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Some nudes are more naked than others

Some days you just wish that you had a GuerrillaSign, like a church bell or a big spotlight that you could shine up on the clouds to call for the Guerrilla Girls wherever they were needed.

A gallery has replaced a painting of a naked man with a female nude after it received dozens of complaints.

The Mark Jason Gallery, in Bell Street, Marylebone, removed the offending image by artist Edd Pearman after more than 30 men voiced their objection.

Some said the picture would upset women, others said it was pornographic.

Mark Jason said: We did not anticipate just how uncomfortable and angry London men would feel about Edd’s screenprint of the naked man.

— BBC 2005-12-10: Male nude a flop with men

Thank goodness that family-friendly female nudes were ready at hand to replace it with. And thank goodness that those selfless men were there to speak up. How else would Mr. Jason have ever found out that the picture would upset women?

Saturday Poetry Blogging: Canción del jinete (1923)

April is the poet’s month.

Today is the last day of the Ministry of Culture’s celebration of National Poetry Month. Across the border at D.E.D. Space, Diane has some parting thoughts:

Some final thoughts on poetry…

Why read it? Because a poem can do two things for you. It can cause you to have a moment–and a lifetime–of joy over language. And it can say for you what you yourself have not found adequate words, or maybe any words, to express. Such is the nature of art, that we are enriched by both the medium and the message.

When people say they do not like poetry, they are denying the language, and they are denying their connection with the rest of the world.

— D.E.D. Space 2005-04-30: National poetry month–Day 30

The poem selected for this weekend leans on that connection with the rest of the world; it comes from the gay Andalusian poet, playwright, and political martyr, Federico García Lorca (1898-1936). It was written in 1923 and is sometimes titled Canci?@c3;b3;n de jinete (1860), evoking an era of smuggling through the Sierra Morena (the mountain range dividing Andalusia from northern Spain).

Canci?@c3;b3;n del jinete

C?@c3;b3;rdoba.
Lejana y sola.

Jaca negra, luna grande,
y aceitunas en mi alforja.
Aunque sepa los caminos,
yo nunca llegaré a C?@c3;b3;rdoba.

Por el llano, por el viento,
jaca negra, luna roja.
La muerte me está mirando
desde las torres de C?@c3;b3;rdoba.

¡Ay que camino tan largo!
¡Ay mi jaca valerosa!
¡Ay que la muerte me espera,
antes de llegar a C?@c3;b3;rdoba!

C?@c3;b3;rdoba.
Lejana y sola.

Here’s a translation, mostly fairly literal, but also attempting to preserve something like the music of García Lorca’s Spanish.

The Rider’s Song

Cordoba.
Lonely in the distance.

A black nag, the giant moon
And olives in my saddlebag.
Even if I know the way,
I never will reach Cordoba.

Over the plain, into the wind,
A black nag, the red moon.
The Reaper is watching for me
From up in the towers of Cordoba.

Oh, such a long road!
Oh, my valient nag!
Oh, but the Reaper awaits me
Before I ever reach Cordoba.

Cordoba.
Lonely in the distance.

National Poetry Month 2005 selections

Saturday Poetry Blogging: Psalm 126

April is the poet’s month.

While this secessionist republic of one normally adheres to a strict separation of Church and State, the Ministry of Culture has somewhat looser rules, and in honor of the first day of Passover (which begins at sundown this evening), this weekend’s poem is the 126th Psalm, the song of the returned exiles, a song of ascents. Variations on the Psalm are a common part of the Haggadah used for Passover seders. (Sidebar: you might also be interested to read Leona Green’s The Haggadah Revisited, one woman’s story of her search for a feminist Haggadah.)

I’ve used the New Jerusalem Bible translation here because that is my favorite of the ones that I had around the house. Note that if you were singing aloud this at Passover, you would (among other things) say Adonai, not YHWH.

L’Chaim, y’all.

Psalm 126

When YHWH brought back Zion’s captives,
we lived in a dream
then our mouths filled with laughter,
and our lips with song.

Then the nations kept saying, What great deeds
YHWH has done for them!

Yes, YHWH did great deeds for us,
and we were overjoyed.

Bring back, YHWH, our people from captivity
like torrents in the Negeb!
Those who sow in tears
sing as they reap.

He went off, went off weeping,
carrying the seed.
He comes back, comes back singing
bringing in his sheaves.

Sunday Poetry Blogging: Immoral (2002)

April is the poet’s month.

I wanted to post something by Andrea Dworkin this weekend; I know that she wrote poetry, but I don’t know where to find most of it. The published works that I’m familiar with are prose: essays, short stories, novels. Her writing is poetic wherever she writes, but I wanted something in verse. Since I couldn’t find anything in print and my resources for really looking for it are limited, I decided to go with this. I don’t know whether this counts as poetry or not, properly speaking; I do know that it is exactly right. This is from Heartbreak (2002), her memoir and the last book that she finished before she died.

IMMORAL

People play life as if it’s a game, whereas each step is a real step. The shock of being unable to control what happens, especially the tragedies, overwhelms one. Someone dies; someone leaves; someone lies. There is sickness, misery, loneliness, betrayal. One is alone not just at the end but all the time. One tries to camouflage pain and failure. One wants to believe that poverty can be cured by wealth, cruelty by kindness; but neither is true. The orphan is always an orphan.

The worst immorality is in apathy, a deadening of caring about others, not because they have some special claim but because they have no claim at all.

The worst immorality is in disinterest, indifference, so that the lone person in pain has no importance; one need not feel an urgency about rescuing the suffering person.

The worst immorality is in dressing up to go out in order not to have to think about those who are hungry, without shelter, without protection.

The worst immorality is in living a trivial life because one is afraid to face any other kind of life–a despairing life or an anguished life or a twisted and difficult life.

The worst immorality is in living a mediocre life, because kindness rises above mediocrity always, and not to be kind locks one into an ethos of boredom and stupidity.

The worst immorality is in imitating those who give nothing.

The worst immorality is in conforming so that one fits in, smart or fashionable, mock-heroic or the very best of the very same.

The worst immorality is accepting the status quo because one is afraid of gossip against oneself.

The worst immorality is in selling out simply because one is afraid.

The worst immorality is a studied ignorance, a purposeful refusal to see or know.

The worst immorality is living without ambition or work or pushing the rest of us along.

The worst immorality is being timid when there is no threat.

The worst immorality is refusing to push oneself where one is afraid to go.

The worst immorality is not to love actively.

The worst immorality is to close down because heartbreak has worn one down.

The worst immorality is to live according to rituals, rites of passage that are predetermined and impersonal.

The worst immorality is to deny someone else dignity.

The worst immorality is to give in, give up.

The worst immorality is to follow a road map of hate drawn by white supremacists and male supremacists.

The worst immorality is to use another person’s body in the passing of time.

The worst immorality is to inflict pain.

The worst immorality is to be careless with another person’s heart and soul.

The worst immorality is to be stupid, because it’s easy.

The worst immorality is to repudiate one’s own uniqueness in order to fit in.

The worst immorality is to set one’s goals so low that one must crawl to meet them.

The worst immorality is to hurt children.

The worst immorality is to use one’s strength to dominate or control.

The worst immorality is to surrender the essence of oneself for love or money.

The worst immorality is to believe in nothing, do nothing, achieve nothing.

The worst immoralities are but one, a single sin of human nothingness and stupidity. “Do no harm” is the counterpoint to apathy, indifference, and passive aggression; it is the fundamental moral imperative. “Do no harm” is the opposite of immoral. One must do something and at the same time do no harm. “Do no harm” remains the hardest ethic.

Dworkin Quote for the Day: humorless feminists edition

I will probably be preparing some kind of pseudo-comprehensive round-up of Andrea Dworkin memorials toward the end of the week when I have the time and the energy to collect myself and put the links together in one place. For the time being, I just want to mention two fantastic remembrances, from One Good Thing (2005-04-12) and Sappho’s Breathing (2005-04-13).

This is from Letters from a War Zone, a collection of Andrea’s essays, articles, and speeches, 1976 – 1989. The Nervous Interview was originally written in 1978.

In 1978 I wrote a whole bunch of short articles. I desperately needed money and wanted to be able to publish them for money. Of these articles, Nervous Interview is probably the most obscure in its concerns and certainly in its form and yet it was the only one that was published at all, not for money. Norman Mailer managed to publish lots of interviews with himself, none of which made much sense, all of which were taken seriously by literati of various stripes. So this is half parody of him and his chosen form and half parody of myself and my chosen movement.

Q: Can I ask you about your personal life?
A: No.

Q: If the personal is political, as feminists say, why aren’t you more willing to talk about your personal life?
A: Because a personal life can only be had in privacy. Once strangers intrude into it, it isn’t personal anymore. It takes on the quality of a public drama. People follow it as if they were watching a play. You are the product, they are the consumers. Every single friendship and event takes on a quality of display. You have to think about the consequences of not just your acts vis-?@ef;bf;½-vis other individuals but in terms of media, millions of strange observers. I find it very ugly. I think that the press far exceeds its authentic right to know in pursuing the private lives of individuals, especially people like myself, who are neither public employees nor performers. And if one has to be always aware of public consequences of private acts, it’s very hard to be either spontaneous or honest with other people.

Q: If you could sleep with anyone in history, who would it be?
A: That’s easy. George Sand.

Q: She was pretty involved with men.
A: I would have saved her from all that.

Q: Is there any man, I mean, there must be at least one.
A: Well, ok, yes. Ugh. Rimbaud. Disaster. In the old tradition, Glorious Disaster.

Q: That seems to give some credence to the rumor that you are particularly involved with gay men.
A: It should give credence to the rumor that I am particularly involved with dead artists.

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