Peanuts

Brilliant. It was just a little over ten years ago that Charles M. Schulz died, may he rest in peace.

Jesters

After the bauble I wanted to look up more jesters, because I liked the idea of them in art. I mostly found them in the details of art, like illustrated bibles.

Yes yes, there are philisophical implications abound, but lets face it first, they are awful cute and pretty.

This next one is on a wall.

In art they represent folly or madness, which lends itself to another fantastic thing I stumbled upon in my search: "The Ship of Fools." It's an old idea that all humans on earth are as silly and sad as a wayward ship of fools out to see. How romantic. Here is the most famous version of The Ship of Fools, by Bosch. The jester is in the back with his little hat and sippy cup.

This next one by Brant is like, all jester.

Although none have quite the allegory of ship of fools, some of the jester art I found hit human folly right in the head with the name alone. For instance, 'A Maiden Tempted by a Fool'.

Or, 'A Jester Points Out God in a Cloud.' Okay, fine, this one is probably a serious bible story, but I like my insinuation better.
The best title by far though is the next one, "The Son of Lucretius Wastes his Father's Money on Women."

Finally, I started to actually read about the actual jesters of the Middle Ages. Some had a certain amount of real, if hilarious, political respect. Think John Stewart . One of the most famous, Stanczyk, was employed by three separate Polish kings for both laughs and guidance. He is featured below as being the only patron of a royal party to be concerned about the political state of affairs.

Another sort of jester was known as a "Fool for Christ". These guys were basically Robin Hood types who thought the system was bullshit and would go around being illegal about all sorts of things and loud about it as well. One of them was my new hero Basil.

Basil here spent his life going off on Ivan the Terrible, and when he died, Ivan himself acted as one of the pallbearers. Isn't that sweet. Oh that's right, then Ivan the terrible built this on top of his grave and called it "Saint Basil's Cathedral."

Damn.

As far as in art though, I think it's a great little symbol and sorely underused. Although, I do think we get a good little gem every once in a while.

Gas Mask Fashion

In 2004 I was dating a young marine corporal who got deported to Iraq. We had only been seeing each other a few months but I was 22 and found the thought of having a man out at war to be romantic. It wasn't of course, but still, I sent him pictures letters every single day for the seven months of his stay there.

I got to see the gas mask room before he was deported. It was a long room with wooden floors and no windows in the marine headquarters in Pasadena. It was lined, from floor to cealing, with gas masks.

He put one on my face. It didn't fit right at all. After a lot of fiddling and adjusting, one of the pieces came off entirely. Oorah.

As an asthmatic I find anything to do with breath control awful and unsexy, but I still find the fetishizing of gas masks to be interesting.

If you want hot topless goth girls with gas masks, it's a google click away. I like the weird stuff more.

Of course, lets not forget what the masks are for. Nothing better to get a good chill about it than kids in 'em.

I get a real kick out of this last one. It's a shower head.

nothing to say

The Bauble

I just saw this one and like it a lot although there isn't much to say. The 'bauble' is the stick and ornament toy that the jester is holding. It was generally used in art to indicate madness.

gallows speeches

Bear and I were wondering a while ago what kinds of things people actually say right before getting executed. I did a little research on it and found out that final statements of a prisoner are referred to a “gallows speech” named after the hangman gallows of course. Following is a collection of ‘last words’ more than true gallows speeches in a few of these are natural deaths, not executions. A few of these also include something even more precious, called ‘gallows humor’ – the wonderful moment when a person makes fun of the fact that they are about to die.

Robert Erskine Childers, Irish author and nationalist, faced a firing squad on November 24^th 1922:

“Take a step or two closer, lads. It will be easier that way.”

Daryl Holton, American child killer, electrocuted by the state of Tennessee on September 12, 2007:

“Two words, I do.”

Tallulah Bankhead, died December 12, 1968 of pneumonia, and was a true American actress to her last breath:

“Codeine… bourbon.”

John Wayne Gacy, Jr., party clown and serial killer, was put to death by lethal injection on May 10, 1994 :

“Kiss my ass.”

Ned Kelly, a notorious Irish-Australian bushranger, was hung on November 11 1880:

"Such is life."

Oscar Wilde, Irish writer and self declared genius, died of meningitis on November 30, 1900. I have a feeling this one may be a bit of an embelleshment:

"Either that wallpaper goes or I do."

Pancho Villa, a Mexican Revolutionary general, was mysteriously assassinated on July 20, 1923:

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."

Madame du Barry, mistress of Louis XV of France, was killed by guillotine on December 8, 1793:

“You are going to hurt me, please don’t hurt me, just one more moment, I beg you!”

Benito Mussolini, Italian fascist, was executed by firing squad on April 28^th 1945. He was a true control freak until the end:

“Shoot me in the chest!”

Frederic Chopin, Polish composer and pianist, died of tuberculosis on October 17^th, 1849:

“The earth is suffocating. Swear to make them cut me open, so I won’t be buried alive.”

Richard Feynman, physicist, died of not one but two rare forms of cancer on February 15, 1988:

“I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.”

Giles Corey, farmer and accused witch, was crushed to death by stones on September 19^th, 1692:

“More weight.”

Saint Otteran, willingly buried alive for religious purposes in 548 on the island of Iona.

The legend is that weeks later he pushed his head through the wall of his tomb and told a horrified audience that there was no afterlife.

They pushed him back in.

Joel-Peter Witkin

I wanted to see if there was any modern art done around the old idea of ars moriendi, latin for the art of dying, and rediscovered Joel-Peter Witkin, who's photograph below is in fact titled Ars Moriendi.

Bear and I had actually totally fallen for this artist ever since seeing this next one at The Getty. It's called Mother and Child (with retractor, screaming) and we decided we would love it in our home. No, really.

So of course then I had to really look this guy up. Apparently, he answers to his fucking creepiness by saying that as a child, he witnessed a horrible car wreck that culminated with the severed head of a little girl rolling up to his feet. I'm skeptical, but it's a fantastic image.

He is known for themes such as death, corpses, dismemberment, dwarves, transexuals, hermaphrodites, freaks, and the general outsiders that I so love.

There are a few other themes he deals with that a little bold and unuasal.

(It's also possible he may be a little into plague doctors too...)

As for actual ars moriendi, the classic ones were carved onto wooden blocks in the 15th century by a man called Master E.S., and they looked like this:

They were supposed to be instructional on how to properly knock off. Hope it's helpful.