In the summer time, during the CoVid summer, or at least the first one, My family, as is our wont, was out at the cabin in British Columbia by way of the Kootenays. As, they say in Canada: anything goes out at the Cabin. We spend our mornings there working on our individual screens, then when the child is too worked up we take him golfing or more to his preference, to the beach. There at the boat launch, sunburned, rednecked, and sitting in lawn chairs (as is our cultural preference) we take turns entertaining the boy. Sundown comes, and I try and cook something with fake meat that our Maga parents might possibly enjoy. The day’s adventure behind us we sit to anthestheria ourselves with wine and theatre.

Sharon was an ethereal River Goddess fertile and full. Tragically, like some classical myth it was ripped from her. Quite literally. Where is the Justice for this act? What can we rip from Manson like some enraged mob? Nothing.

For two and a half hours Tarantino contorted me into a position where I finally cheered and shrieked at the wanton murder of these fucking children.

I was in tears. I walked out of the theatre proud and facewet that Tate lived. And that she had lived.

This is such a wondrous mental illusion.

Like the illusionist who waves his cape and unfurls theatrically the prestige as its put. The frisson, the Drs. The dristi. We see the God finally. Taking Darshan means to see in Sanskrit. What is beautifully established in Hindu temples is the sensation of seeing something miraculous, the existence of a thing anticipated. Entering a Hanuman temple in South India is not unlike a Disneypark line. Full of barricades and waiting and scheduled liftoffs. It’s not unlike a sunrise or the sudden appearance of a famous person. Darshan and film take advantage of this natural excitement when a thing anticipated is finally revealed to us. As Bettleheim might say to us—comedy arises in us first when the mother covers her face with her hands and then suddenly reveals herself to the child’s delight. This great uncovering of the primal mother is the Tiepolo Pink, it is the arousal of the religious instinct.

Not like that Purist, that Christian, Michael Haneke, he who expands notions of time and space; whom prefers to rob us of our blood lust, and then rub our sadism in our own noses. No, Tarantino allows us to idle indulgently in our Calgon tonic lustblood bath.

And, so the 28 year old me cringed, and watched Ricky Gervais present every manner of office horror. Every racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist trope was on display and every time his David Brent was the winner. This is key to the whole critique. The office manager is simultaneously oblivious to his horridness yet painfully insecure. He resembles Trump in that his sense of self disgrace is so complete that self-attention is his only salve. And yet it burns. The narcissist burns like the crust on the raw chafed scrotum dry brushed with a razor.

The frame of a thing puts that object in a special place. Like the Vi in Vinyasa puts the nyasa—to put in place just so and here in a special way. Frame is an old German word Framian. And it means to be useful. A frame then is exceedingly useful. And the tv and the set and the lights and all that make a platform for the Spin Doctors. They are elevated. And in turn are elevated in importance in our mind and in particular due to my peculiar relation to the band and the topic in my consciousness. They are now important to me. They have import and have literally imported themselves into my thoughts. And, this is the context of the text. The tv show presents a musical guest and makes those persons “ready for use.”

“Well, I don't think I can handle this
A cloudy day in Metropolis
I think I'll talk to my analyst
I got it so bad for this little journalist”

Jimmie Olson’s Blues Spin Doctors

So now we have consumed this poem. And the use here is the importation. Brand recognition is this. It is-- how does the brand sit in the mind. You hear Exxon Valdez and you feel the brand, no? You hear Trump Tower and have an association. Importare its called in Latin. To Be of Consequence.

Humans throw balls back and forth. People depict sienna horses on a rock somewhere and mouthspray paint at their hands and dance around a fire. And some are very good. Schools are started. Institutes parade and indoctrify a tradition.  Look how we do things right.  Inevitably the girls are starved to perfection like rats and prostituted to the purveyors of amateur idealization.  Degas, and Matisse, and Nureyev, all dancing. Dancing for love.  Observers of form still and moving.  Lennart’s dream of an ideal female utopia has round lovely women.  It is a saving grace really. Like his three graces.  Like Matisse’s round lovelies. A more perfect world. A rubenesque world. A world becoming racaille.

A world where perfection is put to one side in favor of happiness.

Knowing this, Michael Jordan came to back the game, unretired again, to “teach” he said, and to right a wrong. His greatness at such an advanced age only reinforced misconception.

With Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois, I feel also there was a classic misunderstanding.  Like Christian soldiers we came to him, a jungle doctor, seeking freedom.  He was a Brahmin you see. He organized society. And paradoxically so, as a Shaivite he sought freedom from the tyranny of alienation. You are that, he said. This.. all this..  God.  And so these freedom seekers made him into God. And gave of themselves everything. Like a kind of arching comet in the sky this previous generation came to Guruji (we called him) seeking super consciousness, health, healing, and freedom.  And he sat there in his gravitational solar system moving energy, pushing aside obstacles, and demanding that we settle down. Have children, deny Islam, and homosexuality. We kissed him endlessly.  He fondled us. Those of us fat and soft found his hands shoved in our innards demanding a contraction. Our motivations were antagonistic.

What is tradition? 

Trans is Latin for across.  Dare is to give. And Tradere is to hand deliver though also to betray.  For to give across is also to get one over.  So this person who teaches a tradition betrays us with their pretentions to history, but also gives us something across history.  ‘Try this’ they say. Tradition is a gift not a commandment.  Tradition is something shared as well. They share this expectation of behavior. We share this gift of practice. Given the enormous value of inherited wisdom we share our admonishments as well. 

My Modern Art history professor in Chicago, the great art critic Dennis Adrian, said that what makes you provincial is your total disregard for great art in your backyard. (only a Chicago based critic would argue that) The Twee both covet and call out to the Capitol. Hipsters buy local.