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A haiku. A thought. A state of mind.
My thoughts flow along digital streams to meet the thoughts of others.
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On human nature, monsters & tragic lives behind closed doors.
Courtesan with a Lute. 17th century. Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
This week’s ‘finds from the web‘ that struck a chord and stirred:
“…we are all facing the same struggle: to feel safe, to feel seen, to wrest some meaning and some marvel from the ephemeral bewilderment of being alive. …”
from The Only Three Distinctions Between People by Maria Popova
“…Her conflicting emotions about the man she buried were crammed into a box to keep her from unleashing all her monsters onto the world today of all days. …”
from The Funeral and the Feast by Diana H
I found this painting disturbing—and ‘disturbing’ is a ‘chord,’ nevertheless.
The Satyr and the Peasant Family, c.1620, Jacob Jordaens, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Is AI capable of becoming a monster of sorts? That question certainly strikes a chord…
“Martin Scorsese’s announcement that he has invested in an AI company and uses the technology to create storyboards has triggered a backlash from fellow members of the film industry….”
from Martin Scorsese accused of ‘throwing artists under bus’ with AI storyboards by Andrew Pulver The Guardian (online)
…
“ ‘For 70 years, I’ve been creating my own storyboards. There’s always been this problem of how do you communicate what you see in your head to your cast and crew. There are some things you have to see and feel. Now with this tool, I can share what I’m visualising more clearly and efficiently to my creative team. ‘…”
Speaking of ‘monsters’ and human nature—I came across an article about Mary Shelley’s half-sister—and the story of Mary Shelley, her mother, her stepsister, and her half-sister contains it all… from their love lives and their creative endeavors to their tragic outcomes.
What struck a chord? Both the article, which skillfully unwrapped this tremendous tale, and the actual hidden history of these people’s lives.4 ‘powerhouse’ lines from the article:
“Fanny’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was famously disparaged by Horace Walpole as “a hyena in petticoats.” “…
from Out From the Shadows: On Rediscovering Mary Shelley’s Half-Sister, Fanny Imlay. Jupiter Jones Explores the Life of a Remarkable Woman Forgotten by History
” To write about Fanny is inevitably to write about how she was and is overshadowed by the originality and reputation of her mother, and by the fame and accomplishments of her half-sister.” …
“What is known, thanks in part to a report in the Cambrian newspaper of October 1816, is that at the age of twenty-two, Fanny traveled alone from London to Swansea, locked herself in a room at the Mackworth Arms Hotel and drank enough laudanum to end her life. “
“She counted Aaron Burr (former USA vice president), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (poet), Humphry Davy (scientist), Charles and Mary Lamb (writers), and Robert Owen (industrialist, politician and philanthropist) amongst her acquaintances.”
Literary HubIntrigued, like I am, to find out more about these tragic figures from the Romantic period?
Check out the book The Hyena’s Daughter by Juniper Jones.
While on the topic of books, I am eager to also share this book I came across this week. It is still on backorder—and well worth the wait and the read.
On society, human nature, and polished cruelty—it strikes a chord.
Stay tuned next week for more ‘finds’… or subscribe so you don’t miss a ‘stir.’
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On The Pear, The Bellows, and The Prison: J.J. Grandville & War with the Crown
A 19th-century illustrator—Grandville. Radical absurdity. Shattering royal censorship.
The History
In July 1830, King Charles X of France made a fatal mistake. Terrified of a
growing liberal press, he signed the repressive July Ordinances.
suspending freedom of the press and demanding absolute censorship of all
printed graphics. He believed that by snuffing out the ink, he could control the
minds of Paris.
He underestimated the power of the satirists, artists, and thinkers.
The cartoonists didn’t back down; they revolted. Led by publishers like Charles
Philipon and artists like J.J. Grandville and Honoré Daumier, satirical journals
transformed into weapons of war.
When the government claimed it was bringing “order” to France, Grandville responded with Let’s Put Out the Light and
Rekindle the Fire!—exposing the regime as monstrous, bird-beaked bellows
actively choking human enlightenment.
The crown’s reaction was swift and brutal. Seizures, heavy fines, and prison
sentences were handed down. Daumier was jailed; Philipon’s presses were
raided. By 1835, political caricatures were entirely outlawed.
But censorship never stops the truth; it merely forces it to evolve.
Banned from drawing the King’s face, Grandville turned his eyes to nature—and the satire around the pear was created. The king’s face was likened at the time to the shape of a pear. If the free-thinking satirists could not mock the system, they would mock the society that built it.
In the following gallery, we track Grandville’s psychological transition from overt political warfare to the deep, subversive portrayal of the absurd.
Ⅰ. THE INOCULATION
Cultural inoculation to eradicate culture.
Led by the king and supported by the establishment/system, there was a ‘mindset’ that was ‘set’ to censor ideas as well as the principles of ‘the enlightenment’. In 1830, the French state realized that raw force alone could not kill an idea. They needed something far more insidious than force to accomplish this dampening of the mind: a controlled, everyday dose of manufactured nonsense was devised to dumb down and preoccupy the herds, using this diversion as a method to assist them in achieving their goal.
Before the Crown banned his political ink, Grandville targeted the physical vanity of the bourgeoisie. He saw the massive, ballooning 1830s sleeves and towering, wire-framed bonnets not as style but as symptoms.
Lithographie dans La Caricature. Légende : « Adoremus in aeternum sanctissimum philipoirum. » Grandville et Deesperret
Date June 1833 Paris Musées
Ⅱ. THE SEDATIVE OF STATE
When fashion cinches the waist and pinches the mind.
Floodgates opening, the media with trivial obsessions DULLED the public’s senses. The system used the very tools of culture to systematically hollow out the critical thinking of society.
While the population obsessed over the inflation of their sleeves, they ignored the deflation of their liberties.
Folly was the sedative that prepared the herd to accept the cage.
Happened then…happened before…still happens again…and again. Then it was the ‘sleeves’—throughout history, the focus of folly changes, but the resulting blissful ignorance is the same.
The Fashions of 1830: A Further Degree of Perfection (Encore un dégré de perfection: Modes de 1830) Metropolitan Museum of Art
Ⅲ. THE ENFORCERS
When knowledge was as threatening as the plague.
We have witnessed a fact to be true—throughout history to the present day—that when the population is thoroughly numbed by state-sanctioned nonsense, the herd willingly transforms into the enforcers of their own captivity.
In this lithograph from 1830, citizens loyal to the ‘censorship cause’ wear ‘bellows’ that are disturbingly portrayed like the unblinking, bird-beaked guise of the medieval plague doctors. This print shows them treating independent thought not as a virtue but as a dangerous and life-threatening contagion.
In this print, armed with fireplace bellows and candle snuffers, their mission is absolute: To stoke the fires of ignorance and to extinguish the flame of enlightenment.
Anonyme, dessinateur-lithographe, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Ⅳ. THE UNDERGROUND
When the truth is outlawed, hide it in the soil.
By 1835, the iron fist of royal censorship completely outlawed political caricature. It was a crime to draw the King’s face. Grandville’s response? He went entirely underground and began drawing flowers.
To the state censors, it looked like a harmless children’s botany book. Beneath the petals lay pure venom for the corrupt establishment. When this artist/thinker was stripped of his voice, his rebellion simply moved into the garden.
Delord, Taxile; Grandville, J. J.; Raban, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Ⅴ. THE SENSORY BLACKOUT
The architecture of distraction began with vanity
Anne, Duchess of Cumberland (1743-1808) Gainsborough By the 1700s, the damage had deeply set in. Manure and mice found their way to adorn the faces of the elite. 1
By the mid-19th century, who is to say how damaged the faculties of the elite were because of centuries-old traditions of poisoning their minds and bodies?
Centuries before Grandville, the elite suffocated by their own stifling, decaying, and incapacitating physical blackout that led to death. This was not a sudden trend; it was de rigueur. A generational poison of mind and body passed down like an inheritance.
To achieve the uniformity of compliance to elite aesthetics, the herds of the elite, throughout history, willingly rubbed corroding lead paste into their pores, used arsenic and venetian ceruse; dropped deadly nightshade into their eyes, and wore towering and weighing hairstyles sculpted out of the hair of the dead, plastered with rotting animal fat. They locked themselves in a non-stop sensory overload of chemical and physical pain.
A mind consumed by the agonizing noise of its own biological decay has no capacity left to demand liberty. 2 3
Citations:
- https://artuk.org/discover/stories/dead-pretty-the-perils-of-georgian-beauty-regimes ↩︎
- https://blog.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/dangerous-beauty-hazardous-chemicals-and-poisons-in-historic-cosmetics/
↩︎ - https://www.facebook.com/SimpleHistoryCartoons/posts/venetian-ceruse-epitomized-the-pale-skin-ideal-in-16th-18th-century-europea-thic/1314652497355763/ ↩︎
Intrigued? Related Reads from Marginalia & Co:
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Pursuing the Illusion.
Besides masks and social status—vanity, beauty, and appearance—the pursuit of these illusions distorts and destroys all sense of self.
“The less talent they have, the more pride, vanity and arrogance they have. All these fools, however, find other fools who applaud them.“
– Erasmus
Pursuing The Illusion. A Collage by Sosanni V. “People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”
– Paolo Coelho
Coquèterie. Felix Vallotton, 1911 You May Also Like
Walking The Wigs So They Can Be Aired.
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Walking The Wigs So They Can Be Aired.
The powdered wig was the ultimate wearable symbol of all things overindulgent, dramatic, fashionable, and social prominence, all in one. The powdered wig became the vehicle of grandeur and the proof of status. A whole lifestyle eventually grew around it—positions developed for those who created, tended, or stole these ‘things.’
The powdered and elaborate wig was not without its problems. They were notoriously heavy, difficult to maintain, and a hygiene menace.
“…So where did the hair for all these perukes and poufs come from? Cheaper wigs could be made from the hide of cows, goats and sheep, or from horses’ manes, but the majority used human tresses from the poor, peddling their locks to raise some desperately needed funds. Vendors travelled between villages, seeking young or elderly peasant women; silver, white, blonde and grey hair – curly being the most sought after. More alarmingly, hair was also taken from the corpses of prostitutes and criminals and even from plague victims. Once assembled, the peruke was not washable, and as you can imagine, soon smelled terrible. An entire wig care industry developed to try to combat this problem, producing items such as scrapers, salt flasks, lice and flea traps (one advantage was that lice lived on the wig rather than the wearer whose hair was often shorn) and wig curlers. …”
from Messy Nessy – Wig Holes and Other Mysteries of Powdered Hair History Explained
by Claire Shepard
Walking The Wigs…Because someone had to.
Walking the wigs
A collage.
Made by Sosanni Vcoffee table the look:
Taking ‘wigs’ a bit further along as a metaphor…and moving further along the timeline, I couldn’t resist adding this book to the post…witty, to the point. forward. a timeless read, and Nancy Mitford, a writer with a talent rarely seen today.
You May Also Like
Pursuing the Illusion.
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creativity. on the weaving of the wig. a metaphor.
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Kings of Bluffs & Queen of Masks
The King of Bluffs is The Poker Face—a classic ‘mask’—an expression—actually an intended ‘lack of expression’—a skill of the card shark that wields persuasion and creates action.
But that gambling table performance isn’t the only ‘mask’ worn in society. We wear masks daily—everywhere—in so many roles—as if society and its expectations are the directors and we are the performers.
Two things I have observed over the years:
- Masks have been worn throughout history. Visible masks as well as the ones we create ‘internally. ‘ It is these ‘invisible’ but ever-present masks that are interesting and disturbing.
- Although the term ‘influencer’ today has attracted all sorts to the ‘career’—including the dullest crayons in the box—some influencers that have done ‘their thing’ throughout history have been brilliant—perhaps even unaware of their ‘feat.’ And speaking of influencers and the power of persuasion, we shouldn’t underestimate the power of a skillfully deployed meme—again, it has the power to transform society effortlessly.
Two Fascinating Examples:
An Influencer par excellence & An internalized mask that is still being worn today.1. The Influencer: The Earl of Sandwich. – Speaking of gambling tables and society…
- The Reputation: John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, was reputed to be an obsessed gambler. It is widely believed that he spent twenty-four hours at a card table, refusing to leave the game to eat or take a break. Legend has it that he asked for meat to be placed between bread slices so he could eat while at the card table, keeping his cards and playing hand grease-free.
- The Etiquette: Today, neither his obsession with gambling nor the idea he came up with for his meal at the card table seems shocking.
- But for that time, it was radical. This was an era of suffocating aristocratic protocol, where dining was a performance and a ritual. Tables were set with a repertoire of specialized forks, knives, fine china, and crystal for the flowing stream of courses and paired beverages, wines, and spirits.
- A chunk of bare meat gathered by the slices of bread—to be held in one’s hand. Bringing it to one’s mouth and tearing off pieces from this ‘thing’ with one’s teeth. These two acts would have been rendered a social death sentence if anyone had dared to engage in this barbaric display at the dinner tables of the ‘elite.’ It would have been ‘asylum-worthy’ behavior.
- The Tweak: Because a wealthy Earl purported this “invention” to fuel his vice, the gilded herd didn’t call it vulgar, barbaric, or insane. They considered it iconic. They copied it. It became the done thing. Seen. Memed. Done.
- The Side Effects: Gambling became more openly seen as “entertainment” as the bored bon vivants were. now endowed with new and rebellious elitist stage directions. The reckless card-shark narrative was intoxicating because it became associated with a new rebellious behavior—eating with one’s hands—and the meme ‘took.’
- Every time you grab a sandwich on a rushed break, you are unconsciously reenacting what may have been a 250-year-old high-stakes bluff.
A little time travel: I found a first-hand account of ‘the sandwich.’
Excerpt from “A tour to London”; or, “New Observations on England and its Inhabitants”. By M. Grosley. Translated from the French by Thomas Nugent in two volumes. 1772: Translation of the 1772 text into contemporary print: “A minister of state passed four and twenty hours at a public gaming-table, so absorbed in play, that, during the whole time, he had no subsistence but a piece of beef, between two slices of toasted bread, which he ate without ever quitting the game. This new dish grew highly in vogue, during my residence in London: it was called by the name of the minister, who invented it.”
2. The Mask: Ginevra de’ Benci. Wearing what I consider to be the ‘queen of masks‘.
- The Modern Gaze: The unyielding, tight-lipped expression—the quixotic smirk and the indifferent gaze—the classic characteristics of many Renaissance portraits appear to be the centuries-old prototype for today’s identical counterculture gaze.
Ginevra de’ Benci, by Leonardo da Vinci. Chic Tote Bag available here - The Subcultural Split: Today, that flat gaze and indifferent look are intentional. Emos wear indifference as an armor to portray internal sensitivity, pain, and the heavy burden of feeling too much. Goths wear a darker, colder ambivalence to signal a rebellious, ‘anti’ stance against the mainstream setup.
- The Renaissance Mask: In Florence, Ginevra de Benci’s flat and severely indifferent look wasn’t a rebellion. It was the done thing. Her sullen expression? A rigid, heavy mask worn by women of noble birth—a part of their uniform—declaring their total submission to society’s standards of chaste moral virtue and predetermined place in society and role in the family.
- Advertising the Self: Today, we have the link in the bio to list our contacts and credentials. Centuries ago, they had the information in the painting to encode any message that needed to be ‘publicized.’ In Ginevra’s case, her portrait, painted by Da Vinci, includes wreaths of juniper (a symbol of ‘virtue’ that happened to also serve as a pun on her name), symbolically screaming to the viewer that Ginevra de Benci was virtuous. Ginevra de Benci: Official portrait—Officially ‘labeled’ and ‘stamped.’
- The Side Effect: Labels. Sometimes they are created for a ‘good cause’—to draw positive attention to a characteristic or ‘trait.’ But labeling and singling out causes more harm than good within the ‘herd mentality’ of society. A ‘knee-jerk’ hate response is very common when the masses are confronted with a subgroup that is a bit ‘different.’
- The Disconnect: The sullen, indifferent look. It was the ‘done thing’ back then. We will never know if de Benci—or any other woman of centuries past—ever wanted to wear that enforced expression because it was expected of them. She and countless other ‘to the manor born’ women could have been silently screaming their way through life, and no one would have known.
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obsessed.
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On coffee time. & dress code at breakfast
Coffee: a delicacy, medicinal, and restorative when brewed with care. Or it can be a tragic beverage—when mass-produced.
It is an art—not to be taken lightly. Its method of preparation and how it is served, along with where and how we take our coffee, are details that create the experience.
Drinking coffee is an aesthetic moment that deserves its time.
“Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self.” – Terry Prachett
And for those who don’t feel the need to be dressed for morning coffee—or require that of their mug—a collection of nudes awaits you at marginalia & co.
Speaking of coffee and time… Have you ever paired coffee with time travel?
Toshikazu Kawaguchi did, and it became a best-selling series.
Before The Coffee Gets Cold….Book 1 of the series.
A Collection of Books 1 – 3
Book 4 of the series
Book 5 of the series
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on revolutions & the scheme of things
Liberty and Equality.
Two ideas of the Enlightenment that many believed to have sparked the French Revolution.
My questions are
1. Whether or not these ideas sparked revolutions that actually delivered liberty and equality to the people.
2. If liberty and equality ever existed, do exist, or can exist in society.
So are liberty and equality the idealist essentials for a utopian society, or simply the slogans of a misled dystopia?
