The Savage God

But the world as it stands is no illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of a night; we wake up to it again for ever and ever; we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it.

-- Henry James

With this quote we close out our consideration of Alvarez’s “The Savage God”. We are left, I suppose, with the call to treasure the little joys amidst the world’s sorrows, and if we are inclined, to make art out of our struggles in the meaningless world, or maybe just to enjoy the art that others make. Against the odds, we try to keep our faith that there is a kind of love in the providence of things.

Courtney Stodden

Courtney Stodden showed off those new Double DDs in a tiny red dress hardly bigger than a swimsuit.

The teen bride and her 53-year-old husband, character actor Doug Hutchinson, were on their way to dinner in West Hollywood Friday night when she was spotted in the eye-popping dress.

Stodden completed her ensemble with a pair of sky high stripper heels and bright red lipstick that matched her dress.

-- ONTD

Hamlet (3,4) Gertrude and the Ghost

Why doesn’t Gertrude see the ghost? This is one of the big questions for readers of the play. After all, besides Horatio, even a couple of the lesser guards of the palace get the privilege of seeing this supernatural presence in their worldly midst.

Does such a ghost have control over who can see him? If so, being aware that ‘conceit in weakest bodies strongest works’, did he fear that a ghostly visitation from her dead husband would push her over the edge into the dark realms of insanity? Or is the ghost actually surprised, and perhaps disappointed, that his wife does not see him? The ghost, the elder Hamlet, may have thought that Gertrude was troubled by his presence, instead of the fact that their son is looking on vacancy and holding discourse with the incorporeal air. It is not everyday that your dead spouse comes back from the grave. Maybe it was painful to realize that his wife cannot see him.

In any case, there is a deeper plot problem. Not seeing the ghost, isn’t Gertrude confirmed in her fears about her son’s sanity? Yet, in the rest of this scene, it is clear that Hamlet is able to get her back on his side against Claudius. This would seem to strain credulity.

Or is it her own moral vulnerability in precipitously marrying her husband’s brother that enables her to overlook her son’s madness and to stand by his side in his rivalry with Claudius? An affirmative answer would save the appearances and give the story another hue of tragedy and pathos. Her son may be mad, but it is her weakness and concupiscence that made him that way, and so she must stay true to her ill son, after having failed to remain true to his father.

Hitler Pictures

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These are the private photographs Adolf Hitler didn't want anyone to see.

Taken by photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, the extraordinary pictures show Hitler rehearsing while listening to a recording of one of his own speeches. They were reportedly taken in 1925, soon after Hitler was released from a nine-month stint in prison during which he dictated his autobiography, Mein Kampf.

After seeing the photographs, Hitler requested that Hoffmann destroy the negatives, but he did not. They were published in his memoir, Hitler Was My Friend, which came out in 1955.

-- LJ

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( Pics )

to blog the day

I cannot shake the desire to 'book blog' my day. I think this is what lies behind the temptation to start another line of blogging of the home life, with this one being the whole day and everything in the day. But the urge cannot be quenched. It would have to be like a book or, perhaps more accurately, a movie. That way I could just stop and start the day, as well as replay parts of the day, and write what I choose. But I cannot stand outside of my day to do that. As simple as my life is, I also cannot both live it and write it up. It is as though all the details, if they could be sorted and colored fully, would make the day a lot more interesting. Then it would be a work of art.

Daily Fun

Mothercare by irawan subingar

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