D'où venons-nous? / Qui sommes-nous? / Où allons-nous?- P. Gauguin, 1897
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where this large painting (54 3/4 x 147 1/2 in.) may be visited


Who am I? How Did I Get Here? Where Am I Going,
Or, The Why Ask Those Existential Questions Two Step

Click the above title for the hyperlink to my story in the Summer/Fall 2009 "Inside the Grassy Knoll" ezine. It gives a little of my biographical information and an existential outlook on the world in two pages. It finishes up with two personal ghost stories: one that was there and one that wasn't.

Positive existentialism:

"If success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do... ... HOW WOULD I BE? WHAT WOULD I DO?"- R. Buckminster Fuller


Negative existentialism:

"Hell is other people."- Jean Paul Sartre

You need both in the broth.

"Only So" John Bonanno, 1988, Acrylic on Cardboard with mirrors, 6" x 9" (approx.), $100

Ah! The Old Days! I found this one in a trunk of old work. I remembered it fondly if faithlessly.
The words I wrote (expand the illustration and try to read it yourself if you desire):

This entrance, this passage, is the very womb, the mother of Anubis.
Here is the threshold of the palace of the company of the gods, the very lords of heaven,
The spinners of the curtains of the false infinite crypt,
Each to each and side to side,
Presenting elegant true-hued wands,
Capped with their true signs.
They alter their noble array in the slow splendrous dance of the stars.
A sweet howl shapes these words:
"Thy candle hath burnt out.
The wick is drowned in a little puddle of wax warm as blood.
Thy flickering flame hath found this portal.
Lift this hasp. Build thine hand and put thee in my grasp.
Shape thee a face and turn it to me.
Let Ptahtenen and thee to squeeze new eyes to gaze on the edges of this form,
Which emanates not.
My body is naught but nothing manifest.
I am a facile aspect of the body of Nuit.
Only so. Only so."

From the 1932 film Vampyr directed by Carl-Theodor Dreyer

"A hungry people listens not to reason, nor cares for justice, nor is bent by any prayers."
-Seneca (the Younger) De Brevitate Vitae, i. 18.

There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
-W.H. Auden, September 1, 1939

"Hunger is the best sauce in the world."
-Cervantes, Don Quixote

"Hunger can explain many acts. It can be said that all vile acts are done to satisfy hunger."
-Maxim Gorky

"Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving."
-O. Henry

"Hunger knows no friend but its feeder."
- Aristophanes

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
-Matthew 25:35-40

"Where people go hungry, to say that man does not live by bread alone is too easily misunderstood as an argument in favor or starvation."
- Theodore Roszak

“If you offer your compassion to the hungry and satisfy the famished creature, then shall your light shine in darkness.”
- Isaiah 58:10

“And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger.”
- Leviticus 19:9-10

“God says to Israel, 'My Children, whenever you give sustenance to the poor, I impute it to you as though you gave sustenance to Me.'”
- Numbers 28:2

"It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest."
-Dorothy Canfield Fisher

"I saw a few die of hunger, of eating, a hundred thousand."
-Benjamin Franklin

"Hunger is insolent, and will be fed."
-Homer

"Anticipate charity by preventing poverty."
-Maimonides

“In eating, a third of the stomach should be filled with food, a third with drink, and the rest left empty.”
-The Talmud

Huxley Vs. Orwell: Just a couple of irrelevant dinosaurs? (screen grab from the classic film, the Lost World, 1925, special effects by Willis O'Brien who later gave us the beloved original King Kong)

The other day, while squeezing off a few rounds at the Jesus Saves But Just In Case Church and Gun Club, I resumed ruminating on Aldous Huxley, specifically on the contrast between Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. Who was the greater prophet? Who was more accurately describing the future? Or, taking a Huxleyan approach to the question: who really cares? Orwell was brilliant in showing that the straw man enemy would be an invaluable tool of the government that wishes to indulge in infinite (or at least indefinite) war. Huxley's perception that humans, once their basic physical needs were fulfilled, would then require varied distractions, which would allow the prevailing masters to go about their nefarious business unhindered, was an essential insight into our reality. The answer is: they are both good at what they do. Orwell was a more compelling writer. He was scarier and more emotional. Huxley was intellectual, diffident, and objective. Huxley claimed Orwell was merely reflecting through a magnifying mirror recent history (Hitler's Nazi Germany and Stalin's Communist Russia) in his novel, while he (Huxley) was presenting a more accurate long range prophecy in his. If you accept the Tavistock stooge theory of Huxley, maybe he knew something. The future never is simple as long as human involvement is taken into consideration. In our time we see elements of both writers' visions jousting here and there. Brutal suppression is a handy tool to take down kids demonstrating against the G-20. But modern societies seem to be trending Huxley. Few people are even noticing.
Then I found this cartoon version, called "Amusing Ourselves To Death" by Stuart McMillen.
It's based on Neil Postman's book of the same name.  
But it must be acknowledged that the bleak world of Orwell and the vapid future of Huxley are not the only social structures that have been described in science fiction. Future posts will investigate some of these others.

"A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will’s freedom after it."
- Aldous Huxley

Ivan Sanderson, b. January 30, 1911, Edinburgh, Scotland, d. February 19, 1973 in New Jersey, photograph found here at UFO scholar Richard Dolan's website

"This is why I am a "Fortean," and very proud to be labelled as such. I have never been able to understand why all things serious should have to be taken seriously; and, especially, all the time. Frankly, my personal approach to life, the world, the universe, existence, and all the rest, is precisely as that of this man. I think it all stinks; but I think it is all perfectly fascinating; and I also think that one should investigate it all "scientifically"-but not (invariably) in a ponderous manner. Like Fort, I do not believe a word anybody says. I don't give a damn what they say, and I simply cannot help chuckling at a lot that they do say. I am interested only in facts, and the more outrageous, annoying, or unpleasant they are, the more I am interested. Then, like Fort, I also tend sometimes to burst into roars of honest laughter. In fact, nothing makes me laugh more heartily than discovering some pompous ass who has misquoted his own book. (I have three superb cases on file; all doyens of a certain renowned establishment!).."- Ivan Sanderson, "Things" Epilogue

I devoured his book Abominable Snowmen:Legend Come To Life when I was in the eighth grade in 1962. Although I now doubt the existence of Bigfoot as a resident our our normal plane of existence (although he could well be a fleeting visitor,) this book led me to a lifetime interest in primates and anthropology.

Read more on Sanderson here by Mark A. Hall at virtuallystrange.net

"Piggies"- John Bonanno photograph, August 2009

"Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure -- one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."-David Rockefeller, Memoirs, 2002

"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis, and the nations will accept the New World Order."-David Rockefeller, 1994 UN dinner, both quoted by Larry Flynt at Huffington Post

"I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay their hands on everything they can get."-- Napoleon Bonaparte

Random Thought, or, A Didactic Pronouncement on Baby Talk:

Talking "baby talk" to a baby is dis-functional, condescending and self-indulgent. Speak to a baby in clear and simple language as if you were speaking to a fully formed human being, for that is exactly what it is. Speak as intelligently, lovingly and as truthfully as possible. You and your child will benefit.

"Death, eternal punishment for anyone who opens this casket."
from the first scene of the 1932 horror classic, "The Mummy"
(All screen grabs via Netflix)

Karloff in makeup

I watched this short movie last night via Netflix on line. And what a wonderful service this is. The picture quality and sound is superb via cable.
I hadn't seen 'The Mummy' in almost fifty years and I was most surprised by the fact that Karloff is wrapped in mummy rags for only one scene early and one later in flashback as he is being prepared for burial alive. Predominantly Karloff appears as the ancient crackly faced Egyptian Ardath Bey (an eight hour makeup job by Jack Pierce) and, in flashback as Imhotep, cursed high priest of the Temple of the Sun at Karnak. He is literally, mesmerizing. And Zita Johann, as Helen Grosvenor, the reincarnated Princesss Ankh-es-en-Amon is an unusual Hungarian beauty whose lithe body is displayed to stunning effect in ancient and modern costume. Imhotep is cursed to eternal death for using evil magick when he was discovered attempting to resurrect the dead body of his love, Ankh-es-en-Amon using the scroll of Thoth.
I can see how this would upset the priests of Egypt. Only the gods may restore the dead to a new life. Imhotep would bring his lover back as a kind of zombie.
When archaeologists from the British Museum find his mummy 3700 years after these events one, a young Oxford chap Ralph Norton, inadvertantly restores Imhotep to a living state as a rotten corpse by reading the scroll of Thoth, which was buried with him. Why the old priests didn't destroy this powerful magick is beyond my comprehension. Immy, the mummy revives, takes the scroll, scares the young man insane, later to die, and assumes the persona of befezzed, Ardath Bey.
A few years later Bey leads some other archaeologists to the tomb of his beloved, Ankh-es-en-Amon. I couldn't figure out why later in Cairo Imhotep didn't instantly recognize the lovely Helen Grosvenor as his lost love reincarnated, but it took some effort for him to discern what is made obvious to the viewer.
All in all this is a historic film which incorporated current archaeology (at the time Tutankhamun's tomb had been recently discovered and stories of a curse were circulating in the press) in a simple, timeless plot: a man is driven to a forbidden act by despair over lost love. The chills in this film are primarily atmospheric done via makeup, lighting, Egyptian gear, and the power of Karloff's acting. Tana leaves are never mentioned in this film. They first make their appearance in 1940 in a later Universal Mummy series featuring Kharis as the mummy and lover from the land of the dead.
Imhotep's death count: young archaeologist Ralph Norton, a museum guard, archaeologist Sir Joseph Whemple, and Helen's dog Wolfram

"My pool is sometimes troubled. One sees strange fantasies in the water. But they pass like dreams."- Ardath Bey to Helen Grosvenor, 'The Mummy'

"The great gods of Egypt themselves were not exempt from the common lot. They too grew old and died. But when at a later time the discovery of the art of embalming gave a new lease of life to the souls of the dead by preserving their bodies for an indefinite time from corruption, the deities were permitted to share the benefit of an invention which held out to gods as well as to men a reasonable hope of immortality. Every province then had the tomb and mummy of its dead god. The mummy of Osiris was to be seen at Mendes; Thinis boasted of the mummy of Anhouri; and Heliopolis rejoiced in the possession of that of Toumou."-Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough

".....science and technology were recently mobilized to save the mummy of Ramses II, after it was left to rot for several dozen years in the depths of a museum. The West is seized with panic at the thought of not being able to save what the symbolic order had been able to conserve for forty centuries, but out of sight and far from the light of day. Ramses does not signify anything for us, only the mummy is of an inestimable worth because it is what guarantees that accumulation has meaning. Our entire linear and accumulative culture collapses if we cannot stockpile the past in plain view. To this end the pharaohs must be brought out of their tomb and the mummies out of their silence. To this end they must be exhumed and given military honors. They are prey to both science and worms. Only absolute secrecy assured them this millennial power - the mastery over putrefaction that signified the mastery of the complete cycle of exchanges with death. We only know how to place our science in service of repairing the mummy, that is to say restoring a visible order, whereas embalming was a mythical effort that strove to immortalize a hidden dimension."-Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

mummy- c.1400, "medicine prepared from mummy tissue," from M.L. mumia, from Ar. mumiyah "embalmed body," from Pers. mumiya "asphalt," from mum "wax." Sense of "embalmed body" first recorded in Eng. 1615. Mummy wheat (1842) was said to be cultivated from grains found in mummy-cases.-Online Etymology Dictionary

The Unhappy Mainer and Unwanted Son, Edwin Arlington Robinson, b. December 22, 1869 at Head Tide, Maine – d. April 6, 1935 at New York, New York, buried in Gardner, Maine

Haunted House

Here was a place where none would ever come
For shelter, save as we did from the rain.
We saw no ghost, yet once outside again
Each wondered why the other should be so dumb;
And ruin, and to our vision it was plain
Where thrift, outshivering fear, had let remain
Some chairs that were like skeletons of home.

There were no trackless footsteps on the floor
Above us, and there were no sounds elsewhere.
But there was more than sound; and there was more
Than just an axe that once was in the air
Between us and the chimney, long before
Our time. So townsmen said who found her there.
-Edwin Arlington Robinson, from Dionysus In Doubt 1925

haunt: c.1230, from O.Fr. hanter "to frequent, resort to, be familiar with" (12c.), probably from O.N. heimta "bring home," from P.Gmc. *khaimat-janan, from *khaimaz- (see home). Use in ref. to a spirit returning to the house where it had lived perhaps was in P.Gmc., but it was reinforced by Shakespeare's plays, and it is first recorded 1590 in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The noun meaning "spirit that haunts a place, ghost" is first recorded 1843, originally in stereotypical U.S. black speech. Haunts (n.) "place or places one frequents" is c.1330, from the verb. -Online Etymology Dictionary

house: O.E. hus "dwelling, shelter, house," from P.Gmc. *khusan (cf. O.N., O.Fris. hus, Du. huis, Ger. Haus), of unknown origin, perhaps connected to the root of hide (v.). In Goth. only in gudhus "temple," lit. "god-house;" the usual word for "house" in Goth. being razn. Meaning "family, including ancestors and descendants, especially if noble" is from c.1000. The legislative sense (1541) is transferred from the building in which the body meets. Meaning "audience in a theater" is from 1921. Zodiac sense is first attested c.1391. The verb meaning "give shelter to" is O.E. husian (cognate with Ger. hausen, Du. huizen). Household is first recorded 1382; for housewife (c.1225) see hussy. To play house is from 1871; as suggestive of "have sex, shack up," 1968. House arrest first attested 1936; housewarming is from 1577; houseboat is 1790. On the house "free" is from 1889.

"And the Prophet Isaiah the sonne of Amos came to him, and saide vnto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not liue." [2 Kings xx.1, version of 1611]-Online Etymology Dictionary

Stone and Shadow, John Bonanno photograph, 2008

Anubis gives strength to my legs and I lift myself up,
Sekhet clears the way to heaven,
My wishes are known in the house of the Ka of Ptah,
I know my own heart, having mastered its passions,
My hands and arms are returned transformed and deft,
I can move with speed my feet and legs that I may go.
I do what is pleasing to my Ka.
My soul is free of the rotting corpse recently bequeathed to Anubis.
The Gates of Amenta burst open, I depart in Peace.

-a paraphrase by John Bonanno from the Egyptian Book of the Dead

This passage is about getting out of Hell, a valuable piece of knowledge.

Papaver Somniferum, John Bonanno photograph, 2009

Cushing In The Sun, Beth Bonanno photograph, 2009

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."-Karl Marx, Capital

I believe Marx saw the varied phenomena of do-gooders as futile manifestations of a guilt complex. Conservatives usually insist on a similar analysis, which, of course, is a kind of atheistic nihilism.

"The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere."-Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

Marx saw the fallacy of globalism before almost anyone else. Unfortunately his solution (Global Communism confronting Global Capitalism) compounded the problem. Perhaps that was the plan all along. In this case the call to arms of one global movement for battle against another global movement presents little choice at all since the desired result, hidden in plain sight and occult to the many, is Globalism. Communism and Capitalism are irrelevant distractions.

"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is indeed the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man, state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."-Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Introduction

At the head of this entry, Cushing, my Boston Terrier is contemplating Marx. And so am I. Marx has been so demonized by the prevailing, recently triumphant, but rapidly declining Capitalist mode one can instantly marginalize himself by the mere admission of having perused and analyzed Marx' thinking and writing. As spiritually and functionally dead as Marxism in practice has proven itself to be, one may garner knowledge from the man Karl Marx. I have long stated that Capitalism and Communism are two sides of the same materialist coin. And this coin has been absolutely debased and its plated dross desperately attempts to simulate spiritual gold. On reading Karl's famous statement that religion 'is the opium of the people' in context, one is led by him to conclude that religion, in practice, in an oppressed world cannot provide true spirituality. (Whether Marx entertains the possibility that such a thing exists is glossed over.) This passage implies that only in a liberated world may one properly pursue what is the object of religion. I disagree, the object of religion must be attained to liberate the world; but this much repeated, truncated, and mangled quote simplifies in a most banal way Marx' essential argument: organized religion provides comfort in misery by indefinitely delaying a possibly fantastic and certainly untestable reward for the common man's endless struggles and serves the masters of the world in so doing. Opium and religion are both incredibly good at what they do to those who are susceptible. It is error to confound the goals of establishment religion and the longings of men and women for the sublime other.

A case in point:

"A Christian man is the most free lord of all and subject to none"-Martin Luther 1520

"And should the peasants prevail (which God forbid!), -- for all things are possible to God, and we know not but that he is preparing for the judgment day, which cannot be far distant, and may purpose to destroy, by means of the devil, all order and authority and throw the world into wild chaos, -- yet surely they who are found, sword in hand, shall perish in the wreck with clear consciences, leaving to the devil the kingdom of this world and receiving instead the eternal kingdom. For we are come upon such strange times that a prince may more easily win heaven by the shedding of blood than others by prayers."-Martin Luther, Against the Rioting Peasants, retitled by its publisher as Against The Murderous Thieving Hordes of Peasants, 1525

Luther admitted that the goals of his movement were now identical with the interests of those who possessed political power and that the peasants whom he had previously championed and had supported him, were shit out of luck. The peasants had the choice between Rome's Catholicism and the local nobles' Protestantism, both of which would screw them into the ground. It was a false dilemma, not even a modicum of freedom was an option for the masses, and the 'reformed' Protestant nobility of Germany killed at least a hundred thousand revolting peasants. Luther's freedom was only the freedom to be Lutheran instead of Catholic. Political freedom was out of the question.

"--People do not know how dangerous lovesongs can be, the auric egg of Russell warned occultly. The movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the hillside. For them the earth is not an exploitable ground but the living mother. The rarefied air of the academy and the arena produce the sixshilling novel, the musichall song. France produces the finest flower of corruption in Mallarme but the desirable life is revealed only to the poor of heart, the life of Homer's Phaeacians."-James Joyce, Ulysses

Coming Soon: Marx and Hegel! The Dialectic!

"The Very Last Thing You Will Ever See" -Beth Bonanno photograph of John Bonanno in character as Frater S.V.S.

Random Scribbles
(Or, Am I Now Channeling Larry King?)

The principal job of any intelligence agency is not to gather intelligence. It is rather to make everyone too ignorant and too stupid to ask the right questions and to foment the disturbances that make it too difficult and too painful to be intelligent. It must create muddy water.
The NFL draft should be replaced by an auction system. Each team would have a fixed amount with which too bid for all the players who make themselves eligible. The money spent would go into a pot which is then used to pay the initial one year contract of the players reflecting the amount bid. (Pay beyond that point could not be negotiated until the first season was complete. Unbid upon players become free agents.) I think it would be much more exciting, require more skill, and provide more interest than the boring thing they do now.
I would like to write a book listing all the popular dances of the last hundred years. Included in this encyclopedia would be descriptions of the dance, the localities in which the dance originated, photographs, and lore.
I need to write a long article about Japanese Knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum). I admire its tenaciousness.
Where have all the whippersnappers gone?
Corporate capitalism's goal is to create a virtual state of anarchy for itself so that its most powerful entities can roam the earth unchallenged. Corporate capitalism works to create exactly the opposite environment for individuals who are not in their club: repressive laws by many layers of authority, and assorted modes of taxation by those layers, confusion and fear of the policing entities that enforce those practices.
The greatest parasites on society have convinced themselves that they are the driving engines of it, and in so doing, have convinced those on whom they feed that the weakness they feel is their own fault or the fault of innocent scapegoats.
How long has it been since you were as happy as a shithouse spider?
Any magickal system, impeccably performed, is effective.
Are people whose names indicate a quality, e.g. 'Goode' or 'Goodman' any better than those whose names indicate something else, Mr. Wolfe?
If you have a large fixed interest debt, then big time inflation is good for you. You get to pay off all those dollars with much cheaper ones. You can be assured that as long as the banks are controlling the government (Hello Mr. Geithner, Mr. Paulson , Mr. Bernanke etc.) pay will fall, credit will be tight (unless you are a favored bank), and, inflation will be moderate. But, they can only keep the plates spinning for so long.
How can stock prices stay so (relatively) high? Is TARP money being used to prop up the market? It wouldn't take much in the low volume game we see on Wall Street now.
Prediction: By next year the UN will begin to take over countries designated "failed states".

"Half An Hour"-C.P. Cavafy

I never had you, nor will I ever have you
I suppose. A few words, an approach
as in the bar yesterday, and nothing more.
It is, undeniably, a pity. But we who serve Art
sometimes with intensity of mind, and of course only
for a short while, we create pleasure
which almost seems real.
So in the bar the day before yesterday -- the merciful alcohol
was also helping much --
I had a perfectly erotic half-hour.
And it seems to me that you understood,
and stayed somewhat longer on purpose.
This was very necessary. Because
for all the imagination and the wizard alcohol,
I needed to see your lips as well,
I needed to have your body close.

Polyphemus, Hellenistic head, 160 B.C.E., Boston Museum of Fine Arts, John Bonanno photograph. Polyphemus, son of Poseidon, was the man-eating cyclops of the Odyssey who was blinded by the clever Odysseus; his name means "famous" in Greek.

Charles Darwin, Monster and Racist (or, Polyphemus Long Ago)

Whatever one may think of evolutionary theory, there can be no doubt that Charles Darwin was troubled by the fecundity of the 'very poor' sorts of men and his ideas on natural selection (applied to social economics and termed by Herbert Spencer as "survival of the fittest" or "social darwinism") seemed to conflict with his Malthusian influenced notion that the 'superior' types might be overwhelmed by billions and billions of the immoral 'degraded' types. But is it really surprising that Darwin would worry about the "descent" of men and the danger of inferior types when his father was a financier and medical doctor to the upper class and his mother was a Wedgewood and he married his cousin, another Wedgewood of the fabulous porcelain fortune begun when Josiah Wedgewood was allowed by the crown to call his state of the art product, "Queen's Ware"? Darwin was concerned that his poor health was connected with inbreeding yet this and his Malthusian fear of overpopulation didn't prevent him and Emma Wedgewood from having ten children, a brood that in a lower class, non-Saxon family would have horrified him. Let Darwin's words speak for themselves:

"A most important obstacle in civilised countries to an increase in the number of men of a superior class has been strongly insisted on by Mr. Greg and Mr. Galton (19. 'Fraser's Magazine,' Sept. 1868, p. 353. 'Macmillan's Magazine,' Aug. 1865, p. 318. The Rev. F.W. Farrar ('Fraser's Magazine,' Aug. 1870, p. 264) takes a different view.), namely, the fact that the very poor and reckless, who are often degraded by vice, almost invariably marry early, whilst the careful and frugal, who are generally otherwise virtuous, marry late in life, so that they may be able to support themselves and their children in comfort. Those who marry early produce within a given period not only a greater number of generations, but, as shewn by Dr. Duncan (20. 'On the Laws of the Fertility of Women,' in 'Transactions of the Royal Society,' Edinburgh, vol. xxiv. p. 287; now published separately under the title of 'Fecundity, Fertility, and Sterility,' 1871. See, also, Mr. Galton, 'Hereditary Genius,' pp. 352-357, for observations to the above effect.), they produce many more children. The children, moreover, that are borne by mothers during the prime of life are heavier and larger, and therefore probably more vigorous, than those born at other periods. Thus the reckless, degraded, and often vicious members of society, tend to increase at a quicker rate than the provident and generally virtuous members. Or as Mr. Greg puts the case: "The careless, squalid, unaspiring Irishman multiplies like rabbits: the frugal, foreseeing, self-respecting, ambitious Scot, stern in his morality, spiritual in his faith, sagacious and disciplined in his intelligence, passes his best years in struggle and in celibacy, marries late, and leaves few behind him. Given a land originally peopled by a thousand Saxons and a thousand Celts--and in a dozen generations five-sixths of the population would be Celts, but five- sixths of the property, of the power, of the intellect, would belong to the one-sixth of Saxons that remained. In the eternal 'struggle for existence,' it would be the inferior and LESS favoured race that had prevailed--and prevailed by virtue not of its good qualities but of its faults."-Charles Darwin 1809-1882, The Descent of Man, 1871

Yes, it is all about class.

"The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate and is sometimes equally convenient."-Charles Darwin

"Centaurea macrocephala, Great Golden Knapweed, Armenian Basketflower"
John Bonanno photograph, Hiram, Maine, July 11, 2009

Helios finally deigned to shine on Maine this morning displaying flora to great effect. Centaurea was the herb of Chiron, the centaur. This specimen is about to peak. The big flower heads of this species, hence macrocephala, can be seen here in all states of bud and bloom.

"Chloë the Flying Cat" Early 1990's photograph by Beth Bonanno

Chloë was an extremely slight and very furry cat with a tiny head. My former wife gave her to me after some unspecified outrage she had committed in her house. She (the cat) loved it when I tossed her in the air and caught her. Eventually I began to fling her up in the air higher and higher. I used to sing the Jackie Wilson song about that to her. Her light weight and fluffy long fur allowed her to glide like a flying squirrel back down to me. She was a sweet but very dimwitted cat and this was her only talent. She also exceeded in catching me by surprise when she had kittens at an absurdly young age before I could arrange to have her ovaries removed. (One night she ripped out a hole in the bottom of my box spring and gave birth inside it while I slept.) She was never harmed by her aerial antics and she died of old age, her flying days well behind her.
This picture is cropped from an old print. Some dirt was retouched out of the sky but the cat is really up there.


Higher and Higher

Your love, lifting me higher
Than I've ever been lifted before
So keep it it up
Quench my desire
And I'll be at your side, forever more

You know your love (your love keeps lifting me)
Keep on lifting (love keeps lifting me)
Higher (lifting me)
Higher and higher (higher)
I said your love (your love keeps lifting me)
Keep on (love keeps lifting me)
Lifting me (lifting me)
Higher and higher (higher)

Now once I was down hearted
Disappointment was my closest friend
But then you came and it soon departed
And you know he never
Showed his face again

That's why
You know your love (your love keeps lifting me)
Keep on lifting (love keeps lifting me)
Higher (lifting me)
Higher and higher (higher)
I said your love (your love keeps lifting me)
Keep on (love keeps lifting me)
Lifting me (lifting me)
Higher and higher (higher)

[Instrumental Interlude]

I'm so glad, I've finally found you
Yes, that one, in a million girl
And now with my loving arms around you
Honey, I can stand up and face the world

You know your love (your love keeps lifting me)
Keep on lifting (love keeps lifting me)
Higher (lifting me)
Higher and higher (higher)
I said your love (your love keeps lifting me)
Keep on (love keeps lifting me)
Lifting me (lifting me)
Higher and higher (higher)

Now sock it me

Lyrics: First claimed by Gary Jackson and Carl Smith
later, Billy Davis and Raynard Miner of Motown claimed Jackson and Smith stole it from a briefcase there and successfully sued them for damages.

"Emma K II, Dismal Swamp Canal" 1980, John Bonanno photograph


"Lake Drummond, The Great Dismal Swamp" 1980, John Bonanno photograph

Swamp-1624 (first used by Capt. John Smith, in reference to Virginia), perhaps a dial. survival from an O.E. cognate of O.N. svoppr "sponge, fungus," from P.Gmc. *swampuz; but traditionally connected with M.E. sompe "morass, swamp," probably from M.Du. somp or M.L.G. sump "swamp." Related to O.N. svöppr "sponge." The verb sense of "overwhelm, sink (as if in a swamp)" is first recorded 1772; fig. sense is from 1818. Swamp Yankee "rural, rustic New Englander" is attested from 1941.-Online Etymology Dictionary

This is one of the fantastic places of the Earth. It straddles southeast Virginia into northeast North Carolina. The oval-shaped Lake Drummond may have been formed by a crashing meteoroid or a peat burn or a fire bird. The water of the swamp is unique in that the chemicals (primarily tannic acid) leached from decaying trees act as a germicide. Barrels of this amber water were once upon a time loaded on ships to take advantage of its famously persistent freshness. The dark color of the water is evident in the "Emma K" photograph above.
George Washington owned a 1/12 share in two syndicates called The Dismal Swamp Land Company and The Adventurers For Draining The Great Dismal Swamp to (obviously) drain it and build a canal from Chesapeake Bay to Albemarle Sound. Fortunately Washington and his successors failed in most of their efforts; a canal to Lake Drummond was dug but the great swamp could not be drained. It survives, less magnificently, today, as most of the original white cedar, cypress and gum has been logged. About half of the original swamp comprises the 107,000 acre Great Dismal Swamp National Refuge. Much was donated or sold by logging companies to the Nature Conservancy and transferred to the Department of the Interior after the last virgin forests were finally harvested by the 1950's and logging was discontinued in the early 1970's.
Runaway slaves hid here. There are bigfoot, ghost and ufo stories in a place like this, of course. One may see the eerie foxfire in the night. But it is not necessary to have heard the strange tales people tell to feel the magic when paddling utterly alone in its depths.

The Slave In The Dismal Swamp
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp
The hunted Negro lay;
He saw the fire of the midnight camp,
And heard at times a horse's tramp
And a bloodhound's distant bay.

Where will-o'-the-wisps and glow-worms shine,
In bulrush and in brake;
Where waving mosses shroud the pine,
And the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine
Is spotted like the snake;

Where hardly a human foot could pass,
Or a human heart would dare,
On the quaking turf of the green morass
He crouched in the rank and tangled grass,
Like a wild beast in his lair.

A poor old slave, infirm and lame;
Great scars deformed his face;
On his forehead he bore the brand of shame,
And the rags, that hid his mangled frame,
Were the livery of disgrace.

All things above were bright and fair,
All things were glad and free;
Lithe squirrels darted here and there,
And wild birds filled the echoing air
With songs of Liberty!

On him alone was the doom of pain,
From the morning of his birth;
On him alone the curse of Cain
Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain,
And struck him to the earth!

Bloodroot (pauson, red puccoon, Indian paint, red paint) Papaveraceae Sanguinaria Canadensis, April 18, 2005, Hiram, Maine, John Bonanno photograph

Bloodroot, a hardy perennial, is a member of the poppy family and as such, it requires respect. It is a favorite spring plant in my garden and I recommend it as an essential plant in any Goth themed garden. The flowers come and go quickly. Its name (scientific and common) comes from the sticky red/orange sap which flows through the plant. Applied in sufficient quantity it is said to have the ability to destroy flesh! Bloodroot is poisonous in large doses, causing convulsions, vomiting, reduced blood pressure, profuse salivation, and, finally, respiratory failure. If you expand the photograph you can see the orange tint of the sap in the flower stems. Lately it has attracted attention for supposed anti-cancer effects; for what it's worth, it is FDA approved for use in toothpastes for gingivitis. Traditionally, native Americans drank the root tea as a remedy for fever, laryngitis and various lung ailments; also the root was employed as a love charm and the juice as skin paint. It makes an attractive natural dye. I have found that bloodroot will tolerate a surprising amount of sun (but not full sun) for a woodland plant. It is native, but not plentiful in my area of Maine and is grateful for copious organic material and a moist, light soil. It spreads when happy but will never become a nuisance. What a useful and beautiful ornament to the garden!

"My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect."-D.H. Lawrence 'The Letters of D.H. Lawrence', edited by Aldous Huxley, 1957

RIP Sky Saxon (Richard Elvern Marsh) born August 20, 1937, in Salt Lake City, Utah, died June 25, 2009 in Austin, Texas

Of all the high profile celebrity deaths last week, this passing of an obscure garage rocker was most significant to me.
This obituary in the Telegraph.uk tells the tale. I loved the Seeds when I was of that age when you could love bands with wonderful energy, a quirky lead singer, one fantastic mysterioso hypnotic riff which could come in myriad variations and a minimal technical competence which was totally appropriate.
In this video Bettie Page becomes a beautiful angel, dancing to 'I Can't Seem to Make You Mine' in an enchanting tribute to the man, and what I imagine as a sublime welcome to the afterlife.


Love and Peace to you Sky.

"The educated man tries to repress the inferior man in himself, not realizing that by so doing he forces the latter into revolt."-C.G. Jung

"I'm Cracking Up" Photobooth Polaroid Photograph, 1977, John Bonanno

I wish I could remember what was going through my head then. How many photobooths are still around? These cameras produced a unique color tone. But it does looks like I hunger for blood after rising from my coffin. Note the artifacts of time and the artifacts of photography left on the print. Yet I remain remarkably youthful.

"Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there."- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State of Mind'

Graveyard, Hiram, Maine, John Bonanno photo
It was in this cemetery that I recorded, on a Halloween, an EVP (electronic voice phenomena) faintly but clearly and unmistakably, in an archaic accent demanding: "Live well."

"O.E. græf "grave, ditch," from P.Gmc. *graban (cf. O.S. graf, O.Fris. gref, O.H.G. grab "grave, tomb;" O.N. gröf "cave," Goth. graba "ditch"), from PIE base *ghrebh-/*ghrobh- "to dig, to scratch, to scrape" (cf. O.C.S. grobu "grave, tomb"); related to grafan "to dig" (see grave (v.)). From Middle Ages to 17c., they were temporary, crudely marked repositories from which the bones were removed to ossuaries after some years and the grave used for a fresh burial. "Perpetual graves" became common from c.1650. To make (someone) turn in his grave "behave in some way that would have offended the dead person" is first recorded 1888. Graveyard shift "late-night work" is c.1907, from earlier nautical term, in reference to the loneliness of after-hours work."- Online Etymology Dictionary

“Mr Bloom admired the caretaker’s prosperous bulk. All want to be on good terms with him. Decent fellow, John O’Connell, real good sort. Keys: like Keyes’s ad: no fear of anyone getting out. No passout checks. _Habeas corpus_. I must see about that ad after the funeral. Did I write Ballsbridge on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha? Hope it’s not chucked in the dead letter office. Be the better of a shave. Grey sprouting beard. That’s the first sign when the hairs come out grey. And temper getting cross. Silver threads among the grey. Fancy being his wife. Wonder he had the gumption to propose to any girl. Come out and live in the graveyard. Dangle that before her. It might thrill her first. Courting death... Shades of night hovering here with all the dead stretched about. The shadows of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O’Connell must be a descendant I suppose who is this used to say he was a queer breedy man great catholic all the same like a big giant in the dark. Will o’ the wisp. Gas of graves. Want to keep her mind off it to conceive at all. Women especially are so touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bed to make her sleep. Have you ever seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was a pitchdark night. The clock was on the stroke of twelve. Still they’d kiss all right if properly keyed up. Whores in Turkish graveyards. Learn anything if taken young. You might pick up a young widow here. Men like that. Love among the tombstones.” Romeo. Spice of pleasure. In the midst of death we are in life. Both ends meet. Tantalising for the poor dead. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the starving. Gnawing their vitals. Desire to grig people. Molly wanting to do it at the window. Eight children he has anyway.”-James Joyce, Ulysses

"Good Friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here:
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones."-Shakespeare's gravestone

"Or to take another eminent example, in which not Puritanism only, but, one may say, the whole religious world, by their mechanical use of St. Paul's writings, can be shown to miss or change his real meaning. The whole religious world, one may say, use now the word resurrection,--a word which is so often in their thoughts and on their lips, and which they find so often in St. Paul's writings,--in one sense only. They use it to mean a rising again after the physical death of the body. Now it is quite true that St. Paul speaks of resurrection in this sense, that he tries to describe and explain it, and that he condemns those who doubt and deny it. But it is true, also, that in nine cases out of ten where St. Paul thinks and speaks of resurrection, he thinks and speaks of it in a sense different from this; in the sense of a rising to a new life before the physical death of the body, and not after it. The idea on which we have already touched, the profound idea of being baptized into the death of the great exemplar of self-devotion and self- annulment, of repeating in our own person, by virtue of identification with our exemplar, his course of self-devotion and self-annulment, and of thus coming, within the limits of our present life, to a new life, in which, as in the death going before it, we are identified with our exemplar,--this is the fruitful and original conception of being risen with Christ which possesses the mind of St. Paul, and this is the central point round which, with such incomparable emotion and eloquence, all his teaching moves. For him, the life after our physical death is really in the main but a consequence and continuation of the inexhaustible energy of the new life thus originated on this side the grave."-Matthew Arnold, Culture And Anarchy

"Gloved Dance" John Bonanno, watercolor, 1990, $150

"Glove-O.E. glof "covering for the hand," also "palm of the hand," from P.Gmc. *galofo (cf. O.N. glofi), probably from *ga- collective prefix + *lofi "hand" (cf. O.N. lofi, M.E. love, Goth. lofa "flat of the hand"). Ger. Handschuh, the usual word for "glove," lit. "hand-shoe" (O.H.G. hantscuoh; also Dan., Swed. hantsche) is represented by O.E. Handscio, but this is only attested as a proper name. To fit like a glove is first recorded 1771."-Online Etymology Dictionary

"A pure hand needs no glove to cover it." - Nathaniel Hawthorne

“See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!”-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

"It was a peaceful day. The gentleman with the glasses opposite Father Conmee had finished explaining and looked down. His wife, Father Conmee supposed. A tiny yawn opened the mouth of the wife of the gentleman with the glasses. She raised her small gloved fist, yawned ever so gently, tiptapping her small gloved fist on her opening mouth and smiled tinily, sweetly."-James Joyce, Ulysses

The following glove references, in this order, appear in Ulysses:

"I want puce gloves and green boots."
puce gloves
kid gloves
gloved hand
rich gloved hand
"Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her like a glove, shoulders and hips."
canary gloves
"one plump kid glove"
"his other plump glovepalm"
small gloved fist
small gloved fist
"Father Conmee drew off his gloves"
violet gloves
"It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were scheduled to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns."
kid gloves
"Cigary gloves long John had on his desk the other day."
"Bloom, raising a policeman's whitegloved hand, blunders stifflegged out of the track."
"elbowlength ivory gloves"
glovers
"doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet"
"fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc"
warmgloved
"lovely ladies saling gloves"
canary gloves
"Clipclaps glovesilent hands"
"a pair of long yellow ladies' gloves"
"the present of Byron's poems and the three pairs of gloves"
"touch him with my veil and gloves on going out I kiss then would send them all spinning"
"I did I forgot my suede gloves on the seat behind"
"he kissed me in the eye of my glove and I had to take it off"
"he pestered me to say yes till I took off my glove slowly watching him"
"when I put on my gloves and hat at the window to show I was going out"
"when I put the chair against the door just as I was washing myself there below with the glove"

“It's a pretty sure thing that the player's bat is what speaks loudest when it's contract time, but there are moments when the glove has the last word.”-Brooks Robinson

"If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."-Johnnie Cochran