Someone left a diet pepsi can on the empty table next to us and a person walked by it on the way to our table. They looked at it curiously, then anxiously touched it and then scurried to our table saying ‘YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TOUCH THE ART AND I TOUCHED THE ART!’
So we had a long discussion about dadaism and what is art and is art art and what makes an art an art and how the majority of artist’s statements are complete and utter bullshit fabricated to fill an arbitrary word count.
It should be mentioned that this person worked in an art museum and that we are both went to art school. We are certainly qualified to expound upon the 2% reduced fat fuckery that is art movements.
So when our visitor left our table, my girlfriend grabbed an index card and made the art official art.
If it’s still there tomorrow after the cleaning crew has been through, then its is now official art art that goes in an art art museum. If it is gone, then someone has TOUCHED THE ART.
And that is part of the art.
The act of the janitor tossing it in the bin… is a statement on art.
We all think we’re god-damned hilarious.
Well, someone came by in the morning and removed the soda can, but left the label.
Then later in the day, someone saw the tag and decided to put a Coke bottle there.
This is art, guys.
I’m 100% sure that this is art.
You can trust me: I’m a professional artist.
Once I was out at a nice restaurant by myself (it was Italian or something, nice but not too nice, I was just treating myself after a couple of tough days), and I had brought a book along to read. After I ordered a glass of wine, I went to the restroom and left the book on the table. When I came back, the wine had arrived, and after a couple of minutes a lady from the couple at the next table over came to talk to me.
She said they weren’t sure I was going to come back, that they thought I had intentionally left a copy of “Waiting for Godot” and a glass of red wine on the empty table as a piece of performance art. Maybe it was. Maybe, for that short time while I was gone, it was truly a work of art spontaneously occurring at the table where I was having a pity dinner.
1. Humans say ‘ow’, even if they haven’t actually been hurt. It’s just a thing they say when they think they might have been hurt, but aren’t sure yet.
2. Humans collect shiny things and decorate their bodies and nests with them. The shinier the better, although each individual has a unique taste for style and colouring
3. Humans are not an aquatic or even amphibious species, but they flock to bodies of water simply to play in it. They can’t even hold their breath all that long; they just love to splash!
4. When night falls and the sky goes dark, humans become drowsy and begin to cocoon themselves in soft, fluffy bedding.
5. Some humans spend time in each other’s nests! Just for fun! It’s not their nest; they’re just visiting each other.
6. Some humans use pigments and dyes to make their bodies flashy and colourful! They even attach shiny dangly bits to their cartalidgous membranes!
7. Humans are very clever, and sometimes adopt creatures from other species into their family units. They don’t seem to notice the obvious differences, and often raise them alongside their own young!
8. If a human sees another creature in distress, they can commonly be observed trying to help! Even at their own risk, most humans are deeply compassionate creatures!
9. If a human hears a particularity catchy sound or tune, it will often mimic it, even to the point of annoying themselves!
10. Sneezes are entirely involuntary, and completely adorable. Especially when the human in question becomes frustrated
11. Humans love treats!!! Some more than others. Many humans will save these treats specifically for a later date when they are in need of comfort or reassurance. IE, pickles, pop tarts, Popsicles, etc
12. They’re learning to travel in space!!! They can’t get very far, but they’re trying!!! So far, they’ve made it to the end of their yard, and have found rocks
Scandinavians are serious about their green roofs. They’ve had them for a while now and it doesn’t look like they’re going anywhere. They even have a competition every year to determine the best green roof project in Scandinavia by the Scandinavian Green Roof Association! But there is a reason why Scandinavians like these green roofs so much… They are not only a beautiful feature for a house, but they also offer numerous social, environmental and financial benefits. They absorb rainwater, reduce winter heating costs, reduce summer air-conditioning costs, provide insulation, and are long lasting - just to name a few.
He looks almost regretful, like he’s thinking about the time before Lucifer rebelled and was thrown from heaven. About the millennia of hoping redemption would come. About the fathomless pain that his foe has brought which must be ended now.
Honestly as much as I love the enthusiasm people are showing to beat up Nazis I can’t help but be irked at how people are perpetuating the historical fiction that America was the most vehement opponent of Nazism.
America only opposed the Nazis because Britain did. Britain only did because they viewed national boundaries as of divine import. Churchill liked Hitler until he started invading other countries. Pro-Nazi rallies were held across this nation, including at Madison Square Garden. Hitler directly praised American efforts at state-sponsored eugenics and treatment of Native Americans.
Stop playing Captain America. It really is a fluke of history that the United States sided against the Nazis. This election is not in defiance of American political culture, it is a fulfillment of it.
Same goes for Canada, who had the highest percapita NSDAP membership after Germany until we were literally at war with them and it was illegal.
See, I didn’t know that either.
Erasing history is how you ensure its repetition.
The United States turned back a boat full of Jews fleeing Europe. Many of the people on the boat ended up in camps and died. FDR refused to bomb the train tracks to Auschewitz. The United States likes to pretend that they were the good guys in that war and they l were fighting the Nazis because they valued the dignity of the lives the Nazis were murdering but that’s just not true. Saving the Jews and Rromanis was just a PR stunt.
The ship in question was the MS St. Louis. America by that point had a good understanding of what Jews in Germany were facing, but FDR refused entrance at the behest of his Secretary of State, Cordell Hull.
Hull and many of his pals, including future Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother, future CIA founder, Allen Dulles, absolutely knew what was happening to Jews in Nazi held territories and went out of their way to downplay, and in some cases cover up, those facts.
After the war the Dulles brothers, at the behest of their former clients on Wall Street, would go out of their way to prop up German businessmen and German businesses, often while covering up known crimes committed by those men and their companies during the war.
Some, like Volkswagen, survived relatively intact.
But one company had to undergo some fancy name changes post war. See IG Farben was, pre-WW2, the largest chemical and pharmaceutical company in the world. But being a German company it collaborated heavily off the new regime and gleefully took advantage of the opportunities the Nazis provided, such as a free workforce and test subjects.
Post war it was clear IG Farben had to be dismantled. Its board members were all put on trial by the West and most had their sentences commuted. Many spending little, if any time, in anything resembling a jail. They also weren’t forbidden from taking new jobs or forming new companies.
So the Dulles brothers set aside the considerable assets of much of IG Farben and by 48 their Nazi friends were off the hook and ready to start a new company.
You’ve probably heard of it. Especially if you take aspirin.
let’s not forget too, captain america was created by jews. jewish creators who were terrified and worried about what was happening in europe. They got hate and death threats for encouraging a US entrance into WWII. Captain America is and was a radical jewish invention
“Erasing history is how you ensure its repetition.”
Already, people are telling us that everything will be okay. That we need to be unified. And this is particularly a problem with clergy and in churches. “We have a diversity of viewpoints in our congregation,” they tell us, “so we can’t say anything. We have to respect others’ opinions. We have to respect how they voted. We have to hope that President Trump succeeds.”
This is, of course, bullshit.
There are a diversity of viewpoints in our churches and there always will be. Christians are called to follow our consciences – the Holy Spirit speaking in our souls – and not every person’s conscience will lead them to the same conclusions.
But to concede that all viewpoints are valid in the Christian life is to give up any desire we’ve ever had to follow Jesus. For each of us, our own conscience is the supreme arbiter of our moral choices – but our consciences are meant to be well-formed: in study of the scriptures, in learning from one another in community, from the example of Jesus and the prophets, and above all in prayer, where God speaks to us in the silence of our hearts.
We know what Jesus calls us to, because he tells us in Luke 4, quoting the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Proclaim good news to the poor. Proclaim freedom to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind. Set the oppressed free.
Our nation has elected a man who promises to take away healthcare from 20 million of the poor and the blind. Who desires to stop all oppressed immigrants and refugees from seeking a haven here. Who wishes to destroy our social safety net. Whose vice president believes you can use electroshock therapy to torture gay teens straight.
In the face of this, there is no middle ground, and it is not time for unity. Jesus comes to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor – but this is not the year of the Lord’s favor. Don’t let anyone tell you that the election of Donald Trump, the “will of the voters,” is God’s will. God’s will is not with the powerful. Success is no proof of God’s will. Rather, “by their fruits you will know them.” God’s will is for those who do justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly with their God. (Not things that describe our new President-elect!) God’s will, as he tells Mary, is to tear down the powerful from their thrones and lift up the lowly. As followers of Jesus, we are called to do likewise. We are called to resist.
And Jesus knows that although he proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor, we are not there yet. In the church we live in the “already-not yet” of the resurrection. Jesus has died and is risen. Death is vanquished. God reigns. Hallelujah! The kingdom of God has come.
But people still die. And many more people will die because of the choices of our election – poor people dying without healthcare; refugees dying because we turned them away. I have already heard this week of someone who committed suicide in part because of the fear of losing the security of having health insurance, and of multiple transgender teenagers killing themselves in despair and fear since the election.
The poor are still oppressed. And the oppressed will be even more so because of the choices of our election.
And Jesus knows that the year of the Lord’s favor, although he proclaims it, is also not present. Today’s Gospel lesson paints a dark picture of the world – a picture that, this week, we find realistic. “Nation will rise up against nation,” he tells us. “You will be betrayed even by family” – as many marginalized people were betrayed this week by their relatives who voted for hatred and white supremacy. “You will be seized and persecuted.” Jesus is speaking directly to us in our national situation. Jesus is speaking to a time of autocracy and persecution that is exactly like what Donald Trump has promised.
And Jesus tells us how to respond: “Stand firm, and you will win life.”
Stand firm.
Jesus doesn’t say: “Make peace.” Jesus doesn’t say: “Unify the country and be healed.” In fact, he says, “everyone will hate you because of me.” If we are not hated right now, we are not following Jesus. Because we follow Jesus, we will be called unpatriotic. We will be called traitors. We will be called sore loser, outside agitators. We will be told we are lacking in empathy because we refuse to listen to, to accede to, to make space for beliefs that promote hatred.
But Jesus tells us: “Stand firm, and you will win life.”
Resist, Jesus tells us. Never back down.
As Christians, we are called to be the opposition to the powers and principalities of this world, and right now those powers and principalities include our own government. And while the media, and President Obama, and many of our leaders want us to give up that role of opposition, to cooperate, the truth is that our ultimate loyalty to God – as well as our love for our country – require us to live into our role of opposition. That doesn’t mean we don’t accept the election results. Donald Trump is our President-elect. And we will resist him as such. We are called to resist every step of the way, and everything he does that will promote hatred, or add to oppression, or be bad news for the poor.
“Stand firm,” Jesus says, “and you will win life.”
And you’re going to say “But Christians are supposed to be loving! Turn the other cheek! Where’s the love in this?”
You’re right. We are called, always, to love. We are called to live in compassion. We are called not to judge.
Here is what being nonjudgmental means: it means seeing our enemies as fully human. It means looking past our disagreements to see them, really see them, for who they are. It means making the vulnerable and loving space to be human together. That loving presence is essential. It will save us. It may – if we are steadfast – eventually unite us.
We are absolutely, unquestionably called to nonjudgmental compassion, the kind of nonjudgmental compassion Jesus showed.
But nonjudgmental compassion does not mean we need to accept their beliefs. Nonjudgmental compassion does not mean we need to treat their hateful opinions as valid. Nonjudgmental compassion does not mean we need to question our own conviction to resist. We are called to show nonjudgmental compassion but also unshakeable conviction. We will resist.
Love without limitation. But never back down. Stand firm to the end and you will win life.
“In life we are in death,” we hear on Holy Saturday – the moment when Jesus has died but is not yet resurrected, the moment of holy waiting. Our life has been won. We rest confident in the knowledge that Jesus, in his death and resurrection, has won for us eternal life. We can fight here and now because we know that our life – our life here and in the world to come – is held in the hand of God.
But though our life has been won, we are still in death. We are still in a world that’s held in thrall to sin and evil. And pretending that the kingdom of God has already come will not bring it about.
Stand firm, Jesus tells us. Stand firm, beloved, when they hate you and persecute you. “Do not return evil for evil but overcome evil with good.”
Overcome evil with good. Don’t be at peace. Don’t seek peace where there is no peace – and there can be no peace without justice. Overcome evil. Overcome it with good. Resist.
Love without limitation. Never back down. Stand firm to the end and you will win life.
Gryffindor Math Major: Mathlete in high school/ Encyclopedic memory of precal and calculus. Can actually do 3456 x 284765 in their head. Asks questions in class. Pretty much what non-math people think of then you say you like math. Really hasn’t even thought about what they’re going to do with their life after completing their degree.
Hufflepuff Math Major: That kid who starts a group-me chat for the class so everyone can participate in the the weekly study groups. Gets good grades because they work really, really hard. Never misses class. Unreasonably good at explaining literally everything to literally anyone. Grows up to be a friendly accountant or that math teacher who completely changes they way you thought about math.
Slytherin Math Major: ‘Knowledge is power.’ Can’t do arithmetic for h*ck, but slaughters at abstract topics/advanced topics in calculus. Learns programming. Professors love ‘em, peers think they’re insufferable. Actuarial, or PhD track with extensive plans for departmental restructuring, taking over wall street, or advising really expensive proprietary software. Knows every single person in the department.
Ravenclaw Math Major: Math for math’s sake. Smartie McSmarterson. Incapable of doing things that don’t interest them. Already forgot precal entirely. Obsessed with research. Doesn’t need to go to class because they’re autodidactic as all get-out. Spends hours working on a proof, then feels bad because they should have figured it out sooner. Social anxiety panda.
