5 November 2011. Here’s a REAL Counterproposal to the “Strategic Plan”… Short and Sweet…

A friend sent me this. I’ll bet ya that it’s MUCH cheaper to educate a seminarian at St Tikhon’s than at St Vlad’s. Therefore, if the OCA remains a stand-alone (which I hope it doesn’t, to speak frankly), it must cut costs in any way that it can. The New York CMSA is much too expensive for the OCA to do business in, as it’s only 40 percent of its size in 1965. Ergo, the Chancery and SVS should be shut down as rapidly as possible, and everything moved to St Tikhon’s, which would be a combined monastery/church HQ on the lines of the Danilovsky Monastery in Moscow. As for konvertsy gassing about this or that canon… put a sock in it! The Patriarch of Antioch lives in Damascus, and I dare any of you jumped-up fraudulent pipsqueaks to call it “uncanonical” (those who call themselves “Reader” and Subdeacon” should especially keep their silence). Such arguments are farcical and ludicrous. As Fr Alexander Lebedeff said back in the ’80s, “They don’t know an ecclesiastical court from a tennis court”.

There… here’s a meaningful proposal, and I didn’t take all day to put it out there. The secular faculty members could live in Clarks Summit PA (that’s where the local secular professors live, they’d be in good company) and the Metropolitan could live at the monastery… as did saintly Metropoltian Laurus Škurla. If it was good for Vladyki Laurus, it’s good enough for anyone else. Besides… make sure that the Metropolitan is on the dish-washing list… Vladyki Laurus was, and it didn’t hurt him. It’s all quite canonical, too.

We either scale things down to what we can afford or we won’t be around much longer… it’s quite that simple. Baba and Dede would approve…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Saturday 5 November 2011

Albany NY

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5 November 2011. We Saw Some “Degenerate Modern Art”… Now, Let’s Look at Some Real Deal Modern Art…

The Harbour at Sevastopol

Konstantin Korovin

1916

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I truly ripped apart a bogus “art work” in my last post. Is there legit modern art? You bet… and plenty of it! As someone said to me:

If you’ve got to wonder what the fuck it is, it isn’t art!

I agree with that point of view, emphatically, and without any reservation whatsoever. However, let’s NOT talk about art… that’s like talking about wine instead of drinking it. Let’s look at some art and listen to some art music.

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On the Terrace

Konstantin Korovin

1920

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The Starry Night

Vincent van Gogh

1889

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The Dessert: Harmony in Red

Henri Matisse

1908

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A Resting Soldier

Mikhail Larionov

1911

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Now, let’s have a musical interlude…

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Alfred Schnittke

Symphony nr 8

1994

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Arvo Pärt

Magnificat 

1989

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Dmitri Shostakovich

Romance 

from The Gadfly

1955

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Georgi Sviridov

Время, вперед! (Time, Forward!)

1965

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It’s time for some more GOOD modern art… take my hand as we go through the next gallery…

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The Expulsion

Natalia Goncharova

undated (early 20th century)

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The Card Players

Paul Cézanne

1892

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Guernica

Pablo Picasso

1937

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By the Lake

Isaak Levitan

1893

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There! I’d say that there’s plenty of good modern art out there… not all of it’s schlock and dreck. If you criticise something… have the RIGHT STUFF in hand… or shut up.

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Saturday 5 November 2011

Albany NY

5 November 2011. If This Be a “Million Dollar” Piece of Art… What DOES it Say About Western Society?

The above is an “art work”. I shit you not. The experts all say so…

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Read this. THIS is “art”… all the “right people” say so! All the experts, curators, and critics go ape-shit over such stuff. I observe that an average four-year-old could run up something better… but that makes me a “Philistine“, doesn’t it? THIS is what contemporary society values… it speaks volumes, does it not? I speak as someone who’s fond of Korovin, Schnittke, Pärt, and Larionov… I’m no unwashed hick from the backwoods. However, this is many things, but it isn’t a “work of art”. Those who think such should go back to class and look at some Van Gogh, Goncharova, Cezanne, or Levitan… now, THAT’S art!

BMD

5 November 2011. A Tale of Two News Reports… Most of the Unemployed Have Exhausted their UIBs… Schuller Asks His Congregants to Send His Family Food Via His Chauffeurs Because They’re “In Need”

“Whee! I don’t owe anybody anything! It’s ALL mine! The Invisible Hand of the Market rewarded me ’cause I’m one of God’s Elect. Pat Robertson and Rick Perry said so…”

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Read this and this. Ponder this… the Republican Party wants to CUT extended UIBs to benefit the richest Americans. They’ve waged an open and vicious class war against American working people since 1981, with the result that the richest 1 percent now have 250 percent more than they did in 1980, (in real terms), whilst the rest of us have only 85 percent of what we had in 1980 (in real terms). Besides that, this averaged-out figure hides the fact that the 4 percent below the top earners has also made out like bandits, which means that ordinary people have taken a bigger hit than the figure suggests (it may be as low as two-thirds of the 1980 figure in real terms). There’s a reason for “Occupy Wall Street”… the above figures tell you the story. The oligarchs (and their political running-dog lackeys in the GOP) are being pushing ordinary Americans to the wall; they’re being forced to give up the fruits of years of labour to subsidise the drones and parasites of our society. Guess what? People ARE pushing back.

As for the story about Schuller asking his congregants to send his family food aid via his limo drivers… that’s disgusting (isn’t that a perfect ilustration of the attitude taken by JP and Bobby?). Yet, that’s the mentality of the Five Percenters… they scream when a relatively minor crisis hits and demand “aid”, but when anyone asks for help in their distress… they slam their heel full-force into their faces. “Die! And decrease the surplus population! I REFUSE to pay one more dime in taxes. I earned it… I’m keeping it… and I don’t bloody care about anyone else”. Reflect on this… most of those who advocate cudgelling the poor so that they can afford their country club dues and larger McMansions claim that they’re “Christian”. That, I submit is obscene beyond all measure.

A Special Note to Orthodox Christians:

Paffhausen, Lyonyo, Potapov, Whiteford, Webster, Dreher, Reardon, and Mattingly, all support the Republican assault on the poor in the name of enriching the plutocrats. Have they forgotten “You are your brother’s keeper?” Did they EVER know it? Such people sign themselves, “with love in Christ”. Such hypocrisy and dubiousness turns my stomach… and I believe that I’m NOT alone in that…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Saturday 5 November 2011

Albany NY