Sunday Facepalm: Trump Is NOT An Artist.

Ground views of different Border Wall Prototypes as they take shape during the Wall Prototype Construction Project near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry (photo by Mani Albrecht via US Customs and Border Protection/Flickr).

Ground views of different Border Wall Prototypes as they take shape during the Wall Prototype Construction Project near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry (photo by Mani Albrecht via US Customs and Border Protection/Flickr).

Jesus Fucking Christ, some people…

…The paper [NYT] published Michael Walker’s “Is Donald Trump, Wall-Builder-in-Chief, a Conceptual Artist?,” a clickbait headline for a piece about Swiss-Icelandic conceptual artist Christoph Büchel’s “nonprofit” MAGA which has created an online petition to have the prototypes for Trump’s border wall declared National Monuments. This aligns with a broader effort by Büchel/MAGA to frame the models as Land Art: since December 2018 they’ve been offering onsite tours of the prototypes, which a press release claimed “have significant cultural value.”  Value, of course, is not the same as meaning. The broad-strokes inferences of a facile transference of historical meaning into cultural value are obviously both political and artistic; in both contexts their implications are pretty toxic.

Politically, with its arch tone and conceptual trappings, Büchel’s project normalizes and sanitizes the man stoking tensions about nuclear war via Twitter (it’s reminiscent of Jimmy Fallon petting his hair) and actively threatening the livelihoods and futures of DACA recipients while undermining the US’s longstanding diplomatic relationship with Mexico (also: undermining all Mexicans as human beings). Artistically, it does a disservice to the real work of serious artists by promoting what, evaluated on the merits, is the worst kind of incoherent conceptual art — flawed in both concept and execution.

Per the Times, Büchel “is adamant he has no creative stake in the project” (which seems an odd way for an artist to establish integrity). He claims that “This is a collective sculpture; people elected the artist.” For Büchel, writes Walker, “Americans, by electing Mr. Trump, allowed his obsessions to be given form that qualifies as an artistic statement.” This kind of convoluted philosophizing to legitimate a flimsy artistic premise wishes to align itself with, or at least to appropriate, the Duchampian honesty that claims “It’s art because I say so.” Büchel seems to be doing something more insidious: using art-speaky language to prop up something I suspect he must know is pretty empty as a conceptual artwork (even if the prototypes themselves are visually imposing), while contributing to, and deriving press coverage from, a dangerously violent political context.

Not all Americans elected the Tiny Tyrant, Mr. Büchel. Actually, the majority of them voted against him. Büchel typifies the exact type of shallow, pretentious asshole, who, with nothing else to market, jumps on something they think is trendily controversial, coated with enough bullshit to engage the fleeting attention span of the ‘art world’, the one inhabited by people with less depth than a puddle. The most one could say about the wall prototypes is that they are a monument to unthinking bigotry and hatred; that they glorify isolation and dehumanisation. In the current time, when people have finally decided, rightly, that monuments to slavery and those who defended it are not appropriate, why in the fuck would these monstrosities be considered to have any value? This is a disgusting, infuriating story, and I’m going to go help myself to more tea and go feed the birds instead of risking a blown artery. You can read the whole thing, with all relevant links at Hyperallergic.

Coot.

The coot has a similar pose to the halcyon, f.54v, with its head turned back, biting its wing. It is shown correctly with clawed feet.

Text Translation:

[Of the] coot.  It is a winged creature, fairly clever and very wise; it does not feed on corpses and it does not fly or wander aimlessly but stays in one place until it dies, finding both food and rest there.

Let every one of the faithful, therefore, maintain himself and live like that; let them not scurry around, straying this way and that, down different paths, as heretics do; let them not be enticed by the desires and pleasures of this world; but let them stay in one place, finding peace in in the catholic Church, where the Lord provides a dwelling-place for those who are spiritually in harmony, and there let them subsist daily on the bread of immortality, drinking the precious blood of Christ, refreshing themselves on the most sweet words of the Lord, ‘sweeter than honey and the honeycomb’ (Psalms, 19:10)

Folio 55r – the halcyon, continued. [De] fulica]; Of the coot. [De fenice]; Of the phoenix.

Ganda the Rhinoceros.

Albrecht Dürer, The Rhinoceros, 1515.

Ganda the Rhinoceros was going to be the Pope’s rhinoceros, that is Leo X, but Ganda drowned in 1515. Ganda was immortalized by Dürer, and so remains the most famous European animal of the renaissance. And I don’t blame the elephant for running away. I’d run too. There’s a short video below, but you can read all about Ganda at Medievalists.

Couriers of the Incremental Apostasy.

The Couriers of the Incremental Apostasy.

The Couriers of the Incremental Apostasy.

David Lane, anti-LGBTQ Christian-nation activist, and pro-Trumpist, was extremely upset over CNN’s new year’s coverage. I think there were people having a good time or something. He wrote a rather long email to supporters, most of detailing the horrible effects of that there reefer madness, which can be read here. At the bottom, there’s this bit:

America was seduced in the last half century, not by the Communists, but by Secularism. Unelected and unaccountable judges have nullified a once Biblically-based public education and culture. CNN is a co-conspirator to the mortal sin affecting America. As a result of secularists replacing a Biblically-based culture with Secularism, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, et al., are no longer advanced as patriots, but decried as backward racists. Their stature is disparaged by fanatical anarchists, such as Black Lives Matter, who deal in the currency of brutality and dissension. Perversion and cultural deterioration are now abetted by spiritually antagonistic network executives and media elites.

Hmm. Everything I can find on Lane has him listed as an evangelical christian, so what’s mortal sin doing in there? That’s a distinctly catholic concept, I know, I heard it about it often enough growing up. At 60 years old now, I have racked up quite the list of mortal sins.

Oh, these people with their biblically-based bullshit. (Marcus has an interesting post up today about the replacement of theology with social Darwinism). Why do you never hear them talk about Jefferson’s happy desecration of the bible into something he felt was palatable? There was never a biblically-based culture here, but there was an attempt at that whole ‘freedom of religion’ business. That’s why there’s never been any official religion in America, unlike other countries which do have an official religion. Secularism was always the culture base here.

Let’s look at that list of people: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and…Robert E. Lee? Excuse me? How did he get into the presidential lists? I guess you have to get in at least a sideways defense of slavery. Oh yes, that’s right, slavery is biblically justifiable.

The people who make up Black Lives Matter, and their allies, are not anarchists, and they aren’t the ones who are brutal, oppressive authoritarians all dressed up in storm trooper gear, with military hardware, you evil fucker. There’s absolutely nothing at all wrong with dissent. America is nothing but one whole long history of dissent. What about the ‘founding’ revolution? The fact that people were revolting (also known as dissent) seems to get skipped over, time and time again. Your “founding fathers”, those thieves and murderers, started out the colonies due to religious dissent, and those dissenting people almost immediately found themselves the subject of dissent by a slightly different flavour of religious people. And so on. Jesus Fucking Christ, this whole mess called ‘America’ is nothing but one long argument.

Perversion and cultural deterioration is in the eye of the beholder, Mr. Lane. From where I sit, people learning to be accepting of those who have always been with us, rather than carrying on a long tradition of bigotry, hate, and oppression, is a good thing. That’s progress. That’s being socially forward. That’s putting the civil in civilisation. Being inclusive is not the same as “spiritually antagonistic”, it’s recognising that not everyone on the planet believes as you do. But there’s little worse than that to you fanatics, is there? I am so damn tired of seeing the word elites tossed around as if it means something. You never ever stop working, for one second, to bring about your theocracy, where you get to be the ruling body, the ultimate judge, the elite. So it would be nice if you would at least shut the fuck up about that. Oh yes, and as to your “unelected” judges, yeah your pos judges, like Gorsuch weren’t elected either. Might want to have a care there, because if you advocate for elected judges only, things might not go your way. Actually, that might not be a bad idea.

Charisma News’s Steve Strang also jumped on the CNN=evil bandwagon, copying Lane’s nonsense about weed, and adding a bit:

There almost certainly won’t be any further consequences. The reason is that morally debased Time Warner—which owns CNN—and CNN president Jeff Zucker are couriers of incremental apostasy as they pump sensuality, self-indulgence and promiscuity into the nation as it falls into moral anarchy.

Apostasy can’t happen fast enough for me, to hell with this incremental business. So, let’s see if I have this one right: CNN is evil, but grab ’em by the pussy is perfectly moral and good. Got it. Oy. You can read the whole mess at RWW.

Speaking of CNN, Alex Jones is frothing at the mouth over them too, in a more specific way. He’s targeted one Brian Stelter as the face of all evil. Apparently, this CNN correspondent runs everything, and he’s going to ruin everything for everyone. I don’t have television, so I don’t watch CNN and don’t have a clue as to who this person is, or why he’s the sudden target of Jones’s ire. Okay, he’s a 32 year old media correspondent.

While discussing the controversy swirling around Michael Wolff’s new book “Fire and Fury” on his show today, Jones compared Wolff’s smile to Stelter’s and speculated that the two are somehow related. This sparked a bizarre rant against Stelter in which Jones told his viewers that Stelter “wants to control every aspect of your life because he knows he is a cowardly, degenerate sack of anti-human trash.”

Oh, similar smiles! I guess you don’t get better evidence of evil intent than that.

“He runs your kids, he runs the schools, he runs the banks—this guy. This spirit. This smiling, leering devil that thinks you can’t see what he is. He is your enemy, period, all the narcissistic devil-worshiping filth. I see you, enemy. I see you, enemy. Enemy! Enemy! You are my enemy and I swear total resistance to you with everything I’ve got. Disingenuous, fake, false, broke-back, twisted, a defiler, a betrayer, a back-stabber. A devil,” Jones said.

Jones continued, “You will pay. You think I don’t see your face, scum? You think I don’t see you, Stelter? I see you, you understand me? I know what you think of me and my family. I see you right back, you understand that? You understand that, Stelter?”

My, my. That’s a hyperbole overdose and a half. Since this seems to come down to faces, let’s have a look at them:

Screengrab.

Yeah, it’s not hard to decide which face I would gravitate towards, Mr. Jones, and it wouldn’t be yours. You can see the video and read the whole thing at RWW.

Halcyon.

Portrait of a blue bird with webbed feet and a saw bill, a Halcyon.

Portrait of a blue bird with webbed feet and a saw bill, a Halcyon.

Text Translation:

[Of the halcyon] The halcyon is a seabird which produces its young on the shore, depositing its eggs in the sand, around midwinter. It chooses as the time to hatch its young, the period when the sea is at its highest and the waves break more fiercely than usual on the shore; with the result that the grace with which this bird is endowed shines forth the more, with the dignity of an unexpected calm. For it is a fact that when the sea has been raging, once the halcyon’s eggs have been laid, it suddenly becomes gentle, all the stormy winds subside, the strong breezes lighten, and as the wind drops, the sea lies calm, until the halcyon hatches its eggs.

The eggs take seven days to hatch, at the end of which the halcyon brings forth its young and the hatching is at an end. The halcyon takes a further seven days to feed its chicks until they begin to grow into young birds. Such a short feeding-time is nothing to marvel at, since the completion when the hatching process takes so few days.

This little bird is endowed by God with such grace that sailors know with confidence that these fourteen days will be days of fine weather and call them ‘the halcyon days’, in which there will be no period of stormy weather.

Folio 54v – the partridge, continued. [De altione]; Of the halcyon.