Sunday, February 10, 2008

"Whatever you had done, I could have pitied and protected you. But because I am mad, I have betrayed you."

"And because I'm mad, I'm rejoicing in my heart, without a shred of pity, without a shred of regret, watching you go with glory in my heart!" Ingrid Bergman, Gaslight (1944)

Because some of my friends have asked to see photographs of my paintings, I have decided to post a few examples here. Some are old, some are newer. Of course photographs can never convey the real look of oil on canvas, nor the texture, but they must suffice. Thank you for asking, my friends. To see the real things, I'm afraid you will have to come to France (poor you!) and see them with your own eyes. I continue to paint and, God willing, will continue to do so until the day one too many batch of fumes clogs my lungs and my brain for the final time.
Leducdor








Saturday, February 9, 2008

". . .they're capable of anything."

Noah Cross (John Huston) Chinatown (1974)

¡ Ola ! I'm back. My apologies for being absent, but I just could not get motivated to sit down and comment on "things" in the megaverse as they roll in so relentlessly that one becomes numb. However, that being said, I have taken a deep breath and decided to set down a few thoughts.
I watched the Super Tuesday brouhaha this week on CNN International here in France, and was, as I am sure was a great percentage of the world, eventually rendered glassy-eyed and paralytic with ennui. It just goes on and on, does it not? And in the end, it was all still a toss-up with only the marginals being actually cast out. I was a bit disappointed with Hillary's slow momentum, but more astonished that Barack Obama is being swallowed hook, line and sinker by SO many. I saw a clip of Oprah (her of the multi-billions and still posing as the rep for the downtrodden, overlooked and underheard) braying, "I follow my truth, and my truth has led me to Barack Obama!" Who IS this woman? A preacher or an overpaid and rather banal TV personality? Good Lord, and she takes herself so damn seriously. I have news for all those out there following Senator Obama down the Yellow Brick Road - he ain't no John F. Kennedy, nor is he all that credible. There is a great deal hidden about this man - his Islamic background (not that I am against Islam, far from it [see below], but why is he hiding it?), his mysterious early days in politics of which he will not reveal the records, his unbelievably snotty and prickly wife, Michelle (who is no Jackie Kennedy, either), she of the off-the-wall comments that all the media quietly sweep under the rug, etc. Granted, Hillary is not a saint, either, but there is a great deal more transparency to her than to him.
Then Mitt Romney "quits", more or less. And in doing so makes a speech the likes of which has not been heard since Hitler rallied the gang in that grandiose stadium in Nuremburg with giant swastika flags, burning torches and hundreds of thousands of entranced aryan youths and party faithful. It was surreal. Mitt's rant of political/moral/religious/conservative correctness was breathtaking in a horrifying and very bad way. One can only be grateful the man was forced to withdraw. On top of which, his snide swipes at France outraged me in a very personal sense - who IS this jerk to swipe at France when he is a member of a cult that disregards its own religious truths in order to amass wealth and influence, is known to have no solid political backbone except that which his advisors dictate for 'today', and who advocates amending the constitution to reflect his quasi-religious beliefs (a chip off the old Huckabee, who advocates the same) ? May the angel Moroni and his secret underwear (check your Mormon data) keep him forever out of the highest places of power.
After a good night's sleep, I decided to counteract all the US newsfeed (which is, yes, highly different from the coverage one gets anywhere else in the world as it only feeds Americans with half-truths and insinuations) with a little marathon of my own. I loaded up three documentaries and watched (or re-watched) them with attention: "Farenheit 9/11", "Supersize Me" and "Sicko". Seeing the three documentaries in a 24 hour period really shook me. What IS going on with America? The picture was/is so bleak, so unrelenting, so terrible that you cannot help but wonder, "We went so HORRIBLY wrong somewhere, but just exactly where?" Eisenhower? Nixon? Vietnam? Reagan? Bush Sr.? And now of course, we have one of the worst international war criminals in the world who has run the USA for 8 years still trying, with his last political breaths, to poison the very roots of his own society in the name of greed and a warped, apocalyptic vision of a world where the greasy, entitled super-rich live on a luxury cruise floating on an ocean of the disenfranchised and enslaved. Jesus wept . . . .
Out of all this came, at last, a firm resolve. I had held on to a faint, third-level, back-brain hope that perhaps, possibly, maybe, I could/would return to the United States for awhile just to dip into the pool of my native land. That possibility is gone now. I shall not return, not unless there is such a massive revolution in American society as to make the world a VERY different place. I cannot sanction, even with my insignificant one small presence, ANY approval of America as it stands. So deeply corrupt, so hideously misguided, so unutterably greedy that it is no wonder the rest of the world is slowly, but surely, massing against the Western Imperium. There is something unutterably WRONG and vampiristic living in the heart of the United States and its own people are blind to the coming deluge.
And on that cheery note, I shall sign off for now, leaving you all with the thought, "Is he nuts? Or is he right?"
Leducdor