are the most powerful, the most toxic and the most harmful form of authoritarianism and organized, institutionalized abuse. What can be destroyed by the truth must be destroyed by the truth.

” According to the European Court of Human Rights it must be possible, in a democratic society, to criticize religious ideas, even if such criticism may be perceived by some as hurtful to their religious feelings. Freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights covers not only information or ideas that are favorably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also those that shock, offend or disturb. “

– Woman arrested in Poland over posters of Virgin Mary with rainbow halo.

– Mount Athos, Holy Misogyny

ps:

It’s obvious that the monks on Mt Athos are a rather special kind: much more weak and vulnerable to the temptation of female flesh than all the other monks in all the other monasteries in the world, that manage to retain their monastic integrity while allowing female visitors.

Instead of misogyny, this “holy” aversion to women sounds – or reeks – rather like fear: extreme pathological gynophobia, a dread of woman…

I wonder, are they equally vulnerable to the temptation of male flesh?

 

 

 

 

The Art of BS

Milady of Shallots

$96,000

mY hOmAgE tO aLfReD, lOrD tEnNySoN

Life, monetized.

We treat animals – even the nearest and dearest: companion animals – like commodities, because that’s exactly how we treat each other.

Everything other than, perhaps, our own precious self, sometimes, is a “thing” – an object. We don’t recognize the same precious quality – life, and everything that comes with it: sentience, emotions, uniqueness of each individual person – in others.

Our interactions with others (marriages, partnerships, friendships, family and professional relationships) are, more often than not, in the “civilized” world, conducted as forms of commercial transactions; people (and other sentient beings), individually and collectively, their emotions, their images, their identities, their ideas, their bodies, their genes, their lives and actions, abilities, activities, creativity, talents and personalities, their companionship, their friendship, their love, their devotion, their courage, their choices, their honesty, their loyalty, their intelligence, their service, their work, their labor, their dreams, their hopes, their fears, even their sacrifice and death, are bought, kept, retained, coerced, used, exchanged, calculated, monetized, exploited, sold and disposed of, often taken for granted and subjected to all kinds of cruelty, and their “value” weighed exactly as if they were commodities: property.

People use and abuse others and are abused by others and consider that a norm. That’s how our society raises children. That’s the subliminal message we are all subjected to from cradle to grave. That’s how we are taught to think. All our values have been replaced by money, property, wealth and “what’s in it for me”. Society has been replaced by the Market. Those who reject that model are considered congenital failures and “losers”: they are treated with contempt, blamed and shamed and made to feel guilty.

That’s NOT human nature: that’s corruption of human values, of humanity. That’s betrayal of Life, All Life. But hey, that’s how the System operates, that’s how we are conditioned, like Pavlovian subjects, to get our rewards…

“Everybody’s looking for something.
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused.”
[Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) – Eurythmics]

We’re all objects in the Market. Programmed. Indoctrinated. We – and everyone, everything else – are Monetized Currency.

That’s how we are trained to play the Game.

No wonder, then…

artwork: Fatima Ronquillo
https://fatimaronquillo.com/

(thoughts prompted by a comment on facebook).

“Follow Me Home”

 

Her mouth was dry, dry as the summer beating down on the bony knuckles of the land. Sparkling, scaly, rippling like the spine of a prehistoric serpent, the sea held the rock tight in its grip, surrounded, imprisoned. She could hear the pelagic heartbeat, the water’s breath hissing, wave after wave after wave writhing over the sand, retreating only to inhale, attack again, conquer, smother, subdue, relentless, insatiable. “Sand,” she thought. That’s how it will all end. The sea will painstakingly grind everything down; the whole world will eventually crumble into tiny specs, surrendering to her never-ending advances, until nothing else remains but sand and water. Ochre and blue.

She put the pad and pencil down on the marble steps, took the cigarette packet and the lighter out of her breast pocket, lit one; laid back on the hot shale slabs of the sun porch, closed her eyes.

That’s when it happened. Four o’clock in the afternoon. The radio was set up to come on, every day, Monday to Friday, tuned in to the hourly music program. Unusually, this time there was no intro, no spoken words, none of the familiar greetings from the voice of the host; she knew that voice well; for two years he had been introducing his ever-increasing audience to everything new that was happening in pop and rock universe, just as it was happening, and even before it “happened” for the big mainstream broadcasters abroad.

This time, there was no warning. The sound hit her straight and quick, right between the temples, to the heart, to the bone. That guitar, and the beat, and a voice that didn’t sound like anything she’d heard before. “You get a shiver in the dark, it’s raining in the park but meantime…” She jumped up, ran inside to turn the volume up. Stood still, permeated, saturated by the sound, inhaling it through every pore, soaking it up with her body, thirsty, hungry for more. Who was this? Where did that voice come from? More importantly – how did he know?

——————————————————————————————————————-

Aegean was always rough this time of year. The straits were whelping snakes. Northern winds descend furious onto the Cyclades, slither through the narrow gaps between the islands and have an orgy right there; Aeolus’ fury unbridled and unleashed smack-bang-wallop upon the ferry routes as the boats struggle to dock.

She leaned back against the wet white skin that enveloped the passengers’ lounge on the top deck, the thick crusty layers of paint on the metal ribcage that sheltered and isolated them from the elements. They’d be having drinks and coffees at the bar inside, some chewing sea-sickness tablets, others crossing themselves and praying. “You don’t need protection” he sang in the private auditorium of her mind. Convincingly, mocking his own disarming, exposed innocence, irony circling the vine of his passionate declaration of youthful love-lust like a playful emerald viper, almost imperceptible in the foliage of his green, raw voice, in his heartfelt, persuasive, self-parodying delivery.

She braced herself as the boat began turning to port, spray coming over the rails, reaching the chimneys with every dive of the bow, the fresh breeze stroking her face with cool moist fingers. Down below the engines were humming their monotonous baritone steady drone, the whole boat vibrating, its jarring pulse traveling through the metal, up from the soles of her boots to her legs, rising to her loins, stirring the anticipation in her chest, catching her breath short. That old anticipation. That old heartbeat racing. C’mon already, c’mon! Step on it, dammit, dock already, take me to him, now!

Eyes piercing the mist, drawn inland, mind racing over the once so familiar winding road to the north; she could follow every twist and turn and even do it blindfolded, back then. Young, fast, naive, reckless.

She had wanted so bad to go down on her knees and let the tears flow. But they wouldn’t come; she had wanted to sink below the busy waves, to the calm oblivious depths; sink to the sound of fingers picking, bending the strings on a night as the lazy wind is wailing…

 

The narrow streets are empty now. Just a woman in a long black coat walking up to the top of the hill. No cypresses here, tall and straight, stately and distinguished in their elegant grieving dresses. Just a few tough threadbare trees bent and gnarled and pitted by the wind, dry and hard like the bones of the earth their stubborn roots still hold onto, somehow.

And the tears still refuse to come as she leans over and touches the picture. It’s an old photograph behind the glass yet the smile is young, so young, so unbearably young, so impossibly handsome and cocky. Oh, that was a smile if she’d ever seen one! Sweat dripping from his dark hair on that summer day, as he threw his fist in the air, glorious, defiant, divine, looking for her in the crowd that invaded the pitch. It had to be that photo. She should have known.

Over the brows of the hills to the sharp-faced mountain, to the coves below, to the heaving steel-blue water, her roaming eyes stayed dry. No mourning. How can you lose someone who was never yours to own? There was no ownership. Just memories, and songs, and whispered words, his voice and hers, flashes of fragments they connected, images, heat, darkness, touch: her long silver scarf escaping as he untied it from around her neck, floating away on the breeze like a capricious eel under the moonlight that evening when they gazed into the shimmering water below, their toes on the edge of the abyss, themselves on the top of the world as they knew it.

He howled in the night like a wild one then, lifted her up high and spun her ’round and laughed; laughed like a madman, like a ram atop a granite boulder, and the world echoed his laughter, the goat’s song; queen moon smiled upon them as they tore off their clothes and feasted on each other like it was the last time.

Every time was the last time, knowing there was an end chasing after them, catching up with them every urgent moment; an abrupt end that would grab their heels and topple them hard onto the cobblestones of a crushing reality; an end stronger than both and inescapable.

Yet they didn’t care: they were careless about anything else but draining those moments, drinking every last drop of the seconds and the minutes and the hours, devouring, grazing skin on skin, stealing, grasping moments of now one after another, claiming them from life and death, converting visceral and temporary into immortal and eternal, hammering them onto time forever with breathless pounding, drawing themselves onto the invisible parchment of spacetime, indelibly weaving their togetherness into the fabric of the cosmos where it would stay, victorious, triumphant, two tiny fragile insignificant threads entwined, cheating Fates at their own game. Those summers and those winters they roamed upon the thin crumbled sliver of land in the archipelago like mountain goats, feral, fearless and free.

She began her descent towards the ravine, green and black schist awaiting below, no path, no road, no lush vegetation; just rocks and sand and thyme and wild capers and sky slashed by sunshine and cloud, blue turning into green at the narrow cove, granite jutting out on either side like two thighs parted, glistening wet, salty breeze stroking them; and a distant “e-e-e-e-e” now and then: horned beasts sticking their pink tongues out at the hairy god, laughing, mocking; Pan the entertainer blowing his pipes in the underwater caves for his secret audience, sirens and mermaids and sea nymphs, seals and starfish and serpents, dancing, seducing each other, invisible, hidden, elusive, quick to dive and disappear into the safety of myth, in the submerged courtrooms of Atlantis.

It was that tune, that liquid hypnotic sound of sea rippling, splashing and swirling on wet sand, rolling and whispering; the sound of hips moving together, of footsteps long forgotten, written and erased and yet indelible still, that fluid Aegean heartbeat tune of ochre and blue and blistering sun bleaching the carcass of the land, that once became a song; smooth like pebbles polished by water for centuries, elementary, ancient and timeless, primordial, universal, irresistible and compelling, that song playing over and over, in the room where Mnemosyne resided in perfect solitude inside her head; that song in her bones, in her veins, in her blood, all the way down, down to the water. Follow me home.

 

And the sea continued carving, gnawing, hissing, grinding, turning everything into sand.

 

Aletheia in the Abyss*

La Vérité sortant du puits
Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1896

 

Once upon a time, Lie saw Truth and thought she looked fetching and gorgeous. “Hey girl”, he said: “you an’ me babe, how about it?” Aletheia (that was her real name but the barbarians couldn’t pronounce it) checked him out and thought he looked fine and fit; so she smiled.

“Wanna go for a swim, beautiful?”, asked Pseudos (that was his name, really), encouraged by her smile, and grinning back at her; “it’s such a beautiful day…” Veritas looked up to the sky and indeed, it was a glorious sunny day and warm, just perfect for a swim. Pseudos was clever, charming, rakish, with an edgy look about him. Bad boy kinda cute. Sort of like Colin Farrell in his twenties, dark and handsome and intense. Bright eyes, easy smile, quick-witted. He had the gift of the gab, of course. He could lie for Ireland, which is a lot, and then some.

They spent a lot of time together at the beach, looking for seashells; he made her laugh; they watched the sunset turn day into a mellow evening; the full moon glided up onto the hyacinth velvet, shedding a myriad silver mirrors upon the shimmering sea. They danced and they kissed and they took off their clothes, with their bare feet on the wet sand at the edge of the water – she had nothing to hide. She was even more delightful naked than she was dressed, he thought. She really should never wear clothes,  if he could help it… Aletheia felt the water that was still warm and lovely, inviting in truth. So they began bathing and swimming, like two young ones in love.

And after that magic encounter Aletheia fell asleep in his arms, happy as can be. Only to wake up from the dream and find that her lover was gone, and her clothes too. Stark naked was she and rightly furious mad. She ran off, looking everywhere to find him, give him a right bollocking, and get her clothes back. She realized then, as she had time to think about it, who he was; truly, it was his nature to lie: he didn’t even know the reality about himself, truth be told…How could he? he was a lie, pure and simple; but his embrace was soothing, his kisses felt mighty sweet – that’s the attraction of comfortable lies…She hoped that maybe, just maybe, a little bit of truth off her managed to find its way into his heart – but she doubted it. She wasn’t sorry – to be naked suited her, it was liberating, perfect. But she was angry at him for stealing her garments and for getting away with it. Fury and passion made her even more stunning and powerful, but also very scary to humanfolk.

When the people looked at the Naked Truth they were shocked, horrified, threatened and enraged – how dare she appear like that before them? Had she no shame? They hated her boldness, because she was brave and real, revealing their cowardice and their false modesty. The clerics and the bishops, the hypocrites and the puritans, the lords and the sycophants, the courtiers and the serfs hurled abuse at her and tried to cover her up, drag her away, drown her in a well; they called her awful names, because she was a woman, bare, showing no respect for their high office and authority. A disobedient female, showing off her body, the embodiment of sin, so shamelessly…Terrified and triggered, they wanted her to vanish. Didn’t want to know. Be gone, they said, we don’t believe you. They closed ranks in denial.

Aletheia turned and run back to the water, disgusted with humanity; they did not deserve her; she hurled herself into the cool ocean and disappeared forever into its shadowy depths, hiding from the arrogant fools and the duplicitous braggarts: they were not worthy of her majestic true beauty. And ever since, Pseudos travels freely and swiftly among men, spreading his sweet-talking lies faster than the eye can blink; wearing the garments of Truth, he deceives and corrupts the innocent, satisfying the leaders and the common people alike, who have no interest and no courage to face the striking loveliness and honesty of the Naked Truth…

They much prefer the comfortable lies and falsehoods of Pseudos, shying away from knowledge and philosophy, science and facts; Truth is their enemy; they rather pay fortunes for the mesmerizing glitter of lies and the fool’s gold of false promises. Pseudos prospers and reigns supreme upon men, High Priest in their Churches, triumphant and venerated by rich and poor alike; famous and celebrated everywhere, he resides in Courts, palaces and parliaments, in books and in businesses, in trade and in classrooms, adored and worshiped by everyone.

 

*”Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in an abyss” (Democritus).

 

 

She Is Not Drowning; or, Truth Leaving the Well. Truth emerges from a well escaping the clerical hypocrisy and military force of the Dreyfus affair.
Édouard Debat-Ponsan, 1898

 

 

Clotho

 

As I look outside, my window clutters
from the charge of mighty steeds,
echoes of thunder, unspeakable deeds
most ancient, secret, unfathomable matters.

‘Tis not the trees I see, of now;
captured in the afterburn of things unseen,
long dead, but not forgotten, somehow;
a sea coils there: an ocean of liquid wings.

A thick, boiling ocean; a heaving abyss
of spirits and others who follow the trail
Clotho weaves, unsmiling; oblivious in bliss.
O ye, like a sang song. Like a merry wag tail;

yet indifferent, staring, with fingers of thorn
coldly stirring the chaos, the whispering foam.
And I welcome the waters. I gladly give in
I open the windows, I welcome them in…