Daily Archives: July 15, 2011

Art and Culture, Bees

Does It Play To or With Our Cult of Celebrity?

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Mid-Summer                                                                    Waxing Honey Flow Moon

So.  Attended a political meeting in the morning, came  home, took a long nap, got up and put Helmsman varnish on the honey supers, six, then went up and watched some TV after a conversation with Mark and Kate.

Today had one weird announcement.  This statue of Marilyn Monroe in Chicago.  Only time will tell if it is really in as bad a taste as it seems to be.  Not sure quite what to think of it.  Guess I’d have to see it in person.  No, I would have to see it in person.

What’s good.  It’s a famous image, made bigger than lifesize in a believable way.  It’s either saucy or sexist, or both.  It puts the whole 1950’s/1960’s era right there, in the midst of 21st century Chicago.  It’s pop art, I suppose.  It is a joyous image, a woman apparently secure in her sexuality and having fun.  It is a heroine sized sculpture, a monumental tip of the hat to Marilyn, a complex figure for 1960’s era boys and girls.

What’s bad.  It invites the pictures I’ve already seen posted of men standing between her legs and looking up.  Of course, that’s on the men, yes, but still.  It draws us into a stereotypical display of woman as object, as object of desire, of silly non-chalance as an antidote for prurience. (which, come to think of it, maybe it is.)   It plays to our cult of the celebrity. (or, does it play with our cult of celebrity?)

If you’ve seen it, I’m interested in what you thought.

Politics, Weather +Climate

The Deal. The Old Deal, Not A Big Deal.

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Mid-Summer                                                               Waxing Honey Flow Moon

Apres deluge.  Drove into St. Paul this morning, a long chunk of the ride behind a pick-up with Louisiana plates.  Felt like the bayou during the tail end of a hurricane.  Driving in Minnesota seems to perplex our citizens when there is a significant amount of precipitation.  Makes the whole driving experience a little like pin ball.

Big political news.  A deal.  Done on the backs of the poor and the K-12 education system.  Brilliant.  A Republican coup for which they need to be held responsible come 2012.  Of course, any election results next year may have a null effect if the world ends in December before the victors can take office.  I’m not counting on the end of the world however.

The Star-Tribune ran an article that said, and I believe it to be true, that the Republican focus has shifted from balanced budgets to smaller government.  Evidence for this in the article was the Republican agreement to a Federal budget that didn’t balance for three decades.  The same tone has sharpened and polarized the budget debate here in Minnesota.  To the extent that this focus remains and clarifies for Republican pols the situation becomes a struggle over the meaning and purpose of government.

It is arguable though, and I would agree with it, that electoral politics are so broken in the United States that our two parties are twiddle dum and twiddle dee.  That is, both parties have become lapdogs for the corporate oligarchy that runs America, bending policy and legislation to suit the flood of money that washes over each election cycle and that gets rinsed in the legislative session that follows.  Finally, the public is hung out to dry.

Still, I find it important to engage party politics because there are so many short term issues effected by the differences between dum and dee.  Read the details of the budget compromise and you’ll see the kind of things I’m talking about.

To engage party politics as a long term political solution, however, will not get us where we need to go.  We need to pick up the banner of economic justice and push equity in every venue we can.