Day #121

[shadowkat]

I skipped the Zoom chat Bible Study for a walk around the Cemetery. Within fifteen minutes of walking, all the stress, anxiety, etc melts away, and its just me, the trees, the sky, the birds, and the graves. Nothing else. I find it ironic that I'm spending so much of my time wandering around this Cemetery in 2020, when just ten years ago - I thought I'd never ever visit the cemetery or see it - it was too far away or inconvenient, and just a year ago, I rarely if ever walked it - preferring the Park or the Ditmas residential streets instead. Now, it's my sanctuary. A place that I can leave the world behind. I don't bring work there, nor do I talk to anyone in it or listen to music. The phone is used as a camera nothing else.

Yesterday I watched a woman doing Tai Chi behind one of the graves. The world seems to melt away there. I see people, but not quite as many as I saw in the spring. It was pleasant today, with a nice breeze. And it struck me as odd - how it almost felt normal now to be wearing a mask. (I've a new one - that is splashed with purple and red. Softer than the others, with filter inserts. Also lighter and easier to breath, and covers more of my face. ) Almost normal. I've gotten used to it. It's now part of my routine to throw on a mask before I leave the apartment. Interesting how our brains find a way to make sense of things - to find normalcy in absurd situations.




I read the plaque on this odd statue, which was originally elsewhere in the City, and transplanted here. Entitled CIVIC VIRTUE - it was originally a fountain that got exiled to Queens, then eventually was restored and transplanted to Greenwood in 2012.

The marble fountain was commissioned in 1909 by Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr., with funds from a bequest by Angelina Crane, and cost US$90,000 to complete. The 17-foot sculpture group depicts a heroic-sized male nude, "Civic Virtue" (often mistaken for "Hercules"), with sword on shoulder, standing above two writhing female figures – the sirens of "Vice" and "Corruption." The sirens, with the heads and torsos of women and the tails of serpents, have failed in capturing the man, and are caught in their own nets. Although there is a legend that bodybuilder Charles Atlas posed for the male figure,[1] a 1922 article identifies the model as Edward Raffo, an Italian-American bicyclist.[2] The sculpture group was placed upon a square pedestal adorned with dolphin heads that spewed water into basins attached to its sides. The water spilled from the basins into a pool shaped like an irregular cross, set upon a 3-stepped plinth.

The choice to use a male figure to represent "Virtue" was unusual.[why?] Even before its completion, the sculpture was controversial because of its treatment of the female figures: "[MacMonnies's] conflation of the public (municipal) and personal (psychological) disturbed many people. American women had just gotten the right to vote in 1920, and the sculpture group was seen as misogynistic.

In short? Controversial - so restored and exiled to the middle of a Cemetery - yet pretty. I choose to ignore the intent behind it, and just find it pretty.

I think there are a lot of frustrated egyptologists buried in Greenwood Cemetery.



And lots of interesting Japanese Maples...which I've fallen in love with.




As previously noted...in our most recent update on New York vs. the Corona Virus "At the request of Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms, New York is sending 7,500 test kits, 30,000 pieces of PPE and 1,250 gallons of hand sanitizer to Atlanta by Friday. Mayor Bottoms, who along with her family recently tested positive for COVID, has shown great leadership during this ongoing crisis. We are proud to send aid to Atlanta as their city fights a new surge in cases. " New York has also been praised in its handling of the virus...and is considered first among states (honestly since everyone else screwed up royally, this isn't saying much) in how it handled the virus... HERE.

On Twitter (I get notifications emailed to me, okay?) -romance novelist, Cat Sebastian tweeted that she didn't know how people were getting through this without a supply of Xanax and fanfiction. My response? I'm doing it with a daily meditation practice, and meditative walks around a 549 Cemetery where I take photos with an iphone.

Walking around the Cemetery is often the highlight of my day. I look forward to my walks.

What did you do this summer?

Me: I walked around a cemetery.

I leave you with...wildflowers...lots of purple wildflowers..

Comments

[atpo_onm]

"Can it be, that the women are angry because some man finally found the strength to resist temptation? In most instances of romantic sculpture, we have the man succumbing to the temptress. I think women should be pleased when strength is found to withstand their wonderful wiles. Antiquity is all the other way." (from Wikipedia)

Wonderful wiles? I thought they weren't supposed to be wonderful, they were bad and naughty and evil and all. So which is it, dude?

And lots of interesting Japanese Maples...which I've fallen in love with.

Back before some clever mathematicians came up with the branch eventually named "fractals", creationists argued that only God could create something like a tree, because, well-- look at it! You couldn't use math and/or science to describe creating something like that, that complex!

Tsk. Wrong. Turns out you can. CGI artists have been doing it ever since.

Still-- that is one wickedly complex arboreal entity, there, I grant ya! Elegantly twisty.

Re: top picture...

Bird: What, are they kidding? This thing is never gonna fly! The wings are totally inadequate for something that big and heavy. No wonder it just sits here all the time!

*******

Question-- My personal visual instincts tell me the tree shouldn't be there, there should just be the statue, bird, and lots of sky. I believe I might be able to paint it out (clouds are way tricky, trust me). If you prefer that it be there, that's fine. If you'd also prefer it not be, I can give it a shot and re-post the pic for you and attach it here if I'm successful.

Whaddaya think?

[shadowkat]

Tsk. Wrong. Turns out you can. CGI artists have been doing it ever since.

Well, no. That's kind of like saying painters have been doing it ever since. They haven't created anything, what they've done is "artistic expression" of a tree. Not unlike taking a photograph. The CGI representation is not real. It's artistic expression or photographic imaging. Not the same thing as creating the evolutionary process of life.

Kind of like saying someone who creates a fascimale of a hurricane inside a film studio with special effects is well on par with a natural hurricane. We can copy what was created by a source far beyond our imagining but we lack the ability create anything on that level.

You really need to walk through a cemetery sometime. There's these ancient trees encompassing graves, that have been there since the 1800s, still alive, thick and massive, while the tombstone has long faded, the name is gone, and the person buried within forgotten. Their nutrients fed the tree.

CGI isn't quite as permanent. And the creator of CGI even less so.

That Japanese Maple? It's been alive longer than you have and most likely will live longer still.


Question-- My personal visual instincts tell me the tree shouldn't be there, there should just be the statue, bird, and lots of sky. I believe I might be able to paint it out (clouds are way tricky, trust me). If you prefer that it be there, that's fine. If you'd also prefer it not be, I can give it a shot and re-post the pic for you and attach it here if I'm successful.

I'm okay with the imperfection. The tree is there. I have a picture with it not being there, but I did have to cut out part of the angel.