Unravel the rich tapestry of Art from a society and you are very quickly confronted with ugliness, which strikes at the lowest common denominator, the wretchedness, of our condition. A life without beauty. And then it remains to be seen what capacity a society possesses to grind along the ugly trail of a life devoid of beauty.

It is entirely possible that people are willing to sign themselves over to a process of universal suicide rather than commit to the Promethean ideal of man which is just far too demanding and confronting a task for most, and in turn, threatens to show them up for their lack of courage, lack of intelligence, perseverance, and callous lack of imagination.

-From the novel ‘Invitation to a Beheading’ (1935) by Vladimir Nabokov.

I keep telling people I’m not liberal, I’m liber-ATED. Know the difference. The philosophy of the enemy, foisted upon weak minds, is an empty, crude plastic fakery. There is no higher responsibility for the liberated soul than to express.

And let that expression take the form of poetry, painting, music, sculpture, or what have you. The only criteria? As Kubrick (the greatest American filmmaker) famously asked: “Is it truthful? Is it interesting?” And I’ve been realizing that he was asking this of the *artist*. Is it truthful and interesting to YOU, the artist? Don’t worry so much about the audience. Kubrick’s movies were often dismissed and disdained initially, but appreciated much moreso upon repeated viewings.

Please accept the deepest gratitude for this essay. I know I will return to it many times.

But agree that life and reality cannot be reduced to
computer logic however complex it may get.
The mad scientists with ‘particle’ accelerators are
on a futile quest to nothing of any value to man or
beast.

“Religion is frozen poetry. The poets began by writing outside the boundaries of the tribe, and the priests appointed themselves the sacking editors.

“They hammered and cut and polished the wild free poems into tablets and catechisms and manuals of stern disapproval. They gathered up workers to build the temples where the new laws would be preached and taught. They established the penalties for defection. They staked an exclusive claim to revelation.

“They established the false and synthetic universal centrality of myth disguised as revelation, and they sold it, and they enforced it, and they prepared a list of enemies who were threatening the Law of Laws.

“And all that raw material, which they stole? It came from the poets. It came from the free and boundless creation of artists.”

Years ago, people, when looking upon the unlanded straight line of the horizon, imagined a waterfall at its “falling” edge.

This ideation, curtailed distant venture.

The Vikings slapped on their horned helmets, jumped blind into their ships, & said “F-this, we’re gonna take a look-see.”

Glyphs, hammered into rock, along the northeastern coast of the North American continent, bear long-witness to their contact & earlier claims of courage-d voyage.
~

Far, far ere, the Church-inspired sailings of Columbus.
~

Finding gold & BECOMING gold, does differ.

“Said underpinning, is more supportive, THAN birthing.”
~

“It’s all RELATIVE…”
~ Sayeth Al