Category Archives: Art

Reclaiming Childhood: They Don’t Make Kids Like They Use To

Art, English, Family, Literature, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Relatives

My all-time favorite fictional kid has to be the kid in O. Henry’s (1862-1910) classic short story, “The Ransom of Red Chief.” Make your kid read the story. Read it yourself.

Not only is “The Ransom of Red Chief” an American classic (written by a southerner, of course)—it hearkens back to a time when kids had character; kid characters. Whatever happened to child mischief, to child character, to the Authentic Child?

Children today are miserable, sniveling clones, molded in the image of the adults around them, always noodling on about the “issues” their soft parents propagandize them to care about. Kids are shadows of their former selves.

Kids, reclaim your childhood.

Read “The Ransom of Red Chief.”

Parents, tell your kids to stop sniveling about raising money for breast cancer and return to being mischievous and naughty; real kids.

While you’re at it, buy your little guy “The Dangerous Book For Boys.” Oh boy!

The post is one in our pro-civilization, Adult Lives Matter, reclaim your childhood series-cum-crusade.

“Cold Turkey For Creepy Kids And Their Even Creepier Parents.”

UPDATE III (2/18/023): ‘Underworld’ By Symphony X: A Triumph

Art, Human Accomplishment, Music, Pop-Culture

“Underworld” by progressive metal band Symphony X features evocative melodies, harmonic complexity, gorgeous arrangements, furious licks, sublime singing and impossible time-signature fluctuations. No contrapuntal incompetence in this outfit’s repertoire of abilities.

The CD is in the grand tradition of the band’s 2000 album “V: The New Mythology Suite,” down to the heroic, epic themes—except that Russell Allen’s voice has vastly improved. (How unusual an achievement is that with age?) And guitarist Michael Romeo has now establishment himself in the mind of this long-time lover of fine progressive metal—which means a handful of outfits ONLY—as far and away superior to Dream Theater’s John Petrucci. Another difficult feat. Dream Theatre, alas, is encumbered by singer James LaBrie (unless he too has improved with age).

ILANA Mercer
Author, Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa
Columnist, WND’s longest-standing, paleolibertarian weekly column, The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine
Contributor, Townhall.com., American Greatness
Fellow, Jerusalem Institute for market Studies (JIMS)
www.ilanamercer.com

UPDATE I (9/20/020):

UPDATE II (6/23/021): Great Ballads.

 

UPDATE III (2/18/023): SYMPHONY X – “Without You” is one of the greatest rock ballads. Up there with “Silent Lucidity” by Queensrÿche

Trevor Noah: An Anglo-American South African Sans Talent (Ditto John Oliver)

Art, Britain, Multiculturalism, South-Africa

What I mean by describing The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah as an Anglo-American South African will be understood by South Africans like my friend, Dan Roodt, who knows and values the South African culture that was in all its facets.

Except for a residual accent Noah has clearly worked to lose, there is nothing South African about this guy. Or maybe this is the face of the new South Africa?

The young, photogenic Noah clearly spent his formative years watching American TV and striving to clone those he was watching. To us older South Africans who remember the unique humor of our country’s people, it’s sad.

To hone a sense of humor, the guy should have been seeking out old tapes of the Bangers and Boerewors skits (so old; there is no trace of them on the WWW). I’d take a few Van der Merwe jokes, too; those are so part of our culture (the year 1661 is when “Willem Schalk Van der Merwe set foot on the shores of Table Bay”).

One of my favorite Van der Merwe jokes:

Van der Merwe is working as a server or waiter. His English customer asks if he serves wild duck.

Van der Merwe replies: Duck is not wild, but I can make him “stroppy” for you.

“Stroppy” in the local lingo means unruly, hard to deal with, badly disposed.

I no longer watch TDS, but from the jokes Noah is reported to have told—the guys is so unfunny, it’s hard to see how he’ll last.

Another unfunny foreigner introduced by The Daily Show is Englishman John Oliver. Bloody awful. No wonder Oliver left a country known for its acerbic humor, Britain, to come here. He had no future as a funny man back home.

Jonathan Meades Is Ever So Convincing; Much More Than Brutalism

Aesthetics, Art, Britain, Intellectualism, Socialism, The State

The little I know about Brutalist architecture is enough to make me skeptical of Jonathan Meades’ brilliantly spoken claims for it. This school of architecture seems to have been wedded to The State and, as such, to have taken on its foreboding austerity (expensive and ugly). “Governmentally sanctioned Brutalims” is indeed “the architecture of “cultural welfarism.” But a government-spawned “novelty”? Please!

However, Meades, a Briton of course, is a magnificent advocate for anything, really. His polemics are astounding in both beauty and internal logic. “… a prose style so pugnaciously cultivated, so unpredictably informative, and, enviably often, so extremely funny. …” Meades is indeed a strange experience: You might not agree with his assessment, but you love every moment of it and follow in delight.

On the 1960s cultural output: “A kaleidoscope of polychromatic vacuity.” “Enjoyably witless hedonism.” “A gluppy soap of mysticism …” “New universities busily inventing new disciplines.” Vatican Two decreeing that new churches should be churches in the round, like theaters in the round.”

Bunkers Brutalism and Bloodymindedness Concrete Poetry – Two from MeadesShrine on Vimeo.

*Image courtesy By Aurelien Guichard from London, United Kingdom – National Theatre Uploaded by BaldBoris, CC BY-SA 2.0