♥

Mai restare prigionieri degli schemi. Lo insegna questa scoperta fatta da un’amica fiorentina, Maria Luisa Ugolotti, architetto, appassionata di quel gigante del Novecento che è stato Francis Bacon. A Bacon nessuno ha mai negato la grandezza, ma di fatto lo si è sempre confinato nell’angolo delle “bestie rare”, degli artisti esagerati: altri sarebbero quelli che hanno tracciato le linee portanti dell’arte del Novecento. In realtà Bacon è stato un gigante consapevole come nessun altro in quel secolo di stare sulle spalle di altri giganti. Ne è testimonianza la sua riflessione ossessiva su uno dei più grandi ritratti della storia, l‘Innocenzo X di Velazquez, il suo amore per Michelangelo e per Van Gogh. Ma tra i “debiti” che Bacon sentiva di avere c’è soprattutto quello con Cimabue: il che la dice lunga sulla frettolosità con cui lo si liquida come artista blasfemo. Si sapeva che Bacon teneva nel suo studio la riproduzione del Crocifisso di Arezzo. Che lo teneva capovolto, perché vedeva lì un punto genetico per la propria arte (come ha detto Michel Pepiatt, grande studioso di Bacon, era «la sua armatura, il suo puntello»). Ora sappiamo, grazie alla tenacia della Ugolotti, che Bacon andò anche oltre in questo suo amore:  all’indomani dell’alluvione di Firenze del 1966 fece una grande donazione per il restauro dell’altro capolavoro di Cimabue rimasto drammaticamente danneggiato dal disastro: il Crocifisso di Santa Croce. La Ugolotti ha scoperto 27 giugno 1967 Bacon con un telegramma comunicò agli organizzatori del prestigioso premio Rubens, a Siegen, in Germania, che avrebbe devoluto l’importo del premio a quello scopo. Era un cifra, per gli anni  non indifferente: 10.000 marchi tedeschi corrispondenti a un valore in lire di circa 1.513.000. La Ugolotti è andata a vedere sul Corriere della Sera l’entità delle donazioni dei privati per avere un rapporto e ha verificato che le somme anche di personaggi famosi non andavano mai oltre le 10mila lire.

Questo sì che era vero amore. Come diceva un personaggio che mi è molto caro, le intese nascoste sono le intese più profonde…

Rules exist to be broken. That, anyway, is my excuse for doing something rarely if ever done here at Fugitive Ink — which is to say, posting a pure, uncomplicated, ‘here’s something you really ought to read’ recommendation.

Still, it isn’t every day that John Richardson — whose (not yet complete) biography of Picasso will continue to set a standard for the genre as long as artists’ lives interest anyone, whose Sacred Monsters, Sacred Masters is executed with such elegance that the full force of its immense moral gravity takes a while to sink in, and whose Sorcerer’s Apprentice is simply one of the saddest, most genuine love-stories I’ve ever read — writes about Francis Bacon. That, though, is what he has now done. Here.

Having tried to write about Bacon myself, here, my admiration for Richardson’s perceptiveness — and, of course, his prose — is now, officially, boundless.

Versucht man David Lynch wikepadiatorisch zu definieren, kommt folgendes dabei heraus: “David Keith Lynch (* 20. Januar 1946 in Missoula, Montana) ist ein US-amerikanischer Regisseur, Maler, Fotograf und Animationskünstler.”

Ein Multitalent also, dessen Durchbruch ihm mit Filmen wie Eraserhead im Jahre 1977 gelang (und er wohl deshalb die Frisur noch heute in Ehren trägt?), Blue Velvet, der ihn 1986 weiter auf dieser Welle reiten lässt und er mir persönlich mit Lost Highway und Mulholland Drive 1997 und 2001 zwei meiner Lieblingsfilme beschert: “Als Regisseur hat er eine unverkennbare Filmsprache gefunden (der SPIEGEL)”.Was einige seiner Filme, speziell Mulholland Drive, angeht, klicke ich mich noch heute durch alle Foren, um die Intetionen aufzuspüren. Der Meister selbst sagte einmal in einem Interview, das ich vor Jahren las, er verstehe seine Filme als Bilder bzw. Gemälde, bei denen jeder Betrachter einen jeweils anderen Eindruck gewinnt und er ihnen deshalb seine ganz eigenen Interpretationen abgewinnt.
David Lynch ist ein Meister des surrealistischen, grotesk anmutenden Kinos, das sich mit atmosphärischen Elementen des Film Noirs vereint und somit eine Art vertontes Kunstwerk schafft. Sohingehend verbindet er immer Kunst, Film und auch seine Leidenschaft zu experimenteller Musik, die er für seine Filme zu großen Teilen selbst produziert.

“Der Film entwickelte sich für mich aus der Malerei.”

Nun gibt er erstmals in Deutschland sein Werk als bildender Künstler preis und zwar im Max Ernst Museum in Brühl. Seine Bilder sind wie erwartet grotesk, gewohnt verstörend und ein bisschen anders. Die Einflüsse eines Francis Bacon sind sofort erkennbar, sieht man sich die sogenannten “Distorted Nudes”- Werke an, bei denen es sich um verzerrte und teilweise verstümmelte Frauenkörper, am Computer bearbeitet, handelt und auch etwas verstörend wirken. Die ältesten Werke Lynchs stellen die Aufnahmen der schmelzenden Schneemänner dar, die er zu den Dreharbeiten seiner Twin- Peaks Serie fotografiert hat. Auch gibt es großformatige Portraits und kunstvoll gestaltete Materialbilder.

Seine Bilder sind so zugänglich wie seine Filme, entweder man lässt sich darauf ein und die Interpretation erstmal aussen vor, oder man versucht  einfach nicht hinzusehen und verpasst dabei die ihm eigene und phantasievolle Art, filmischen Spielraum kunstvoll zu Nutzen.

Hier eine kleine  Auswahl seiner Bilder in Brühl, die ich hier leider nicht, wie er vor Ort, musikalisch unterlegen kann (was die surrealstische Stimmung noch authentischer erscheinen lässt):

Non è Rocky che m’interessa guardare, ma lo sfidante alle corde: ha la testa china, le gambe flesse, le braccia accennano una rassegnata difesa; e il viso è all’ingiù, come una lingua di bue molle, come un pezzo di carne sfatta dalla bollitura prima di diventare Montana da scatola [...].

da Un viaggio con Francis Bacon, F. Krauspenhaar, Novevolt gennaio 2010.

As a visual artist, BBC 2’s ‘School of Saatchi’ is one of the most depressing representations of the art world I have ever seen televised. These chosen 6 are being exploited. And they love it. Once their work has been exhibited in The Heritage, St. Petersburg, the chances are Saatchi will invest in it and never again will these artists have to worry about income, or getting their work shown (in other words, they will never have to work hard again), as the Saatchi machine will advertise and promote them with the same skill and success it did in the 80s with Silk Cut cigarettes and the Conservative Party .

Yes, Saatchi can make an artists’ career in a second but he can break it just as quickly and with the same ease. In ‘Supercollector’ an account is given of Sandro Chia, an artist whom Saatchi ‘bought up’, but quickly threw out of his collection (or ‘ISA’) ‘for works by other artists more strongly represented in the collection’ [and] hence they had not been sold on the open market ‘for the best possible profit’. They weren’t making money. Something else would. As painter Sean Scully remarked on his similar experience with Saatchi, ‘We are just pawns.’

Now some points about the show itself:

1) On several occasions, the panel, with the exception of Frank Cohen, displayed their shock and incomprehension of the idea that one could make art without having been to art school. Attendance at art school has never, ever been a necessary prerequisite to being an artist or producing artwork. Francis Bacon, Jeremy Deller, Billy Childish, Vincent Van Gogh, amongst many others, none of these now celebrated artists attended art school.

2) Let us remember that Charles Saatchi has no art background of his own, other than as a ruthless profiteer through the collecting of artworks. He is an advertising agent. All the artists selected on the programme are easily sellable, as they are easy on the eye and can be ‘consumed’ within a couple of seconds by the viewer. Note, as Kate Bush pointed out during the show, that Saatchi rarely, if ever buys, video, film, photography, performance. Because it does not provide a high enough, if any, profit margin.

3) Matt Collings on about Tracey Emin’s bed: Mr. Collings suggested that Emin’s ’seminal’ work captured the essence of contemporary art, and part of that essence was that the public found it difficult to understand. 99% of contemporary art is shallow and superficial. There is rarely any content or meaning lying beneath the tenuous surface. There is, therefore NOTHING TO UNDERSTAND. The only difficulty most people have with the dross that is termed ‘contemporary art’ is the fact that it sells for so much money.

What saddens me most about the programme and its very concept is that is gives the very strong impression that the ultimate goal and aspirations of all visual artists, in this country at least, is to be bought by Charles Saatchi. I would rather starve to death than have anything to do with that evil, duplicitous, greedy vulture. But there’s no chance of that happening. He wouldn’t touch me with a well-rendered bargepole.

¿Metiéndonos donde no debemos?

After a coffee in The Metro Cafe, boyfriend and I hit the high street, namely H&M and Zara. We were both pleasantly surprised by H&M. We walked in reluctantly for a browse only but came back out thirty minutes later with a deep hole in out pockets. H&M have obviously upped their game in recent months.

I bought a pair of dark indigo skinny Jimmy Choo jeans, a tight black fitted t-shirt with a metallic print to the front and two lightly chequered scarfs – one for myself and one for boyfriend. Boyfriend purchased a gorgeous grey fitted jacket – oh he looked to die for.

Next stop Zara – another pair of slim fit indigo jeans for me while boyfriend picked up two pairs of jeans, two hot t-shirts and the cutest beanie. Boyfriend can do beanies – I, unfortunately can’t.

We dumped our purchases in the car and hoped on a Dublin Bike and made our may north side to the Hugh Lane Gallery on Parnell Square north. It was our first time in the gallery and we were not disappointed. A friend of ours had recommended the Frances Bacon exhibition titled Francis Bacon: A terrible beauty. We were amazed. The exhibition gave us a unique insight into Francis Bacon’s life as an artist. The pieces on display were superb. Well worth the visit. What an extraordinary guy! One of a kind! He was most definitely one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century.

(See the wiki.)

From 1844-ish, Robert Boyle (1627-91), alchemist and natural philosopher, was among band of inquirers known as the “Invisible College” (later the Royal Society of London), who devoted themselves to the cultivation of Bacon’s “new philosophy” (Novum Organum [1620]): the Baconian method of inductive reasoning (by which a ”phenomenal nature,” e.g., heat, is reduced to a “form nature,” or cause that makes things hot), though he would never have admitted to being a student of any person or school, taking himself for a experimentalist par excellence. He relied on the documentation of first-hand observation of phenomena in the closed space of the laboratory, rather than hypothesis or calculation, as in the “Atomical” and Cartesian systems.

Reading in 1657 of Otto von Guericke’s air-pump, Boyle set himself, with the assistance of Robert Hooke, to devise improvements in its construction. The result was the “machina Boyleana” or “Pneumatical Engine,” finished in 1659, with which he began a series of experiments on the properties of air, an account of which was published as New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air, and its Effects (Made, for the Most Part, in a New Pneumatical Engine) (1660). He describes 43 experiments on the effect of air on various phenomena: the effects of “rarified” air on combustion, magnetism, sound, and barometers, and the effects of increased air pressure on various substances. He lists two experiments on living creatures: “Experiment 40,” which tested the ability of insects to fly under reduced air pressure, and “Experiment 41,” which demonstrated the reliance of living creatures on air for their survival (see the Wright image below).

(Among Boyle’s critics was the Jesuit Franciscus Linus [1595–1675], and it was while answering his objections that Boyle first proposed the law that the volume of a gas varies inversely to the pressure of the gas, the law that has taken his name.)

For Bruno Latour, Boyle’s innovation was to rely on a “parajudicial” metaphor (rather than logical, mathematical or rhetorical method), whereby

credible, trustworthy, well-to-do witnesses gathered at the scene of the action can attest to the existence of a fact, the matter of fact, even if they do not know its true nature.

What counts here is

not . . . these gentlemen’s opinion [a doxa, strictly speaking], but rather the observation of a phenomenon produced artificially in the closed and protected space of a laboratory. (We Have Never Been Modern [1991; Harvard UP, 1993] 18)

In effect, then, as Donna Haraway has suggested, the witnesses become “invisible” and “transparent”; but, in fact, “[v]ision requires an instrument of vision; an optics is a politics of positioning,” i.e., the good gentlemen bearing witness aren’t sitting on their invisible hands (“Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature [Routledge, 1991] 193 [183-203]). As Joseph Wright’s representation of Experiment 41 shows, affect positions the witnesses—man, woman and child alike in the enlarged socius of the late eighteenth century—vis-à-vis the object under examination.

Joseph Wright, An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump (1768)

This laboratory [L. workroom] is a new world: a designed micro-environment open to examination, a “theatre of proof”—not unlike a classroom, perhaps (Latour 18). And it is not an inside, an epistemological low pressure zone, of which society and politics are the outside that locate—or press upon—it, because “[n]o science can exit from the network of its practice” (ibid., 23). It is a microcosm where science and politics mingle—in the form of the quasi-objects of culture. That science and politics can be kept apart is the pretense of modernity, viz . . .

Thus, Boyle gives us a repertoire for speaking about nature (as constructed in the laboratory): “experiment,” “fact, “evidence” and “colleagues”—as Hobbes does for culture, i.e., politics (as embodied in the Leviathan): “representation,” “sovereign,” “contract,” “property” and “citizens” (ibid., 25).

———

For Peter Sloterdijk, the air-pump might well have whispered something more sinister (see Terror from the Air, trans. Amy Patton [2002; Semiotext[e], 2009; see “Airquakes” from Sphären]). In “Air,” Latour summarises Sloterdijk’s argument that chemical warfare (“military climatology”), which united terrorism, product design and environmental thinking, ushered in the age of “atmoterrorism” on 22 April 1915 (Terror 19, 23):

[A]ir has been made explicit; air has been reconfigured; it is now part of an air-conditioning system that makes our life possible.

Latour could have argued that this episteme was ushered in—or announced, at least—by Boyle 350 years earlier.

John 18:33-37

‘What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.’

Many of us think of Francis Bacon’s famous words when we read this account of Jesus before Pilate. But we have a problem: the Lectionary omits verse 38 where Pilate says, ‘What is truth?’ for reasons that are beyond me. Well, unless it is to do with the political correctness that afflicts the Lectionary in some places. Maybe Pilate has to be rehabilitated.

But aside from strange editorial decisions in the compilation of the Lectionary, this is a difficult passage, however familiar it seems. We read it today, because today, the Sunday before Advent, is the Feast of Christ the King, also known as Stir-Up Sunday, from the famous collect

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And hence Jane’s piece at the beginning of the service with the cake! If today were just about cake, we’d have few problems with it – maybe it would be suitable for Back To Church Sunday!

But the kingship of Jesus is a problem. It’s a problem throughout the Gospels, and it’s a particular problem here. The kingship of Jesus is a problem for everyone who encounters him. By considering how King Jesus is a problem for different people, we shall see how his kingship challenges us all.

Firstly, and obviously, King Jesus is a problem for Pilate. To return to Francis Bacon’s words, I don’t think he is ‘jesting Pilate’ at all. Pontius Pilate has a serious political problem here. As a Roman Governor, he is used to being able to throw his weight around, using the occupying army to subdue the locals. His trouble is that he has done it too heavily-handed once too often, having desecrated the Jerusalem Temple. The Jewish leaders had sent a deputation to Rome to protest, with the result that Pilate was on a final warning. However aggressive the Roman Empire was, they saw no need to cause what they believed to be unnecessary provocation in the lands they conquered.

So when the Jewish leaders hand Jesus over to him, Pilate has a big problem. Yet to be fair, he starts from a position of justice: ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ (verse 33); ‘What have you done?’ (verse 35)

Yet by the end of the interview, we know Pilate, like a politician today, will cave into compromise and short term expediency. Throughout the conversation, he can’t get a handle on who Jesus is. He doesn’t fit his categories. Because Pontius Pilate only understands one language: the language of politics. He’s expecting Jesus to be a revolutionary. Well, he is, but not in the sense Pilate expects: Jesus is no terrorist. Not only does Jesus’ lifestyle deny such an idea, he contradicts it in his reply:

‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ (Verse 36)

Some people seize on this as a sign that obeying the kingship of Jesus means we don’t get involved in politics. They quote it as ‘My kingdom is not of this world’. Therefore, they argue, since we are part of that kingdom, we should not get embroiled in dirty, everyday politics: that’s a different kingdom.

But what Jesus says is perhaps better rendered, ‘My kingship is not from this world’[1]. He’s not advocating withdrawal from the world, he’s saying that he does things differently. His kingship comes from heaven, where justice is not established by force or violence. His kingship is therefore radically different from the tactics employed by Roman Emperors or Jewish Zealots.

Jesus doesn’t bail out of politics: it is about the common good, and he cares about that. But his kingship redraws how his disciples will get involved. They will do so peaceably, not forcefully.

What does that mean for us? Not all of us are directly involved in politics. Apart from anything else, I believe it means that if we live under the reign of King Jesus, we conduct ourselves in public in a peaceable way. We do not shout, scream, demand, manipulate and scheme. We speak up more for the poor and the voiceless than for ourselves. We do so passionately, but without aggression. Is that possible? Jesus managed it.

Secondly, King Jesus is a problem for the Jewish leaders. There’s a lot of reference in John’s Gospel to ‘the Jews’. Tragically, down the centuries some Christians (and others, such as Hitler) have used it to justify prejudice and violence against Jewish people.

However, John does not use ‘the Jews’ to mean the entire Jewish race at the time. He normally uses it to refer to a distinct group, and he is clearly aware of other people in the story – not least Jesus – who are also Jewish but are not included under ‘the Jews’. Mostly, it stands for the religious authorities who are in opposition to Jesus and his ministry. It is these people, designated ‘the Jews’, who have handed Jesus over to Pilate (verse 32).

What’s their problem? Simple. Jesus doesn’t fit their expectations. Jesus is at odds with most of the major groupings in the Judaism of his time. He won’t cosy up to the Roman authorities like the wealthy Sadducees and some of the priestly classes. He won’t use the Scriptures as a weapon to exclude people in the way the scribes and Pharisees do. He won’t retreat to a secluded, pure community like the Essenes. And as we’ve already noted, he rejects the violent revolution of the Zealots. He just doesn’t fit.

So what are you going to do with a misfit who keeps causing you trouble? You’ll try to get rid of him. The traditional Jewish punishment of stoning was still sometimes spontaneously used, as we see from the story of the woman caught in adultery . But around AD 30, Rome took away the Jewish right to execute someone. But it further suited the purposes of the religious establishment to have Jesus crucified, because then by being hung on a tree he would be subject to a curse, according to Deuteronomy. It’s sobering what lengths human beings will go to in order to exclude someone they regard as a misfit.

I’ve talked before in sermons about the way we wrongly fit Jesus into our own preferred image and can’t cope with the fact that he won’t be confined to it. Recently, I read something helpful that a friend posted on Facebook. Pam is an American Christian (a Methodist minister, in fact) who recently returned to the USA from the UK. She has obviously been listening to the famous American radio show ‘A Prairie Home Companion’[2], hosted by the author Garrison Keillor, author of the well-known series of books that began with ‘Lake Wobegon Days’. Keillor, a Christian of Lutheran and now Episcopalian background, tells fictionalised stories based on life in rural Minnesota. They often draw on his My friend Pam quoted a gem from a recent broadcast by Keillor:

Jesus came to earth and disappointed a lot of people.

When you follow Jesus, he will disappoint you. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were quickly disappointed by him. He won’t conform, and life with him will not always go the way we want it to. For he is king, and it is his rule that matters.

The question therefore comes, what will we do with our disappointment? Will we attempt to banish or exclude him, like the Jewish establishment of two thousand years ago? Or will we continue to follow him, mixing joy and disappointment? It’s a hard choice, but let’s remember that only those who continued with Jesus through disappointment got to see him in his risen glory.

Thirdly, King Jesus is a problem for us today. It’s simply this: even if Jesus radically reinterpets kingship into a peaceful form, it’s still a reworking based on a notion of kingship that has very little equivalent in our world today. We may still have a monarchy, but our Queen is meant to act on the advice of her ministers. Largely, therefore, she gives Royal Assent to Bills in Parliament that have been shaped by politicians. She retains certain powers, but they are much diminished. She is no absolute monarch. Long gone are the days when we spoke about ‘the divine right of kings’.

And in other cultures, the gap is even greater. How do you think about King Jesus when you live in a republic with a President as head of state? The American Christian author and speaker Brian McLaren has spoken of his cultural struggle with the biblical references to kingship and the kingdom of God. He suggests an alternative. We should refer to ‘the revolution of God’.

I think that’s helpful! If following King Jesus joins us up to the revolution of God, then one thing is certain: we are not in for a quiet, cosy time, at least not in the way some church communities seem to envisage. We are called instead to a dynamic, challenging, risky way of life.

The other day I read a piece by Bishop Graham Cray, who leads Fresh Expressions nationally for the Anglican, Methodist and United Reformed Churches. Let me read you a few sentences:

A risk-free existence can look very attractive for a while. Although the fine line between risk-free and unbearably boring is easily crossed. But those who want risk-free should never become Christians. To follow Jesus means risking all to follow him. I was recently reminded that the Church of Scotland report ‘Church Without Walls’ says that the essence of church is ‘People with Jesus at the centre, travelling wherever Jesus takes us.’ The whole fresh expressions initiative is about allowing Jesus to take us to those whom our existing churches do not reach, and working with him, as he forms a new group of people, who are willing to go wherever he takes them. That inevitably involves risk.

Because that is the logical conclusion of the other two issues we have thought about. Risk. It will be risky to follow King Jesus in the ways I have suggested. People who campaign for the poor in public life and do so in a peaceable way may end up on crosses. People who are willing to keep following Jesus even through disappointments are not signing up for a safe and quiet life, even if they do live with the hope of resurrection. But we remember how Jesus finally answered Pilate:

‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’ (Verse 37)

Nothing else is the way of truth.

[2] British listeners can hear this on BBC Radio 7.

Andare là, dove la natura conduce.
    Francis Bacon

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Existen, sin duda, diferentes maneras de hacer filosofía; formas que no son otra cosa más que la expresión de distintos modos de pensar el mundo y sus problemas. Hay también, por ello, muchas maneras de decir, de escribir, filosofía. Una de ellas, muy particular, es la que el filósofo francés Jean-Luc Nancy despliega en un bello ensayo publicado en el año 2006 sobre el cuerpo (anti-cartesiano en su forma y en su contenido): “58 indicios sobre el cuerpo”, es su nombre. Poco a poco iremos compartiendo cada uno de estos indicios para ir, gracias a ello, trazando una cartografía sobre la corporalidad, sobre el materialismo.

1.

“El cuerpo es material. Es denso. Es impenetrable. Si se lo penetra, se lo disloca, se lo agujerea, se lo desgarra”.

2.

“El cuerpo es material. Es aparte. Distinto de los otros cuerpos. Un cuerpo empieza y termina contra otro cuerpo. Incluso el vacío es una especie muy sutil de cuerpo”

(Jean-Luc Nancy, 58 indicios sobre el cuerpo, Buenos Aires: La Cebra, 2007, p. 13)

“Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was born January 22, 1561.  His father was “Lord Keeper of the Royal Seal,” under Elizabeth I, something similar to the Secretary of the Treasury in the US President’s Cabinet today. When his father died early, he was left without an estate, and so went to study law.

At the ripe old age of 23, he was elected to Parliament, where he was a strong advocate of religious toleration, and his fortunes began to improve.  In 1607, King James I made him Solicitor General; in 1613, Attorney General; and in 1617, Lord Keeper of the Royal Seal! The following year, the King made him a Baron and the Lord Chancellor — basically the King’s right hand man.

His real love, however, was science and philosophy.  He wrote Novum Organum of 1620 refined the art of logical thinking, and proposed a “new method” for science.  Bacon suggested that we use induction — working from facts to theory (instead of from theory, or the Bible, to “facts”).  He was wary of hypotheses — which he felt were as likely to be superstition or wishful thinking than anything else — but in fact suggested what we would now call the testing of hypothesis in the form of a process of elimination of alternative explanations!

In 1621, soon after the King raised him to Viscount, the Parliament impeached him for taking bribes.  He had indeed taken many bribes — but so had everyone else, so the impeachment was really a political slap at the King.

But, being out of political office allowed him to continue full time the science and philosophy he loved part time.  He began a project, with the help of the King, called The Great Renewal, which was to be a review of all the sciences.

Basically, The Great Renewal involved purging ourselves, our intellects, of our biases, which he called idols.  He named four:

1.  Idols of the Tribe.  The tribe he is referring to is us, the human tribe.  So the idols of the tribe are our natural tendencies towards bias, such as reading our own wishes into what we suppose we see, looking for patterns or a purpose to everything, and so on.

2.  Idols of the Cave.  The cave is the little box we each live in as individuals.  So the idols of the cave are the distortions and biases we have as individuals, such as those based on our peculiar backgrounds and educations, as well as the intellectual heroes we emulate.

3.  Idols of the Marketplace.  The marketplace is society, and the main threat to clear thinking from society is its use of language.  The common uses of words are not necessarily fit for scientific and philosophical use, and “common sense” or the logic we presume we are using when we speak is not that logical.  And words can exist that have references that do not exist — a great root of confusion.

4.  Idols of the Theater.  The theater refers to the showplaces of scientific ideas and theories — journals and books, famous names and theories, particular scientific designs or methods that have won recognition — the appearances of truth!  Bacon says we should take care not to idolize or dogmatize whatever theories are presently accepted, even if they are promoted by “authorities” in their field or appear to be accepted “universally.”

In 1624, he published The New Atlantis, a utopian fiction about an island in the South Pacific ruled by scientists.  They lived in a university-like setting called Salomon’s House (after their founder), and were chosen for their position by tests of their merits — just like the philosopher-kings in Plato’s Republic.  This may have been the model for England’s Royal Society (of scientists).

In The New Atlantis, incidentally, he predicted quite a few modern inventions, including cars, planes, radio, and anesthetics.

Bacon died in 1626, at the age of 65, after catching cold while experimenting with preserving chicken by freezing.  He is considered the father of British philosophy, and the intellectuals of France dedicated their monumental Encyclopédie to him in 1751.”

The History Of Psychology, Part 2: The Rebirth

Dr. C. George Boeree

© Copyright 2000 C. George Boeree

Ali.♥

Esco dalla visita alla Galleria Borghese con un’idea certa in testa: il confronto tra Bacon e Caravaggio forse non decolla, ma Bacon non trema mai. Se c’è prova del nove della grandezza di un autore, questa è certamente una: invadere la Borghese e tenere botta. C’è un angolo che mi ha impressionato, nel grande salone all’ingresso. Il Trittico della Tate Gallery (Triptych August 1972) è messo ad angolo con la meravigliosa Conversione di Paolo, seconda versione. È uno dei Caravaggio più perfetti, un vertice senza sbavature, esatto in tutto a partire dall’adesione al fatto. Quanto Novecento al confronto avrebbe fatto la figura di pittura arruffona, di istintualità geniale ma ultimamente senza capo né coda? Bacon invece puntella lo spazio con la sicurezza di un classico.  Chiude e apre, proprio come le braccia spalancate di Paolo, che sono gesto di abbandono, ma sono anche le linee di forza su cui Caravaggio poggia la costruzione di un quadro che non conosce nulla di scomposto. Nel Trittico le tre porte nere alle spalle sono ante aperte su un precipizio, ma non diffondono panico nella tela. Sono come le scene di una tragedia classica, tremende ma implacabilmente ordinate. Che sia proprio la categoria dell’ordine il punto da cui rileggere Bacon senza cadere in banalità?

Detto questo, Bacon alla Borghese ci sta benissimo. Sfonda i lunghi corridoi con l’incendio del Study for a Portrait of Van Gogh VI o con quel quadro strano che è come un  ring in verticale (Two figures, 1975). Il Trittico di autoritratti ha l’esattezza chirurgica di un fiammingo. Sa essere esatto nella deflagrazione delle forme.

So che in molti non saranno d’accordo, ma Bacon alla Borghese ci sta bene. (E quel vizio che ogni tanto si concede a mettere una punta di “arredamento” di troppo nele tele, in fondo non stona tra questi stucchi…)

Nota stonatissima: in mostra non c’è più il San Giovannino, delle raccolte della Borghese. Al pannello dove stava appeso hanno messo una foto e una dicitura: in prestito per una mostra a Kyoto. Non s’era mai visto un quadro in mostra che viene prestato… (hanno poratato là anche la Dama con il liocorno di Raffaello)

Nella foto, Triptych inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus, nel salone all’ingresso.

The final session explored leading social change. Again, Chatham House Rules were in effect.

Leading social change requires addressing the strategic roles and outcomes resultant rather than simply the funding model. Governments, foundations, corporations and the community all have a role to play, individually and collaboratively. By identifying best and next practices, along with successful strategies, funding will become more widely available.

Adopting these strategies necessitates identifying synergies that exist currently and could exist in the future. In doing so broad social innovations and change can occur in the development of new thinking, processes and leadership.

Leadership within social innovation will address the changing needs as we march toward deeper economic, political and social integration. Realizing that the challenge is not the development of new ideas rather one of making them work. Leadership directly deals with this challenge by successfully bridging the gap between a ‘good idea’ and execution. Great leadership will harvest the seeds of innovation to address ‘wicked problems.’

Recognizing the truth of Einstein’s assertion: “ We can’t solve problems with the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Traditional methods, like a top down approach, have not served to advance the innovations that will lead to broad and lasting social impact. Therefore true leadership recognizes that widespread input is required and will actively seek collaboration.

Greater citizen engagement is needed to aid in the creation of an appreciative culture for community assistance. Serving further the ability to identify new leadership and new areas for innovation within the communities themselves.

To do this requires that capacity building in local, regional and national hubs of excellence be recognized and nurtured. It stems from the community itself and opens the pathways to transparency, accountability and funding.

There is not a shortage of capital out in the ether. However a shortage of investors exists willing to sacrifice hard returns on investment for impactful social returns. While this is changing, it is slow, and requires a greater effort by all sectors to open the door to capital through whatever means are possible.

It is paramount that the Canadian Federal Government, Provincial and Territorial governments take steps to unleash the charitable sector. These steps include the creation of new financial instruments and regulations that make social enterprises easier to create and operate. Unnecessarily restrictive and antiquated rules should be removed or reformed to aid in these developments.

In conjunction with this it is necessary for a fundamental reframing of the meaning of ‘fiduciary’ duty to encompass the broader economic and social impacts as outlined in the triple bottom line – people, planet and profits.

One speaker made two beautiful references: We all need to become “Billionaires for Good,” and, we need to create “Sustainable Peace Rooms” as opposed to war rooms, as illustrated in political campaigns around the world.

Currently in the throes of building the next economy a great emphasis needs to be put into finding new efficiencies and innovations to reduce our current carbon footprints. Recognizing this shift to the ‘new economy’ a need exists understanding the conversion of the current industrial sector is going to lead to turbulent if not in the moment unwelcome yet necessary change.

Our generation has created more wealth and become more productive than any in history. We have done so at the cost of being, by far, the most destructive.

Social innovation offers an opportunity for us to stem the tide of that destruction and solve many of the ‘wicked problems’ that face us today.

The next post will summarize the previous six.

“As the births of living creatures are at first ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time. “ Francis Bacon

Be Inspired Today!

The New Currency SDM “Change…At the Speed of Thought”

De la Casa-Museo de James Joyce en Dublín, caminé unas cuadras y encontré el museo donde está la Muestra de Francis Bacon: A Terrible Beauty. Amo profundamente la obra de este pintor. Y hurgando en sus libros y papeles veo que de alguna manera mis referencias visuales durante toda mi juventud habrían coincidido con las suyas de no haber sido porque nací en un país donde la única referencia visual agradable era el mar, y la única como perspectiva de porvenir. Dedico este post a Gustavo Valdés.

Los curadores de la exposición consiguieron trasladar el estudio de Bacon a una sala del museo, objeto a objeto, paredes incluídas, pinceladas incluídas, churre y reguero incluídos. Fascinante:

There has been a bit of talk, again, about the possibility of Francis Bacon’s Biliteral Cipher being used in the Voynich. It is one of my personal top-three candidates, and has been… and it’s been a favorite of mine for some reasons unique to my New Atlantis Theory. In fact those things which are considered detriments… the dating it would imply, and the origins and influence… I consider additional assets.

Bacon devised his cipher sometime in the late sixteenth century, but it first appeared in print in the early seventeenth. It is basically a binary alphabet, using only two characters. He designated these “a” and “b”… which sometimes causes confusion as to the structure and use of this cipher. I’ve seen people actually use those letters, or look for them, or alternately use the Biliteral, while not using it when an a or b appears in the plain text… but the cipher character or character distinction in its place. But the system is the simplest of all, and these errors muddle this simplicity, and cause further misunderstandings and confusion.

The way the code works is like this: Each letter of the plain text alphabet is represented by a series of five characters. These characters are designated as either “a” or “b” characters. The first letter of the alphabet, A, is written like this: aaaaa. The plaintext letter B is written like this: aaaab. The plaintext C is written like this: aaaba. You see it is exactly the progression found in the binary number system. D is written like aaabb, and E like aabaa, and so on. Here is the list as published:

The message: “I am here” would be written:

abaaa aaaaa ababb aabbb aabaa baaaa aabaa

Now it is immediately apparent that simply sending a message in this way is not the point… it is instantly recognizable. This is where the beauty of the cipher comes in: The encipherer can chose any way imaginable to represent the a’s and b’s of the cipher text. Bacon used, as an example, two different typefaces. And this is another point where many make an error in understanding the biliteral: It is assumed that it relies on variations in typefaces, fonts or strokes. But this is not the point of the cipher… one can use any variation in the cover text to designate the a’s and b’s of the cipher text. In fact the cover text does not even have to be characters… they could be illustrations, or color variations. Here is my plain text, “I am here”, written as stars:

"I am here", written in the stars...

The stars have two distinctions: five point stars as the “a’s”, and six point stars as “b’s”. But there is a further issue which often crops up, which causes misunderstanding of the biliteral. The fact is that two distinctions are used in encoding, such as my star points, or standard and italic fonts, or serifs and sans-serif typefaces… but somehow when some are looking for evidence of the biliteral, they sometimes look for two frequent characters which re-occur. In the case of the Voynich for instance, one may look for “o’s” and “gallows”, assume these to be the a’s and b’s, and pull them out. But this misses the value of the biliteral… it can be some aspect of the characters which is in all the characters. I have been most interested in the differentiation in height, for instance. This is a large distinction in the Voynich, easily determined, and applies to all of the characters. What the character is would not matter, only that it is high or low. I like the idea, because it would be very easy to encipher and decipher… a decipherer could quickly run along the text of the Voynich and jot down the value for highs and lows… I’ve done it, and it is fast.

And this is one of the key reasons I like the biliteral in the Voynich, it’s ease. In addition to this, however, is the fact that it would answer many questions about the bulk of the text, with its seeming complexity. Some have suspected that the Voynich contains gibberish, that it’s cipher is meaningless. And this could be correct about the bulk of the text content, in the case of the biliteral… because there is one more error made in thinking of this code: That the cover text needs to be meaningful, in order to “throw off” anyone from suspecting that there is a code somewhere. Well yes, this is a tactic in some biliteral messages… Bacon used it as an example, and prisoner’s today still use the biliteral to transmit messages to one another. If a guard sees a message which says, “Did you get the cigarettes I paid for last week? Better hurry or I will take back my teddy bear”, he will not mind all that much, and may not notice that there is a code hidden in the two slightly different fonts used.

But as I demonstrated in my stars example, no meaning is needed in the cover text. And the same applies when it “almost just about looks like there must be some meaning there”… as in Voynichese. As I wrote on Nick Pelling’s blog, the seeming complexity of a fake, meaningless cover cipher of Voynichese, “…could be “there to confuse us”… useless complexity would be a fantastic, brilliantly diabolical cover for a simple cipher, and really very easy to do (not to see, however).”

So I feel the use of the biliteral would explain so much about our views and examination of the text of the Voynich: The inability to make any sense of it, for one thing, because there would not necessarily be any sense in the cover cipher; the concurrent feeling that there must be some sense to the Voynich Ms., causing an unfortunate rift between the proponents of sense and those thinking “nonsense”… both could be correct. And for those who rightly note that the biliteral would mean that there is only one-fifth of the characters in the plain text (there always is, with a five place biliteral), I would, and have, pointed out that we cannot assume the amount of information in the Voynich. It may well be one fifth of what is seen on the surface… for that matter, it could be a two hundred character sentence, with one page per plain text letter! To make assumptions about the level of content would be foundationless, and yet, the biliteral would allow quite a bit to remain.

I worked many hours on the cipher and the Voynich, and came up with some interesting observations. I cannot “read” any of it, so I cannot place myself in that rare, hallowed circle who think they can. But nonetheless I found some results somewhat promising… promising enough to continue when I have the time and patience. To begin with I used four different variables, and reduced the Voynichese four times using them, for comparison. The two main variables were: 1) All high characters were my a’s, and all lows my b’s, and 2) Reversed: All high characters were my b’s, and all lows my a’s. The second set of variables were: 3) All connected characters were considered separate, i.e., a string of three “c’s” was three low characters, and 4) A string of connected characters was considered one character, so that the same three “c’s” would be one low character.

Using the above four choices (and there are, of course, many more which may be tried), back in September of 2007, I wrote that I had, “…come up with some strings of letters… “POL…” was one which occurred. And “QUO…” also.”. But these sort of strings are in themselves possibly meaningless… well are meaningless, unless one can place them in some context. But what really struck me was that for certain combinations of my four variables, I came up with many useless strings, and for others, many more useful strings. By “useless”, I mean the strings did not correlate to any letters in the biliteral alphabet, as Bacon envisioned.” I later explained [with error corrected for this post]:

“I’ll tell you what I did, looking at f106, line 13 as an example:

1) Treating each character, even connected ones, as separate chars, and “A” as lower, and “B” as upper (the slash is before two from the next line, to
even out the group to five):

BAAAA ABAAA BABAB AAABA AABBA AAAAA BAAAA BAAAA BABAB BAABA BAB/AA

Which gives: RIXCGARRXTW

2) Treating connected chars as singles, but still with “A” as lower, and “B” as upper:

BAAAB BAABA BABAA AABAA ABBAA AAABA AABAA BABAB BAABA BAA/AA

Which gives: STWENCEWTR

3) Now with each char as separate, but “B” as lower, and “A” as upper:

ABBBB BABBB ABABA BBBAB BBAAB BBBBB ABBBB ABBBB ABABA ABBAB ABABB

Which gives: QZL???QQLOM    You see? Three chars now do not work for any letter.

4) Treating connected chars as singles, again (as in #2), but with “B” as lower, and “A” as upper:

ABBBA ABBAB ABABB BBABB BAABB BBBAB BBABB ABABA ABBAB ABBBB

Which gives POM? U/W ??LOQ  …and again, three chars fall “off the list”.

The point being, for the last two choices of variables, I had a much higher number of characters which did not correlate to the biliteral alphabet. A red herring? Perhaps. But all this recent resurgent talk fo the Biliteral has inspired me to get back to it. And again, considering that I am looking at the Voynich as a possible artifact of Bacon’s New Atlantis, and that he invented the Biliteral Cipher, and that both were known and used by the early 17th century, it certainly holds a special place of consideration for me.

"I am here", in biliteral Voynichese

All this being said, I feel there are at least two other code and cipher concepts which would also account for the seeming complexity of Voynichese, while being extremely hard to discern, and yet, surprisingly easy and fast to encipher and decipher. Like the biliteral, in my opinion, and just as rarely considered possible.

its way past your bedtime young squirell

I’ve usually wrote and scheduled my blog by this time.  Where has the day gone?  Trying to do too many things at once makes the day short.  The days are short enough with these long nights.  I wonder what our ancestors made of it?  I just want to hibernate when it gets dark and cold, squirrels have the right idea.  But I can’t afford to do that – not put enough nuts away to retire yet!

Here's one we didn't make earlier....

Still unsure if Twitter was a good idea, or a nowhere one.  I’d better keep with it I suppose.  I’m probably not making the most of it, but we will see.  It’s coming up to my blogs first anniversary at the end of this month, and I have a few changes planned for that.  So far, I have only missed 4 days, and that’s  before I got the hang of it.  HA! not that  I have got the hang of it.  Every so often half the formatting goes BIG, a bit aggravating, but at least I have stopped losing my work now.

This is Francis Bacon's studio. Seen this in Dublin....mine was getting a bit like it lol!

I’ve been priming a canvas today (bit of a while since I did that).  I don’t seem to find any time for my art these days, though I do keep creative.  I mean, getting down to the nitty-gritty of painting.  I may turn the spare bedroom into a studio, it’s a bit cold in the cellar.  That cellar has been used as band practise (by my daughter years ago), a brewery (Chateau Red Cloud…now that was a very good year! not to mention ? I’ve forgotten what the beer was called but I could taste sterilising liquid (PURE ale probably), then an art studio.  It’s now hubby’s ’space’ but he’s never down there now he can have it to himself – typical!

Francis Bacon (1952)

Frequentar a Central Saint Martins tem sido incrível. É o lugar onde está hoje o dínamo criativo da moda, da arte, do design e o caramba. Mas confesso, aula de história da arte eu tenho quando leio o  Brian Swell, o velhote arrogante e mal humorado que escreve no Evening Standand, na periodicidade que ele bem quer.

Bom, porque raios eu começo com esse blábláblá se ao lado está uma foto do Francis Bacon com algum bicho (sinto, mas não sei identificar – e nem quero) cortado ao meio?Porque o meu amado velhinho disse que o Damien Hirst deve lavar a boca com sabão quando diz que sua arte é inspirada na de Bacon . Será?

Francis Bacon (1909 – 1992) pode entar no top 10 dos artistas mais atormentados da história da arte. Apanhava do pai porque tinha asma na infância. Foi colocado pra fora de casa aos 17 porque o pai o flagrou se admirando no espelho, ao experimentar as roupas da mãe. Da casa dos pais, foi morar no Soho, em Londres, com ajuda de 3 libras por semana enviados pela sua mãe. Com Harcourt-Smith foi viver na Alemanha, na decadente da República de Weimar, pré-nazismo. Seu amante, que era um ex-militar do exército amigo do seu pai, o trocou depois de um mês de convivência por uma mulher. Bacon ficou sem rumo e muda-se para Paris, na década de 30, onde vê pela primeira vez uma exposição de Picasso. Bacon morreu em Madri, em 1992, quando visitava uns amigos, de ataque cardíaco.

Damien nasceu em 1965, em Bristol, sudoeste da Inglaterra. Viveu a “cool Britain”, o Reino Unido dos anos 90, que surgia como epicentro de coisas novas nas artes e na música (eletrônica). Sabe-se que ele apanhou um bocado para parar de beber. Ele costumava ligar para repórteres no meio da madrugada perguntando atrocidades como: “Não era você que tinha um cachorro de pêlo curto?”, como contou a repórter do Sunday Times, Sarah Thornton, em recente entrevista que fez com ele. As drogas químicas também parecem não fazer mais parte de seu cardápio.

"Figure with meat (1954)", de Francis Bacon

Bacon tinha fixação por fluidos humanos. Sangue, semêm, urina e afins estão sempre presentes e sua obra. O tema principal de Hirst é a morte.

Damien, assim como Bacon, tem o nome incrustado na linha da história da arte descrita por John Ruskin, um dos primeiros e mais importantes críticos da arte inglesa. É fato que o mundo passou a ouvir falar em bichos no formol depois que Damien explodiu na Sensation, exposição criada por Charles Saatchi, e quando criou a Friezi.

Mas justiça precisa ser feita. Bacon já pintava animais cortados ao meio em 1954. O holandês Jan Weenix (1640-1791) já pintava bichos destroçados pós caça no século 17. Damien releu isso para os anos 2000. Certo? Sem dúvida.

Também não há dúvida, que existe inspiração, ou como disse Picasso, apropriação, já que “bons artistas roubam e os maus copiam”.

No meu entender, apesar o debate sobre arte e animais, Damien leu (ou releu) isso para os anos 2000. Sabe de uma? Gosto cada vez mais do homem-tubarão.

Shakespeare — blue /No surprise Edwin Larson– green /The No Fear Shakespeare 4th graders.– pink /No Sweat Shakespeare — brown/orange John Gray

Somebody is trying to drive me crazy. Maybe they already have. Maybe Adam Douglas  is right and humans are an experiment by mice. If so, humans have been stuck in dead-end Shakespeare Sonnets Maze for four centuries. sometimes I feel it is on my shoulders to direct the human race out of the darkness. Bacon gave birth to and maintained the literary Renaissance in England but his sonnets are stuck with a dark lady, a gorgeous young man and a squirrely poet.

The following paragraph comes from John Gray who makes a little sense but has the same trouble thinking for himself.

“Those who maintain that the “youth” in the sonnet is the dedicatee or the object of Shakespeare’s desire usually insist that the sonnets were never intended for publication.(probably true) However, as ever with the sonnets nothing is certain (logic and common sense makes for clarity and reasonable certainty) and it is possibly best to stick with what we do know, rather than to branch out in wild speculation. What we do know is that of the actual 154 sonnets themselves sonnets 1-126 were written to a young man or the “fair youth”. (Wrong. If one takes more than a casual look at the poetics of sonnet 7 the “fair youth” becomes himself, the poet) Of those 126 sonnets the first 17 are referred to as the “procreation sonnets”. (What would the poet do with two fair youth? One is not enough? More is better is not poetic. The singular is poetic. This is really the request of a young prince to his mother the Queen to recognize him as her son)Sonnets 127-152 are addressed solely to the mysterious “dark lady” ( the dark lady is Queen Elizabeth I – not so dark) and the last two sonnets are singular allegorical poems.

The procreation sonnets are a fascinating collection of persuasive pieces written in order to convince the beautiful youth to settle and have children.(The most romantic poet would never tell another man to knock up a dark lady to have children that looks like him — stupid stupid stupid) Over the course of 17 sonnets (sonnets 1-17) the narrator draws heavily from the themes of nature and time in order to make the case of not living a single life of vanity (vanity is right but bacon had reason to be vain concidering his parentage and had taken all knowledge as his province).

Welcome No Sweat Shakespeare to the Honest Sonnet series. No Sweat Shakespeare is apply named because it doesn’t vary from the the officially sanctioned nonsense.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Shakespeare — blue

No surprise Edwin Larson– green

The No Fear Shakespeare 4th graders.– pink

No Sweat Shakespeare — brown

orange — John Gray

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Lo, in the Orient when the gracious light

Lo,  in the east when the sun

When the gracious light of the sun

Look! In the east when the glorious sun raises his burning head,

……………………………………………………………….

Lifts up his burning head, each under eye

comes up, sees every person

rises in the east, each person on earth

all men’s eyes pay tribute to his new, fresh appearance,

………………………………………………

Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

honors  something new to see

pays homage to it by gazing upon .

serving his majesty with looks of awe.

………………………………………………..

Serving with looks his sacred majesty;

who looks upon his sacred mother the Queen

all its sacred majesty  

And having climbed that steep hill to heaven

…………………………………………………..

And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,

 and having done what he should to ascend to the highest position

And even at noon, once the sun has climbed the steep path to the top of the sky

mortals still worship his beauty as they watch his golden climb into the sky.

…………………………………………………….

Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

looks young and strong in middle age

it still looks like a strong young man in his prime

But like a strong youth in the prime of life,

 …………………………………………………………………….

Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

yet he is still admired for his beauty (knowledge and intent)

and human beings still adore its beauty,

the eyes that were dutiful before, now turn away from him and look elsewhere.

…………………………………………………..

Attending on his golden pilgrimage

attending on his golden quest

watching it pass on its way like a golden king making a pilgrimage..

…………………………………………………………

But when from highmost pitch, with weary car

but when from the highest authority, with weary communications

But when the sun grows weary and falls from its highest point,

……………………………………………………..

Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,

like an old man staggars from the news

it reels like an old man, and the people.

……………………………………………………

The eyes, ‘fore duteous, now converted are

my fans once loyal and now converted

who once looked up at it so dutifully stop

……………………………………………………

From his low tract and look another way.

from his commoner life style are fair weather friends

looking and turn the other way

…………………………………………………..

So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,

so thou (my) light goes out at my peak

In the same way, you, wasting your sexual energy in the prime of your life,

So you, yourself, declining from your noonday glory,

……………………………………………………..

Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son

belief in a diety will fail you unless you admit I am your son.

will die alone and unloved unless you father a son.

will die disregarded, unless you beget a son.