Dec. 11, 2019, 4:40 PM UTC

The holidays roll around once a year so its understandable that youd want to enjoy the festive fare and put off healthier habits just for now. After all, why should you deny yourself the pleasure of that once-a-year holiday-themed sugar cookie or sausage stuffing or spiked eggnog?

Im all for enjoying any holiday goodies you fancy without guilt or giving it a second thought. However, the marathon food fest that occurs between Thanksgiving and December 31st can take a toll on your physical and emotional health. Overeating, eating poorly, and drinking more than the healthy booze limits can impact your mood and your sleep, and that can really put a damper on your holiday spirit! Plus, eating and drinking to excess often triggers guilt, stress and anxiety, which needless to say, isnt good for your wellbeing. Navigating the holiday season healthfully is tricky for everyone. Heres how to get through the season joyfully while remaining healthy-ish.

The allure of holiday food is often more about the fear of missing out than the food itself. Its that once a year, get it now or wait til next year mentality that can override other food sensibilities. This is especially true if youve been on an overly restrictive diet that eliminates your favorite foods or fun, but less healthful menu items.

Think about it this way: If youre eyeing a pair of shoes and the store only has one pair left in your size, it makes you want them that much more. But if you know you can order them online any time youd like, youre in a better position to compare them to other shoes and decide if and when youd like to make the purchase. The same is true with food. If you really want stuffing in July or a sugar cookie in September, you can find those foods. You may have to go a little out of your way to get or make them, but its totally doable. With an abundant mindset, you can be more selective at holiday meals.

Some holiday foods are mind-blowingly delicious and others are just so-so. When you become more mindful and aware of these distinctions, it puts you in a better position to be more intentional and deliberate with holiday foods. Sure, fruitcake is primarily available this time of year, but if it doesnt do much for you, theres no point in eating it. Prioritize the foods you truly enjoy and eat them in portions that feel good to you.

Savoring your food can go a long way toward increasing your satisfaction, lowering your overall intake and even reducing bloating and indigestion that can occur when youre eating too quickly and not chewing thoroughly. We live in a fast-paced world so its seemingly normal to wolf down a meal, but your body wants you to slow down!

It takes about 20 minutes for your brain to receive signals from your appetite-regulating hormones so if you arent spending at least this amount of time savoring a meal, you wont get those signals when youve had enough to eat. Several studies have linked fast eating with weight gain and bigger weight fluctuations and this habit is also associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

But setting aside the health concerns, slowing down can lead to better enjoyment of your meal. Whether youre having holiday fare or an ordinary meal, stay present and take time to appreciate every aspect of it. How does it smell? Whats the experience biting into it? How does it taste in your mouth? What else can you appreciate about the moment? Maybe its the music, the party setting or a beautiful wreath. The holidays are about much more than food and the process of being more mindful helps you fully appreciate the entire experience.

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Your body is constantly sending you physical signals, but over time, you may learn to ignore or override them. Start to tune into these signals, which include sensations of hunger and fullness as well as things, like reflux, bloating and gas.

If youre wondering how to discover your bodys signals, here are some ideas. About halfway through a meal, you might ask yourself how much youre enjoying your meal and assess how youre filling up. When you have a few bites left, you might evaluate how youre feeling and if you want to eat a few bites more. You might examine how different portion sizes make you feel. For instance, how does a large helping of an extra-rich casserole impact your digestive system? What about a smaller portion? Do you feel sluggish after eating or does a meal revive your energy?

As you decipher what your body is saying to you, practice responding to the signs you pick up on. The facts you discover can help inform another eating occasion so if a meal makes you feel overly full or wreaks havoc on your digestion, you might approach your next eating occasion differently. But dont go overboard here! Its unrealistic to expect that you will only eat in response to hunger, that youll always stop at the point of feeling content, and that youll only eat foods that make you feel your physical best. Again, the idea is to bring more awareness to eating so you can make choices. At a holiday meal, it might make sense to eat a little more or have a larger helping of dessert, but at other meals, a different approach might serve you better.

Prioritizing fruits and vegetables isnt about sticking to low-cal fare in between holiday splurges. Its about the happiness-boosting benefits they provide. Studies continue to point to the fact that these fiber-packed, antioxidant-rich plants may lead to meaningful gains in happiness and life satisfaction. In one study that looked at the eating habits of more than 12,000 adults, those who ate the most defined as eight servings a day experienced improvements in life satisfaction. If eight servings sounds like a lot, consider that as few as four servings per day were linked to higher happiness scores. Another study found that people eating three to four servings of fruit and veggies reported less stress compared to those eating just a serving. And other research shows that your happiness fluctuates depending on your daily portions of these foods.

The holidays are stressful enough. Filling half your plate with veggies at lunch and dinner and eating a couple of pieces of fruit each day might help mellow you out and lift your holiday spirits.

A glass of wine or a festive cocktail can be an enjoyable way to celebrate the season, but making a habit of going above the alcohol limits can have a negative impact on your mood. Before you head to a holiday party, try to set an intention of one or two drinks (the limits for women and men). If this isnt realistic for you, try to pace your drinking by sipping water alongside your cocktail or alternating a glass of H20 between each alcoholic drink.

You probably dont need me to tell you that a nasty hangover can make you feel like a scrooge so do your best to avoid this scenario. In addition to staying hydrated, dont drink on an empty stomach and if your holiday party rages well into the night, continue to nibble throughout the event. These strategies along with stopping when youve reached your limit will help keep your spirits up.

Staying healthy over the holidays isnt just about the foods you eat. Managing your stress levels and getting enough rest are critical to your overall wellbeing. When you feel depleted, youre more likely to catch a cold, your body is more prone to storing fat, your work suffers and its harder to feel in control of your food choices.

Take a look at the self-care practices that you regularly participate in and determine whether youre caring for yourself well or whether there may be an opportunity to do better. Youll enjoy the holidays more if you dont run yourself ragged.

Its so easy to say yes to another event, a second or third glass of prosecco or a few cookies from the cookie platter. Check in with yourself regularly and ask yourself if another event, cocktail or helping of food is at the expense of your own wellbeing. If overstuffing yourself leaves you feeling awful or if a certain type of food doesnt sit well with you, its not offensive to say "no, thank you".

Setting food aside, you may also want to apply this thinking to your social schedule. If youre overscheduled to the point of overwhelm, its likely that your health is suffering. RSVPing "no" to a party might open up some space to stay more consistent with physical activity or participate in other healthy practices that may have fallen by the wayside.

Skipping spin because youre heading to your fourth event of the week? Its totally normal to feel like you dont have time to exercise or cook healthfully or participate in any number of self-care practices that keep you in tip top shape. But the truth is, theres a huge space in between having all the time and energy and having none of it so find that magic in the middle. Sure, you might not have the time to devote to your usual spin class, but maybe you have time to take a 15-minute walk during your lunch break. A weeks worth of meal prep might be out, but you might find some shortcuts, like pre-washed veggies, to help you reach a happier veggie target. If the holidays throw a curveball in your usual yoga or meditation practice, a one-minute meditation practice or some deep breathing is better than none at all. Studies repeatedly show that some attempt at staying healthy is better than ditching it altogether so instead of letting everything slide, do whatever you can whenever you can and aim to be healthier (or healthy-ish) this season.

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Read more from the original source:
10 tips to avoid letting healthy habits slip during the holidays - NBC News

This article contains opinion

Graduates, rejoice!

Youve finally come to the end of your long and illustrious road of endless studying, mind-boggling assignments and numerous packs of ramen at 1 a.m.

And while it is a joyous occasion, do not forget that you still have plenty of blank pages inside of your book of life and many stories to uncover.

You began this journey at age four, not knowing much about the world or life in general, and here you are now, much older and much more experienced in the world and those around you. You are now entering the disciplined world of adulthood.

This is not meant to scare you, but rather to keep you focused on reaching your highest potential in life.

You now have bills to pay.

You have to find a career.

You are now able to start a family.

You can now grow old and begin living the life you were meant to live.

That piece of paper that has your name and what you concentrated in isnt just a waste of a tree, its the key to your future and to your success.

We want to read your name in TIME Magazine as Person of the Year. We want you to receive the Nobel Prize. We want you to be the best version of you that you can be.

As you step beyond IUP, remember that you have more than 14,000 students and more than a million alumni who support you and wish you nothing but luck and support along your way through life.

Go out and make us proud.

Read the original here:
Sleb's Self-Help Column: A Guide to Proactive Life Solutions - A Letter for Graduating Students: Keep Striving - Indiana University The Penn Online

A so-called pro-choice group in Texas is promoting abortion as magical and a form of self-care and using the holidays to do it.

Texas Equal Access (TEA) Fund thought it would be festive to create party favors for their upcoming holiday party in the form of prayer candles with the message, Abortions are Magical printed in block-letters on the sides.

TEA shared an image of the candles on Facebook, which the group said it made to honor our volunteers and show them a token of appreciation."

As Fox News reports, several pro-life groups and advocates including founder and president of Live Action Lila Rose and the March for Life have responded to TEAs insensitive if not outright disgusting messaging.

Abortion is not 'magical,' abortion is murder, said Rose in an interview with Daily Caller.

"Abortion simplify inflicts another act of violence against the woman & her innocent child," Live Action tweeted.

March for Life responded by inviting TEA to attend the 2020 March for Life:

Despite backlash, TEA doubled-down on its messaging. A day after sharing the photo of their holiday party favors, TEA posted on Facebook an explanation for why we use the language we use:

Abortions are an option for people who dont want to be pregnant, plain and simple, the post reads. Access to abortion care allows people to decide when to start a family. They provide new beginnings for people trying to create a future for themselves that may have been unimaginable without their abortion. Abortions help people prioritize their own physical and mental health.

TEA goes on, Abortions are magical for most people who have them and refuting that just increases stigma around abortion. They are health care, self care, and community care. We are proud to help people access abortion care and support them through the process.

TEA reposted their explanation on Wednesday and continues to post content normalizing abortion.

(Cover Photo: Flickr / Sergio Santos)

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Make a donation today. Just $15 a month would make a tremendous impact and enable us to keeping shining the light where the liberal media are afraid to tread.

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See original here:
Texas Group Says Abortions are 'Magical' and a Form of 'Self-Care' - MRCTV

I do not agree that selfish is a four-letter word ... Sarah Knight. Photograph: Alfredo Esteban Morales

Fuck seems to have been the word weve all needed to hear. As in, stop giving a fuck, calm the fuck down, say fuck, no: all sentiments at the heart of every self-help book published since the genre exploded. But where these books were once determinedly optimistic and outwardly focused on goals such as making money and influencing people, they now assume the voice of your bluntest friend, one who is not afraid to curse while telling you how it is.

Self-help has turned sweary, and no one has made being blue a bigger part of their brand than Sarah Knight, author of the five No Fucks Given Guides, most recently Fuck No!. The series, which started with the 2015 bestseller The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck, has sold more than 2m copies worldwide and ushered in a new wave of tough-love tomes, such as The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson and Gary John Bishops Unfuck Yourself each bestsellers themselves.

Pragmatic, profane, irreverent, it is self-help for people who dont like self-help, says Knight, 41, a former book editor who credits Jen Sincero with starting the trend with You Are a Badass back in 2013. The appeal, Knight suggests, is because readers have these pent-up feelings that they felt they couldnt express, and we are helping them channel them.

Knights debut was intended as an affectionate parody of Marie Kondos 2011 tidying bible, persuasively subtitled, How to stop spending time you dont have with people you dont like doing things you dont want to do. (Baby showers, for Knight, are a particular sticking point.)

The desire to say no to care less is already there, says Knight; her books just give readers permission to act on it, like throwing a lit match on gasoline. Thats been the catalyst for them to go forth and feel liberated, and live lives that they want to live Im really preaching what I consider to be common sense, as someone who has done it and Im here to tell them that it works.

In 2009, Knight was a senior editor at Random House in New York and had just signed Gillian Flynns Gone Girl when she suffered her first panic attack, passing out in front of her coworkers. It spurred what she remembers now as a watershed time of re-evaluation and reckoning, and a clinical diagnosis of anxiety, which eventually led to her giving up her 15-year career in publishing and relocating with her husband to the Caribbean.

Im getting messages daily from teenagers, saying I loved your book, its making me think about what I want to do with my life'

There was this very stark contrast between the success that I was having on paper, and the nadir of my emotional, mental and physical health and wellbeing, Knight says now, via Skype from her new home in the Dominican Republic. The fact that they were happening at the same time [gave] me clarity: OK, obviously this really hardcore pursuit of success is damaging me in other ways. How do I balance it out?

The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck, bringing together the lessons of what Knight terms her great personal and professional meltdown, was published just six months after Knight finally quit her job. The book has since sold more than half a million copies, with Knights own trade of the rat race for a tropical island a big selling point. Such literal escape may not be possible for everyone both Knight and her husband Judd can work remotely, and they are happily child-free but the spirit of no fucks given behind it is, she says.

Im getting messages daily from people as young as 14, 15 years old, saying I loved your book, its making me think about what I want to do with my life, and from people in their 60s and 70s saying I wish Id adopted this life philosophy sooner, she says.

She summarises her philosophy, explored over five books, as take care of yourself first: granting yourself permission to say no, free from anxiety or guilt. Her method works to reduce mental clutter in the same way that Kondos removed it from the home, creating space for joy. Policing ones personal boundaries gets easier with practice, she says. I do not agree that selfish is a four-letter word, even though it gets treated like that in our society and I know quite a bit about four-letter words.

Some people do need to be told to prioritise their health and happiness as much as they do their career or, in the case of caregivers, other peoples, says Knight. And for an older generation, they just didnt ever know it was allowed they werent raised in a culture that promoted personal wellbeing.

Today we have arguably over-corrected, with the modern preoccupation with wellness which Knight agrees her work taps into reflecting widespread unease with the impact of technology, work-life imbalance and unstable employment on our health. But she suggests that anxiety and burnout may not be more prevalent today than in the past we might just understand them better. At the very least, were talking about them more, so it may make them feel more present.

Knight is upfront that she is not a doctor or therapist, but even a strategy as simple as what she terms the no-and-switch (politely declining, with a preferred alternative) might still help some. Having the opportunity to read a $20 book and get some really good suggestions, if you cant afford $2,000 in therapy, can only help. She readily admits that many of the techniques in her books are just cognitive behavioural therapy, dressed up in sweary language but I also take medication, and Im not ashamed of that.

But Knights advice, while sensible at the individual level, sits uneasily against a global backdrop of inequality and climate change that can only be tackled collectively. Are more people thinking only of themselves really what the world needs?

Im not trying to raise a generation of sociopaths, or say that all you should do is look out for number one, because you wont have a good life that way either, she says. It is possible to prioritise ones own needs without hurting others, or at least without it hurting someone else more than it helps you.

Say you refuse an invitation to a dinner party: Yes, you are disappointing your friend. However, if you have terrible social anxiety or a really demanding job, and you simply cannot be out until 10 at night, guzzling white wine on a Wednesday it would hurt you more to say yes, than it hurts them for you to say no, Knight says. She calls it being self-ish: a kind of risk-benefit analysis that takes others needs into account to an extent. On the flipside, I think that other people have to be a little bit less sensitive about me not coming to their dinner party.

She puts down the failures of political leaders in the US and the UK to greed. To me, thats not what being selfish is thats the root of all evil. Knight is unequivocal in her disgust at the egocentrism on display among politicians; in Fuck No!, she writes that her aim is to destigmatise the act of saying nyet as in, No, I wont accept foreign interference in this election.

There is also a mini-chapter in Fuck No! on sexual consent, empowering women to say no for any reason they like. It took Knight 30 years to learn this lesson herself, in which time she had sex with awful people, wasted time and compromised her individual ethics with regrettable yeses.

Noes beget noes, with more positive consequences than negative. You have to be able to communicate your boundaries. Otherwise, you are not going to be happy. Its not just no, I dont want to come to your open mic night, its no to your parents, your siblings, your lover, your children, Knight says. We all have to be able to do it a little bit better. Theres no point in walking around feeling resentful, obligated and guilty while doing things we dont want to do.

It is a reminder that the personal is political. Though Knights philosophy may seem obvious, women still socialised to put others first are more likely to benefit from it. She agrees that her books have a feminist bent, but says that her imagined reader is her younger self.

Dont wait as long as I did. I just wish I had known all this stuff 20 years ago Im constantly reminding myself of my own advice, says Knight. Does she swear at herself, too? I do.

Fuck No! by Sarah Knight is published by Quercus.

Read more from the original source:
Hate baby showers and dinner parties? Sarah Knight wants you to say no - The Guardian

It's about time that disaffected teenagers get the credit they've long deserved and never wanted. Sure, they can be kind of frustrating, with their hair-trigger eye-rolling reflex and grunted monosyllabic responses to any possible question, but they're also likely single-handedly keeping the French-poetry-collection and black-coffee industries alive. (And if there's a thriving black market for now-banned clove cigarettes a staple of depressed and pretentious teens back when I was one of them they're probably responsible for that, too.)

They are, by nature, solitary people, but they also have a way of finding one another. That's the case with the coterie of teens in Lars Iyer's delightful Nietzsche and the Burbs, a novel about young friends who pass the time in their sleepy town by drinking, playing music and wishing they were anywhere else. It's a hilarious book that also manages to be a genuinely moving look at the end of adolescence.

Chandra, Paula, Art and Merv are four young adults in their last year of secondary school in Wokingham, a suburban town west of London. It's a pleasant enough place to live, which drives the teens crazy: "The worst thing about Wokingham is that it smiles back at your despair. Wokingham hopes you'll have a nice day in your despair." They don't fit into any of their school's cliques not the popular "beasts" or the spoiled "trendies," so they've formed their own group. "All we have in common is that we have nothing in common with anyone else," Chandra explains.

When they're not in school, they spend their time at band practice (they play something Art calls "tantric metal"), drinking, philosophizing and regaling one another with made-up songs ("Supertwink" for Merv and "Fly Lesbian Seagull" for Paula). Mostly, though, they complain about life in the suburbs and the people who call it home: "They have no lightness. No life. No laughter or irony. They're heavy as suet."

The four friends are intrigued when a new student shows up to school, one who's not unlike them he's quiet, composed and has "NIHILISM" written across his notebook. They try to befriend him, infatuated with his uncurdled intellect: "His intelligence is not crabbed, like ours. It's not turned in on itself. It hasn't been squandered on music trivia. On the ranking of favourite albums and films. His intelligence hasn't been frittered away in insults. In banter. In ways of surviving the boredom."

They recruit the boy, whom they've nicknamed Nietzsche, to sing in their band, and are pleased with his performance: "Is Nietzsche a channel? Is Nietzsche an antenna? Is he casting a spell? Are these the words of some conjuration? Is this a suburban hex?" Meanwhile, they count down the days to the end of school, wallow in existential despair and giddily experiment with drugs.

Nietzsche and the Burbs isn't a plot-heavy novel; it's more of a character study told through a series of darkly funny conversations among the four friends (and, to a lesser extent, Nietzsche, who doesn't talk much). That's not to say it's boring at all Iyer's dialogue is so funny, and rings so true, that it's something of a challenge not to read the whole thing in a single sitting. In one scene, Paula explains to her friends that books make her miserable. "But you read a lot," Art responds. "I like being miserable," Paula says.

Disgruntled teenagers are famously hard to know, but Iyer depicts them accurately and with a real sensitivity, never mocking or condescending to them.

Disgruntled teenagers are famously hard to know, but Iyer depicts them accurately and with a real sensitivity, never mocking or condescending to them. He captures their adolescent bravado beautifully: "We infuriate them because they fear us. Because we think and they hate thought. Because we feel things, and they have declared war on passion, on daring, on life. ... Because we're half mad with nihilism, and the lack of meaning in their lives hasn't driven them insane."

Crucially, though, he also captures the moments when they let their guard down, when they forget to be disaffected for a few minutes and open themselves up to happiness. In one incredibly moving scene, the friends find themselves at their school's prom, which they fully expect to hate, but find themselves unable to resist the lure of pop music: "Even we're dancing to Abba ... Are we dancing ironically? Is this real dancing? Are we dancing or not dancing? Are we dancing as not dancing? ... We've dropped our sang froid ... We've dropped our mutual disdain ... We've dropped our normal distance."

The scene is Iyer at his best: observant, funny and compassionate. It's obvious that he loves his characters, and his enthusiasm for them is contagious it's impossible not to root for these hard-edged but sweet kids, even as they practically beg you to disdain them. Nietzsche and the Burbs is an anthem for young misfits and a hilarious, triumphant book about friendship, which Chandra beautifully describes thus: "It's being with people. It's a mind-meld. It's holding onto something. It's bearing something in common, when the word just wants you to scatter. It's keeping something safe."

Read more here:
Review: 'Nietzsche And The Burbs,' By Lars Iyer - NPR

First week

Monday

The new boys from private schoolthat, were sure of. His composure. His assurance. Thats what you pay for when you send your child to private school. Assurance... Composure... So whys he come to our school?thats whats got us floored. And only a couple of months from the exams. Come to think of it, whats he doing in Wokingham? Dreary suburbia. Did his parents lose their jobs? Did they split up? Was he expelled from private school? I think he has charisma, Art says. I think he knows he has charisma, Paula says. I think he doesnt care whether he has charisma, I say. Thats what gives him charisma. Whats charisma? Merv asks.

Into assembly. The new boy, already picked off by the sixth-form pariah. Oh, Godlook at Bombproof, Art says. All positive. We hope the new boy doesnt judge us all by Bombproof. Should we mount a rescue operation? But the new boy has already excused himself to Bombproof. Hes gone to the bathroom. A cunning ruse, we agree. The bathroom rse.

Assembly. The whole school, sitting in rows. The whole school community. The whole school family. We take our seats at the back of the hall. Art, coughing. Merv, coughing slightly louder. Me, coughing louder still. Paula, coughing extremely loudly. Titters. Paula, excusing herself loudest of all. The head of sixth form, glaring at us from beneath his domed forehead. Quiet, Upper Sixth! Youre supposed to be setting an example! The Lords Prayer. Our daily act of worship. The whole school, heads down, mumbling the words. The new boy, head unbowed, staring straight ahead.

Economics. The Old Mole, with graphs. The rise of stocks. The fall of government bonds. The continuing inflation of the housing bubble. The Old Mole, asking what the graphs might mean. Um, Bombproof says. Ah, Dingus says. Then, inspired: It means that things are going well! Then, no longer inspired: Doesnt it? Diamanda, twiddling her pen. Putzie, shrugging. Quinn, vacant. Calypso, glowing prettily, but also vacant. The Old Mole, impatient. Is she going to rant on again about overprivileged pseuds? About none us having ever seen real poverty? Global economic collapse, miss, Paula says. The Old Mole, looking up from her despair. Hyperinflation, then a new Weimar, possibly a new Hitler, miss, Art says. Stagflation, then another world war, to boost production, leading to mutually assured destruction, miss, I say. Financial despotism, following the fusion of corporate power and political power, miss, Paula says. Fascism, in other words. Resource wars, miss, Art says. Trade wars, miss. Real wars, miss... The Old Mole, smiling grimly. And what is to be done? Ums. Ahs. Separate investment banks from retail banks? Art says. Cryptocurrencies? Paula says. Disintermediation? I say. The new boy, hand raised. The Old Mole, nodding. The new boy: Nothing. The Old Mole, no longer nodding: Nothing?! The new boy: Let it all come down. An entire economic system? the Old Mole says. The new boy: Economy is the problem. The economy itself? the Old Mole says. The new boy: Economy devalues everything that matters. The Old Mole, looking baffled: You want to get rid of the economy? What would we have in its place? The new boy: Life. Without goods and services? the Old Mole says. How would you meet your basic needs? The new boy, leaning forward. My basic need is not to be dead. Its not to be carrying a corpse on my back. The Old Mole, not knowing what to do. Is the new boy a nutter? The new boy, sitting back in his chair. Silence. Wow! Art says, sotto voce. So the new boys an apocalypticist. Just like us.

Lunch. The sixth-form common room. The new boy, carrying a tray from the canteen. We call him over to sit with us. Bombproof, slumped against the opposite wall, disappointed. The end of the world, eh? Paula says. Exactly how is the world going to end? Art says. I think the worlds already ended, I say. This is the afterlife. Some fucking afterlife, Art says. I think this is the before life, Paula says. I think weve never actually lived. We contemplate the new boys tray. Chips. Coleslaw. Baked beans. Dont feel you have to eat the school dinners, Paula says. The canteens disgusting. And its full of lower-school pupils, Art says. Always avoid lower-school pupils. We spent years avoiding the lower-school pupils. And we were in the lower school, I say. The new boy excuses himself. He wants to return his tray. And he needs the bathroom.

Boredom. All the old common room faces. Bitch Tits... Schlong Boy... Hand Job and the gang... And The Sirens, of course, sitting together, exotics, transferred from private school at the beginning of the sixth form. The Sirens havent played their hand yet, have they? Art asks. Theyll never play their hand, I say. Theyre girls of mystery. Youd think theyre dykes, but theyre not, Paula says. Paula wants to have the edgy lez monopoly, Art says. Snippy snippy, Paula says. Well, theyre definitely not gay, I say. Chandra still has his thing for The Sirens, Merv says. Or for one of them, anyway. I do not! I say.

The common room. The lowest-common-denominator room, Paula says. The common soul-death room, I say. Surveying the landscape. The beaststhe last beasts, the last of their kind, their fellows having left the sixth form. These are the academic beasts, the beasts with some brain to go with their brawn, and their hangers-on. Theres Bombproof, the beasts chew-toy. Theres Calypso, as beautiful as her namesake, sitting on Dinguss knee. But the beasts are in decline, now might is no longer de rigueur. The beasts no longer rule the school, not since the trendies discovered irony... And there they are: the trendies. Gathered round the centre table. So knowing. So louche. So seen-it-all-before. The spoilt kids. The clique of cliques. Mean boys and mean girls, looking to fill everybody with fear... But even irony has its limits. Even mean kids meet their match. Theres a new ascendancythe meteoric rise of everyone else. The grey masses. The drudges. The duh-rudges. Too lazy for fear. Too distractible for irony... So many of them! Always snacking and checking their phones. Always at their troughs. Always chowing down. Consuming. And so cosy! So bedded-in, with their novelty slippers and their massive vats of tea. So satisfied, yet so insatiable. So inert, yet growing fatter by the day. You can basically watch them expand. Theyre like bamboo in the tropics, only not so vertical. The drudges will survive us alltheres no doubt of that. The drudges are here for the duration... Its a grim scene, I say. It makes me want to put out my eyes, Paula says. No wonder we dont have anyone to hang out with, Merv says. We have us to hang out with, Art says. All we have in common is that we have nothing in common with anyone else, I say. Or each other, Merv says. We have our band! Art says. The bands dead, Paula says.

P.E. The sports cupboard, stacked with things to throw. Choose your weapon! Will it be the discus? The javelin? Really, who would trust us with a javelin? We wouldnt trust us with a javelin! Art would only throw a javelin straight through Dinguss heart...

On the playing field, blinking in the sun. Well train for the long jump, we decide. For the triple jump! We head along the river path towards the sand pit. Willows. Cooling shade. The gentle lapping of the river. Sowhat did you do to end up here? Paula asks the new boy. Did you set something on fire? Ill bet you did, I say. Ill bet you set something on fire. You have that destroy-the-world look. You went somewhere posh, right? Art says. Your accents posh. The new boy: Trafalgar College. I lost my scholarship. I dont believe you, I say. I think you set something on fire. Trafalgars really something, Art says. Ive seen it. Very nice buildings. And very nice grounds. Huge grounds, fenced off from the proles. The new boy: All nonsense. High-Victorian fake. I dont know, Art says. I mean, look at this dump! This dumps not a fake, the new boy says. Its not selling Englishness off the shelf. Theyve franchised Trafalgar, you know. Theyve built an exact replica in China. We imagine it: grand rococo buildings, in the Chinese suburbs. A fancy-pants chapel in the shadow of Chinese high-rises. Shooting and army-cadetting, in the Chinese suburbs. Early morning mist, in the Chinese suburbs. Groundskeepers flattening turf, in the Chinese suburbs. Rugby fixtures and summer ftes, in the Chinese suburbs. The lacrosse team, jogging through the woods, in the Chinese suburbs.

We wish Loddon Valley could be bothered to be fake, we tell the new boy. Well-being class. Mr Merriweather, self-styled teen-whisperer, showing slides on the miracle of Bhutan. Mr Merriweather, explaining the amazing Bhutanese experiment. The admirable Bhutanese initiative. Slide: Ghalkey, the Bhutanese word for happiness. Mr Merriweather: Gha, in Bhutanese, means you like something. Key means peace. The harmony of the wholethats what the Bhutanese value. Its not about individual happiness. Its not about my happiness or your happiness. Its about the whole. (Makes an encompassing gesture.) The WHOLE. Slide: (Title) The Pillars of Happiness. (Bullet-points) Psychological well-being. Time use. Cultural diversity and resilience. Community vitality. Good governance. Slide: Gross Domestic Happiness. Mr Merriweather: The Bhutanese have actually taken it upon themselves to measure the gross domestic happiness of their population! Slide: (Title) Bhutanese Government Questionnaire. (Bullet-points) Do you trust your neighbours? Do you believe in karma? Do you know local folktales? Mr Merriweather: Do we trust our neighbours? Do we believe in anything? Are we happy? Slide: Smiling Bhutanese children. Slide: Smiling Bhutanese peasants, with their yaks. Slide: Smiling Bhutanese priests, at the temple. Slide: Smiling Mr Merriweather, enjoying traditional Bhutanese hospitality. Slide: Smiling Mr Merriweather, trekking in the mountains with his faithful Bhutanese guide. Slide: Smiling Mr Merriweather and smiling Mrs Merriweather (we presume), strolling through a Bhutanese market. Bhutans doomed, isnt it, sir? Paula says. I mean, as soon as you open the country to happiness-tourism, theres no more happiness, is there, sir? Its like what happens when we make contact with isolated tribes, sir, Art says. Half of them die of Western diseases. Then cancer, alcoholism and depression finish of the rest. Its the West, sir. Its what we do. Ill bet the young Bhutanese are all depressed, sir, I say. Ill bet theyre all suicidal, just like us, sir. And theres nothing that can be done, even with all the tourist money swilling round the country. Bhutans trying to resist westernisation, Mr Merriweather says. Bhutan can still teach us values. The new boy, NIHILISM in big letters across his notebook.

Home time. The bike sheds. Unlocking our bikes. Pigeons, flying after one another. That ones trying to fuck that one, Merv says. Hes, like, forcing himself on her. Maybe she likes it, I say. Shes flying away, Paula says. Or trying to. Look at the way hes strutting, Art says. Just like you, Chandra. How do you know its a he? Paula says. Could be a dyke. Could be all dyke pigeons around here. Natures disgusting, Art says. Animals are disgusting. I hate the way they always remind us of us. The way they just liveits indecent. All their instincts... We have instincts, Paula says. I refuse to have instincts, Art says. The need to breed, Arteverything fucks, I say. Is that what were like? Is that what love is? Art says. Maybe machine intelligence will be better, Merv says. I mean, machines dont fuck, do they? They can just build new machines. Roll on full automation, Art says.

Wheeling through the crowds. You know who the new boy looks like? Paula says. Ive been thinking about it all day. Nietzsche. Who? Merv asks. Friedrich Nietzschethe philosopher, Paula says. Dont tell me you havent heard of Nietzsche. Merv, investigating on his phone. Showing us a photo. The new boy doesnt look anything like him! You have to look beyond the moustache, Paula says. How? Merv says. All I can see is moustache.

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Nietzsche and the Burbs - NPR

Recently, one already controversial 'swami' Nithyananda fled the country. His Ahmedabad ashram was a den of illegal activities and he usurped the land, kidnapped, raped and did all sorts of nefarious and abominable things. How could he spread his 'spiritual' empire despite getting implicated in a rape case in 2010 is an enigma. But the far greater conundrum is: Why do his scores of followers still believe that their guru is above reproach? It's like Caesar's wife must be above suspicion. The mushrooming ofbabasand gurus in recent times is a phenomenon that needs to be studied and analysed. And despite their misdeeds, esp. (s)exploits, their followers' blind faith in them entails a comprehensive psychological study of the whole shebang, calledgurudomorbabadom.

According to Genetic Biology and Theory of Evolution, humans are still evolving and evolving almost imperceptibly. To quote German iconoclast Friedrich Nietzsche, "Humans are still standing on the lowest rung to the ladder of evolution." And mind you, before criticising Indian or oriental gurus andbabasfor their shenanigans, one mustn't forget that the Western world also hasbabas, gurus and a spate of cults, albeit with ostensible differences. Otherwise, what's the Doomsday Cult with many shades and shrouds or innumerable Psychic Cults and their dubious gurus and clairvoyants? The popular televangelists like Pat Robertson, Faye Bakker, Jerry Falwell, among others are Christian gurus to their followers. Exiled preacher Zakir Naik of India is guru to the Islamic world. After all, human spirit is the same everywhere. Fools are everywhere. So are shrewd people, ever-ready to exploit the foolishness of the masses.

The West can't deny that Jabalpur's ordinary Mahesh Yogi returned to India carrying the tag of Maharshi given to him by the Beatles and western world. That he tried to molest Mia Farrow and Paul McCartney got disillusioned with him is inconsequential. Yet another controversial Jabalpurean Rajnish, who rechristened himself as Osho, and suave spiritualist Jiddu Krishnamurthy got more fame in the West than they did in the country of their birth. The point is: We're all equally credulous when it comes to believing in such high or low profile spiritual gurus as per their appearances and utterances. A garish and gaudy Gurmeet Ram-Rahim could also have a huge fan-following and he still has many followers who deify him or one fancy motorcycle-borne articulate Sadguru, promoted and projected by one of India's leading English dailies, is popular among 'refined' and English-speaking gentry for which spirituality is a new-age drug to be popularised through bespoke spiritual sessions.

In his book, The evolution of god, the origins of our beliefs, the writer Robert Wright has lucidly explained the whole enchilada of gurus,babasand people's unquestioning faith in them. Pascal Boyer already descanted upon human credulity and our faith inbabasin his book, Religion explained: The evolutionary origins of religious thought (Basic Books, 2001). Both the neuro-scientists opine that human brain (not mind; mind is intangible and it doesn't exist) is genetically programmed to believing in supernatural and esoteric mumbo-jumbo. This is the outcome of thousands of years of uncertain existence in pre-historic era. Robert Wright writes, "A frightened brain is always vulnerable and a vulnerable brain is susceptible to unseen phenomena and thinks them to be supernatural. This susceptibility percolated down to 'modern' humans with slowly evolving brains. The unfortunately fatal combination of susceptibility and vulnerability engendered all types of religions, cults, gods and also godmen." Somewhere, even a believing brain knows that the idea of a god is intangible, unrelatable and even dubious, but brain works in the manner of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'Willing Suspension of Disbelief' and finds some relatable alternatives for the very survival.

A godman is that earthly alternative for a celestial esoteric being that's perpetually beyond the reach of humans. In other words, he (guru) is what the doctor prescribed! We, therefore, invest all our energy, faith, reason and rationale in a godman or a god-woman in such an exhaustive manner that we're left with nothing. The very capacity to question gets weakened and it ebbs away eventually. Moreover, all these godmen and godwomen exhort their followers to follow them without a shred of doubt and misgiving. Until a few years ago, inscribed were the words at the entrance of Osho Commune in Pune: Please keep your mind out with your footwear! This unconditional submission acts as a stupor. Mind you, unquestioning submission is a sine qua non in the spiritual market all over the world. The brain gets doped and unable to discern. Sigmund Freud termed it 'Hypnotized Trance.' Got to say, a very apt term. Visit any commune or the so-calledsatsang(religious gathering), you get to see spellbound zombies in a state of trance. They call it ecstasy. But this euphoric ecstasy is simulated. Human brain thinks it to be real.

Harper and Moir of Kent University, England are of the view that a believing brain is invariably drawn to a guru,babaor godman. Because, a believing brain is a weak and timid brain. The submission to a godman is the submission to god, whom no one has seen. Neither will anyone ever see. The spiritually subservient nature of human brain causes us to tie our apron-strings. That's the reason, all gurus (good as well as bad) have been able to cast a spell on their followers and they (followers) too don't want to break that spell because that spell gives them a faux sense of security, serenity and stability. Furthermore, the pineal gland in the brain, which secrets melatonin, is linked to the God-Spot in the brain that gives us blissful feelings when we get to hear the recondite spiritual gibberish of all ' spiritual masters.' When they say, 'super-consciousness', 'transcendental reality', 'unalloyed unity' or 'universal synchronicity', we don't understand even a bit (neither do they), but these term give us a high like LSD's after-effect. The followers deliberately put their brains on the self-deception mode to be one with their gurus. After all,Mundus Vult Decipi(The world wants to be deceived) andHomo Vult Decipi; Decipiatur(Man wishes to be deceived; deceive him). Benjamin Franklin aptly said, "Who has deceived thee, as often as thyself?"

The writer is an advanced research scholar of Semitic languages, civilizations and cultures.

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The candid anatomy of belief in godmen - Free Press Journal

To become a maker is to make the world for others, not only the material world but the world of ideas that rules over the material world, the dreams we inhabit and dream together.

Established art museums around the world continue to draw large crowds. There is competition with one another to stage monumental exhibitions of works by classical masters and newer modern artists. Last month, within days after the Louvre in Paris announced the largest exhibit of Leonardo Di Vinci paintings and sketches ever assembled, over 260,000 advanced tickets were sold.

Recently, the Arab world has challenged Europe by becoming a new cultural center with The United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi investing in art museums. The Louvre Abu Dhabi opened in 2017, the Zayed National Museum is well underway, and plans for a branch of the Guggenheim have been announced.

If one is searching for a diverse cross-section of humanity, all participating in the same activity, an art museum is the ideal place to go. Whatever the nationality or language, or background, art naturally causes something to stir in the mind. The emotion may be curiosity, awe, or frustration at not being able to grasp the artists intent, but it awakens something in all of us.

Art has the ability to change perspectives, to look at life in different ways. Consider the different emotions one feels when viewing the enormous scale of Michelangelos Sistine Chapel; the minute details of Starry Night as envisioned by Van Gogh from his asylum room just before sunrise; the curious splatters created by Jason Pollock; or the political message embodied in Picassos epic mural Guernica. Each work so different, inspired by pure ideas and histories, born from a few supplies and a vision singular to the artist.

An art museum is a visual library with each painting telling a story. It is an impossible task to take in the entire collection, or even one floor. The average person spends 17 seconds looking at a work of art in a museum, intent on quantity over quality. Understanding each work of art requires the dedication to slow down, observe and interpret.

Experience has taught my wife and me to find a short term special exhibit that draws our attention and to read about the curators intent before seeing the paintings. We will often purchase the gift shop exhibition guide to help us along. Many of the exhibits we have attended in recent years are designed to focus on a certain period of an artists career or to show collaboration and inspiration among artists of the same period. All have left us energized and eager for more.

Over the years we have adopted one late Renaissance artist, Caravaggio, as our special favorite. We have scheduled a unique tour in Rome to view his work in small churches and always seek out his paintings wherever we travel. We have read about his boisterous lifestyle and can feel his spirit in his work, which influenced so many later artists.

So how can a family situated in Southwestern Pennsylvania learn to appreciate art? Most accessible are the local schools, art galleries and libraries that feature resident artists from time to time. Washington County has developed a thriving art colony over the years that is well represented in nearby venues.

A short drive will open a completely new level of exposure to viewing art. The Pittsburgh Frick Museum, The Carnegie Art Museum and the Andy Warhol Museum all offer excellent viewing experiences without being overwhelming. It is a good idea to sign up for the museum newsletters online to find out about ever-changing exhibits. Westmoreland County features a hidden jewel of an art museum, in Greensburg. It is truly a regional collection with a national presence.

For the more adventurous with a weekend to spend, New York City (The Met, MOMA, The Frick, among others); Philadelphia (The Barnes, The Museum of Art); and Washington, D.C. (The National Gallery, National Museum of Art, National Portrait Gallery) all offer world-class experiences. While any destination will be rewarded, our recent favorite is The Barnes, a new modern museum with outstanding lighting, which features one of the best impressionist collections to be found anywhere.

Lastly, on a cold winters night, when television reruns and cable news do not excite, there are excellent presentations of art from the worlds great museums on the internet. Staging a Michelangelo, Di Vinci, Van Gogh, or Picasso evening can be great fun, especially when accompanied by a biographical movie or National Geographic special about the painter.

Art appreciation takes some work. One must break away from what is habitual and ordinary in order to take in that which may not at first be clear. But the reward is a deep, mysterious and beautiful experience that one shares with all of humanity. According to Frederick Nietzsche: We have art in order not to die of the truth. In todays political climate, he may have been on to something.

Gary Stout is a Washington attorney.

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OP-ED: Enjoy art and rise above the mundane - Observer-Reporter

Leon Spilliaert Woman at the Shoreline 1910

In February 2020, the Royal Academy of Arts will present the first major exhibition of Belgian artist Lon Spilliaert (18811946) to be held in the UK. Bringing together around 80 works drawn from public and private collections across Belgium, France, Great Britain and the USA, the exhibition will offer a rare opportunity to discover this intriguing, singular artist who left an indelible mark on the twentieth-century art of Belgium.

Born in Ostend, the seaside resort on the North Sea coast patronised by the Belgian royal family, Spilliaert was a self-taught artist. Eschewing oil paint, he worked in combinations of Indian ink wash, Cont crayon, watercolour, gouache, pastel, chalk, pencil and pen on paper or cardboard, to create atmospheric works that are often imbued with mystery and melancholy. As a young man, plagued by insomnia and a chronic stomach condition, Spilliaert regularly walked along the deserted promenade and through the streets of Ostend in the dead of night, afterwards capturing the emptiness of the beach and town in a sequence of dynamic views defined by unusual perspectives and reflected light. Fuelled existential angst, Spilliaert also created a series of visionary self-portraits that reveal his preoccupation with his identity as an artist. These potent images of solitude align Spilliaert with Nordic artists such as Edvard Munch, Vilhelm Hammershi and Helene Schjerfbeck, who likewise wrestled with visual explorations of the self at the turn of the twentieth century.

A love of literature and philosophy, in particular the work of Edgar Allan Poe and Friedrich Nietzsche, shaped much of Spilliaerts early work, which has a brooding and at times romantic intensity to it. In 1902, Spilliaert started working for the Brussels publisher Edmond Deman, illustrating works by the playwright, poet and essayist Maurice Maeterlinck (who, in 1911, became the only ever Belgian recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature) and the poet Emile Verhaeren, with whom he formed a close friendship. Verhaeren would be responsible for introducing the artist to numerous art and literary figures, including the Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig and the Belgian playwright Fernand Crommelynck. Fleeing Ostend in 1917 to escape the German occupation, Spilliaert and his new wife Rachel Vergison set off for Geneva, where they planned to join a pacifist movement. But with little money and a new baby, they got no further than Brussels. Spilliaert would move between Ostend and Brussels for the rest of his life. Always fascinated by the natural world, his later work developed a softer focus, and he produced contemplative, tranquil works that conjure evening light or the shadows of beech trees in the Fort de Soignes in Brussels, where he walked regularly.

The exhibition will be organised in four thematic sections, presenting a journey through the lifetime of this remarkably insightful and unusual artist. Entitled Illumination, section one will focus on Spilliaerts engagement with literature, theatre and book illustration and introduce his poetic visions of nature, including Beech Trunks, 1945 (Private Collection). Section two, Crepuscule, will explore Spilliaerts expressions of emptiness and loneliness in the twilit world he inhabited. Still-lifes and interior scenes transmit a quiet glow in the depths of night, and, as in Young Woman on a Stool, 1909 (the Hearn Family Trust) solitary women wait for their husbands to return from sea at the end of the day. This section will also include examples of a commission to illustrate Belgique II, one of the first airships in Belgium. Section three, Littoral, examines Spilliaerts fascination with the liminal areas between land and sea, and, as seen in A Gust of Wind, 1904 (Mu.ZEE) and Dike at night. Reflected lights, 1908 (Muse dOrsay), his depictions of the streets, beach and promenade of Ostend. The final section, Reflections, brings together an important group of self-portraits.

The exhibition will be presented at the Royal Academy of Arts and then travel to the Muse dOrsay, Paris. It will be curated by Dr Anne Adriaens-Pannier (Honorary Curator, Muses royaux des BeauxArts de Belgique, Brussels and Artistic Director of Het Spilliaert Hus, Ostend) and Dr Adrian Locke (Senior Curator, Royal Academy of Arts, London). Exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London in collaboration with the Muse dOrsay, Paris.

Royal Academy of Arts, London, 23rd February 25th May 2020 royalacademy.org.uk Muse dOrsay, Paris, 15th June 13th September 2020

Mark Westall is the Founder and Editor of FAD magazine, ' A curation of the worlds most interesting culture' [PLUS] Art of Conversation: A tri-annual 'no news paper'

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Lon Spilliaert at the Royal Academy of Arts - FAD magazine

What inspired the immaculately horrific art of Francis Bacon?

Flayed carcasses, howling creatures, disfigured heads and tortured bodies of grappling, male lovers. These emotionally charged images dominate the art of Francis Bacon, one of the worlds most important artists who continue to fascinate as seen in the long queues at the opening ofBacon: Books and Paintingat the Centre Pompidou in Paris. What makes this exhibit even more intriguing is the innovative exploration of the influence of literature in the paintings of the controversial British painter who led a tumultuous life with many violent episodes related to intense relationships and a number of vices that fueled his creations.

Born in Dublin in 1909 to a racehorse trainer father and a mother who was heiress to a steel and coal mine business, Bacon would describe his childhood as unhappy ininterviews with photographer Francis Giacobetti from late 1991 to weeks before his death in April 1992.My father didnt love me, thats for sure, he said as he related how the elder Bacon would be very abusive.With the artists emerging homosexuality, his father would even have him horsewhipped by the stable boys who would also be involved in his first sexual experiences. This led to a very complicated relationship with his father:It was very ambiguous because I was sexually attracted to him.At that time I didnt know how to explain my feelings.I only understood afterwards when I slept with his servants.

After getting caught wearing his mothers garments, he was finally expelled in 1926, surviving on a small allowance as he lived the life of a vagrant in London, Berlin and Paris. By the late 20s, settling in London, he dabbled in interior and furniture design until a mentor, Roy de Maistre, encouraged him to study oil painting. Picasso and the surrealists were strong influences in his early work which found success in 1933 when he exhibitedCrucifixion, a skeletal black and white composition that foreshadowed his later work, both in his obsession with Christs Passion as well as a predilection for morbid subjects showing contorted emotion and visceral physicality. This initial success, however, was followed by a series of rejections at galleries, prompting Bacon to destroy a majority of his works before 1943 and to bring him back to his former life of drifting, drinking and gambling. He returned to painting after the war, though, and producedThree Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion(1944) which he considered the true beginning of his work. This breakout pieceplaced him in the spotlight leading to his first solo exhibition in 1949.

By 1952, Bacon began one of his most significant and turbulent relationships when he met Peter Lacy, a dashing, well-bred but self-destructive ex-WWII fighter.Even at their most sedate encounters, Bacon would submit to being tied in bondage at Lacys house. This sadomasochistic coupling would be instrumental in producing some of the artists fine pieces, according to the art historian John Richardson who describes the aftermath of an incident when Lacy hurled Bacon through a glass window after a drinking spree:His face was so damaged that his right eye had to be sewn back into place. But Bacon loved Lacy even more. He would not forgive Lucian Freud for remonstrating with his lover.

But the most famous of Bacons lovers would have to be George Dyer whose suicide he immortalized in a painting in 1971, on the eve of the artists retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris. Bacon would goad George into a state of psychic meltdown then in the early hours of the morning his favorite time to work he would exorcise his guilt and rage and remorse in images of Dyer aimed, as he said, at the nervous system, says Richardson. As the goading worsened, the imagery intensified and finally, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt in Greece, Dyer killed himself in Paris. This was a turning point in Bacons career, after which his paintings acquired a precision, clarity and intensity that made them immaculate, according to Didier Ottinger, the curator of the current Pompidou show.The exhibit concentrates on Bacons career from 1971 to 1992 which, for Ottinger, produced the artists best paintings. For more than 40 years, Bacon was trying to produce that elusive immaculate painting, inventing a technique that would reconcile the intensity and precision with which the technical means of photography and cinema had endowed the modern image, and the delicacy required to render the quivering, the very movement of life.

This period of Bacons maturity coincided with his relationship with John Edwards which was platonic and seemingly free of sadomasochistic overtones. He turned to books for inspiration, accumulating an enormous library in his London studio. A major highlight of the exhibit is the inclusion of six rooms that play readings from some of these books in relation to the 60 works of which 12 are triptychs. The authors evoke a common poetic universe rooted in tragedy: From the philosophy of Nietzsche to the tragedies of Aeschylus, from the poetry of T.S. Eliot to the novels of Conrad, the writings of Leiris and Bataille, Bacon was interested in authors who shared an implacably realist conception of the world, demonstrating a compatibility of contradictory principles, says Ottinger. Nietzsche, for example, analyzed the coalescence of Apollonian beauty with Dionysian excess while Bataille established the fusion of vital energy with destructive forces.

Bacons fondness for stark, tragic stories reflected how he viewed his own life, according to Michael Peppiatt, a friend and biographer of the artist:He looked for other people who also looked down into the darkness.Aeschylus was a particular favorite whose verse The reek of human blood smiles out at me evoked the most exciting images for him. Passages like this helped shape his art: I need to visualize things that lead me to other forms or subjects, details, images that influence my nervous system and transform the basic idea.Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus(1981) includes the title of the book but just like his other pieces, it is not a linear narrative interpretation. His guilt over Dyers suicide manifests itself, though, in the shape of the Euminides, the Furies who hounded Orestes in the wake of his parricide.Study from the Human Body and Portrait (1988) has different layers that reflect EliotsThe Waste-Landwith its fragmented construction and its collage of languages and multiple tales, says Ottinger.

Ultimately, artists work with human material, not with colors and paintbrushes. Its his thoughts that enter the painting, said Bacon in the interview with Giacobetti. But I dont expect any certainty in life. I dont believe in anything, not in God, not in morality, not in social success. I just believe in the present moment if it has genius in the emotions that I experience when what I transmit on the canvas works. I am completely amoral and atheist and if I hadnt painted I would have been a thief or a criminal. My paintings are a lot less violent than me. Perhaps if my childhood had been happier, I would have painted bouquets of flowers.

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Bacon: Books and Painting is ongoing at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Visitwww.centrepompidou.frfor details. Follow the authors on Instagram @rickytchitov; Twitter @RickyToledo23; Facebook - Ricky Toledo Chito Vijandre.

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What inspired the immaculately horrific art of Francis Bacon? - Philippine Star