Café Philos: an internet café

I think of erotic art and porn as being two different but similar things.

To me, porn is something that reduces its subject to no more than his or her sexuality. In doing that it degrades the person in much the same way that reducing anyone to just one thing degrades them.

For instance: If you reduce a person to no more than the fact they are Black, Jewish, Mormon, a particular nationality, or a member of this or that political party, then in some sense you are degrading them. Likewise, if you reduce a person to no more than his or her sexuality you are degrading them.

Yet, I think erotic art is distinct from porn in the sense that erotic art, as I use the term, reveals someone's sexuality without entirely reducing them to their sexuality, just as you can acknowledge someone's race without entirely reducing them to their race.

It interests me that those who would reduce people to just one thing also -- perhaps almost invariably -- distort that one aspect of them. So, for instance, when the Nazis reduced Jews to "just Jews" they also characterized Jews in unrealistic and lying ways. Again, when the KKK reduces Blacks to "just Blacks" they also lie about what it means to be Black. And when the porn industry reduces a man or woman to just their sexuality, it almost invariably ascribes to them an unrealistic sexuality.

Those two things so often go hand in hand: First, reducing someone to just one aspect of themselves, and second distorting what that aspect means.

I don't think it can be denied that the human tendency to reduce others to no more than one thing and then distort that thing is a cause of much misery in this world.

Having said all that, I would much rather put up with porn -- or even racism, etc. -- than with censorship. I think the proper way to take on such evils is through debate in the free market of ideas, rather than through government censorship.

Am I onto something here, or should I drink some more coffee this morning, wake up, and try again?


See also Chanson's essay on porn -- which inspired this one.

"What one seems to want in art, in experiencing it, is the same thing that is necessary for its creation, a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration."

- Elizabeth Bishop

I'm not a huge fan of tattoos, but the above photo is excellent. The tattoo actually works to set off the curves and grace of the model's pose, and the cropping and lighting are nearly perfect, so I just had to steal the photo for you.

Photo shamelessly stolen from A Whore in the Temple of Reason

A while back I mentioned in another post that Bill Atkinson's nature photos often illustrate the close relationship between abstract art and nature. This week, I'm returning to that theme with what I suppose is a very good illustration of it -- a photo of blue rock crystals.

Click on the image to see it full size.

Ono Ranzan (1729 - 1810) was an eminent Japanese naturalist whose botanical reference works are still cited today.

Tani Buncho (1763 - 1840) was a painter and poet who founded an eclectic school of painting that combined Japanese, Chinese, and Western influences into a single style.

I think the overall effect of this work is to lend an extraordinary substantialness to an old man who is, after all, withered and stooped with age. Mr. Ono is rock solid and massive despite his hunched back and delicate, almost fragile hands.

This week, the thought occurred to me that some of you might like a glimpse of an aspen grove. The photo to the left is of a grove on Boulder Mountain, Utah, by Bill Atkinson.

One of the things that often distinguishes Atkinson's work is how close it comes to abstract art. This week's photo is not necessarily the best representation of that, but I think you can still see a bit of the abstract in it. If you go to his website, you will find many examples of photos that prove how surprisingly close nature can be to abstract art.

When the sun falls through aspen leaves, it can create a soft, peaceful light. I think Atkinson has captured that light in this week's sidebar art. The light also tends to make the leaves luminous, and I think you can see that in the young leaves close to the grove's floor. The only detail of this photo that I might dispute is the darkness of the far background. That might be literally true, but in my experience, an aspen grove is suffused with light and one does not notice much in the way of any darkness. However, I'm not criticizing the photo here -- merely pointing out a difference between how things might actually be, as they are in the photo, and how they often feel in life.

The only title I can find for the work on the left is "Art Nude". Yet, as you can see, this is not a classical art nude. It is more like a nude portrait. The focus is on the model -- her face and expression capture us. Her body is not so much defined as suggested.

I think Liviu Burlea's work here shows us what can be accomplished when one combines the technique and style of classical nude photography with portraiture. In this photo, the use of light and shadow -- borrowed from nude photography -- creates for me at least the feeling that I am looking at someone's spirit or soul. Moreover, everything else seems to reinforce that feeling.

For instance, the model's expression is at once open, sincere and vulnerable. She seems to be revealing her inner self to us. Almost surrendering it. Her nudity merely reinforces the effect. You cannot look at the photo, I think, without feeling that you have met a person in her own right. Perhaps you want to reach out to her, hold her, question her, even comfort her. She challenges you to interact with her. Few enough portraits actually do that. This one is masterful.

I would have put it in the sidebar for this week, but Blogger intervened (again!) to prevent that by squashing and distorting the photo. So, I am sharing it with you this way instead.

I'm in love with the work to the left even though I am not generally a fan of pseudo-classical poses. But the pose is so dynamic that you almost have to love it. Or even perhaps hate it -- I suspect this is one of those works that brings out strong emotions. Am I right about that?

I tried putting the photo in the sidebar for this week, but unfortunately, blogger squashed and distorted it. The photo lost its power and became something of a cartoon of itself. Still, I wanted to share it with you, so here you have it.

To me, the pose captures extraordinary strength combined with magnificent grace. So, I'm willing to forgive that the setting is a pedestal and building, rather than nature.

Why do you suppose the artist chose that setting? What do you suppose Mark Jenkins was trying to convey? Is it merely an attempt to connect with Western Classical sculpture? Or, is there more to it than that?

If you click on the above picture, it will expand to full size. That is worth a look. The negative shapes are especially stunning, I think. The lighting seems perfect to me. It at once creates the mass of the body, defines the musculature, and brings out the grace of the shoulders and limbs. The lighting also perfectly creates the illusion that we are looking at a statue rather than a living man. And although I'm not entirely happy with that last effect, I must admit Jenkins is amazing.

Symbolically, I want to believe that what we have here is The Cosmic Dancer.

This week's sidebar art is a figure study by Raymond Delhaye. If you click on the photo to the left, you can see the study full size. Unlike last week's sidebar art, this art nude is a much more typical of the genre. The model's face is not shown at all (while last week it was), the focus is on the model's body (while last week it was on the model's eyes), and the pose -- rather than the model's expression -- is what holds our interest.

It seems to me that what makes this work interesting is without doubt the pose. The lighting, the slight soft focus, the use of light and shadow to define the model, and the positive and negative spaces are all secondary at best to the drama of the pose. But what do you think?

I took most of the day off from blogging to go see the new Denver Art Museum extension, which you see in the above photo. The Rockie Mountains are said to have inspired the design. In person, it's a gorgeous titanium-sheathed building. Both the exterior shapes and the interior spaces are fascinating. And of course, someone stuck a bunch of great art inside of it.

Can a building inspire you so much you feel smarter? Sometime ago, I read of a study that somehow found a correlation between children's IQ's and the architecture of their school. According to the study, the more stimulating the architecture, the higher the IQ's of the kids. In a way, that makes sense to me, despite that I have some very serious doubts the authors of that study were able to control for all zillion variables that were surely involved in studying any link between school architecture and student IQ. Still, the Denver Art Museum extension is so stimulating both inside and out that you perk up and at least feel smarter and more alive when you visit it.

First, I should say I'm in love with the photo in the sidebar this week. The model's expression is calm and enigmatic. She's not a conventional beauty, but the photo admirably brings out her style of beauty, which is almost classical. For some reason, the work reminds me of the time I've spent at clothing optional hot springs: calm, peaceful, meditative, and natural.

Yet for all I love about the photo, I think it would be improved if Al Calkin had lost the damn flower. That flower growing out of her head distracts from the model, rather than enhancing her. Besides, it's entirely cliche to associate womanhood with flowers. So, I wish that flower wasn't there. Does anyone else feel the same? What do you think of that flower?

I came across this photo over at The Primate Diaries and was floored. On a scale of 1 to 10, the model flat out achieves an 11 for sexy looks. She's either a very good actress, or she's about to jump the photographer.

I should be clear: What strikes me about this model is not her obvious physical beauty, but her expression. Even an "ugly" woman indulging in an expression like that would be powerfully sexy -- a force of nature. And it's that fact which most fascinates me about the photo.

At any rate, I'm struggling mightily this morning to deny my natural impulse to heap cash, jewels and expensive electronic toys at that woman's feet. Have you ever wondered how a mere look can have such an effect? That is, why does that expression affect me even though it's neither meant for me, nor am I otherwise attracted to that woman? Any comprehensive answer to those questions would need to deal, on a very fundamental level, with the power of art to move us.

India, renowned for "information techology" (IT) highways and byways, retires into the gentle confines of "intelligent art" (IA), slick, surreal, but contemporary, perhaps not outlandish, and yet far removed from traditional South Asian art styles.

Here are several I found in my search, the majority of them displayed and auctioned in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) art houses

Eye Wonder by Arunanshu Chowdhury, 2004
Water Colour on Paper
Sold for $3,846












Real by Barun Chowdhury, Water Colour on Paper, 2004
Sold for $821












Animal Form by Yashwant Deshmukh, 1990,
Oil on Canvas
Sold for $2,436





















Passion by Shankar Ghosh
, Bronze, 2006
Sale Pending














Fall 2001 by Suman Gupta, 2001, Acrylic on Canvas
Sale Pending ( $1, 154)















By Jehangir Jani, 2006, Acrylic on Canvas

Sale Pending ($6,410)
















By Paresh Maity, 2007, Water Colour on Paper
Sold for $43,590








Bond of Friendship by Jagannath Paul, 2007, Acrylic on Canvas
Sold for $4,516














By Riaz Samadhan, 2007, Oil on Canvas
Sale Pending ($2,308)

I'm curious if I have any readers who like to draw, either professionally or as a hobby?

I indulge myself in drawing nude figures, abstract doodles, and portraits. Does anyone else like to draw?

How would you define pornography? One way to look at pornography (pun intended) is to see it as essentially the same as racism, sexism, and other attempts to demean people by reducing them solely to a trait, characteristic, or concept.

In the case of pornography, the reduction is to no more than a sex object. In the case of racism, the reduction is to no more than a race or ethnic group. In the case of sexism, the reduction is to no more than a gender. And so forth. But in every case, what's at work here is the reduction of someone to no more than a trait, characteristic or concept.

Pornography demeans because it says in effect, "This person is only a sex object". The "only" is crucial here. There is nothing inherently wrong in representing someone's sexuality in art. What's wrong is art that reduces someone to their sexuality alone.

That's like reducing someone to their race alone. It's like reducing someone to their gender alone. Ms. Greene is a thousand things, but the racist sees her as merely Black, the sexist sees her as merely a woman, and the pornographer sees her as merely a sex object.

O poeta é um fingidor
Finge tão completamente
Que chega a fingir que é dor
A dor que deveras sente
_____________________________
The poet is a pretender
Who's so good at his act
He even pretends to be pain
The pain he feels in fact


- Fernando Pessoa


(Thanks to Corgiguy for the poem and translation)

As I write this, the sun has just touched the uppermost blossoms on the apple tree in my back yard. The sight is so beautiful that it demands I become lost in it.

Have you noticed there can be a certain emotional pain in seeing the most beautiful things? The most deeply beautiful things sometimes disconcert us. We might even turn away from them. We might even make an effort to dismiss them. For the deeply beautiful things of this world have the power to challenge us to move out beyond ourselves; to loose, if even for a moment, the concerns, the thoughts and feelings that give us such a sense of self, such a sense of who we are and why we are so important to ourselves.

Sometimes, we would prefer to look at something ugly than to look at something beautiful precisely because the ugly thing does not make us yearn to be free of ourself; precisely because it does not challenge us in quite the same way beauty can challenge us to loose ourselves in it.

That's a truth that seems lost on those overtly sentimental works of art designed to provoke in us warm and fuzzy feelings towards the merely cute or the merely pretty.

Yet, the deeply beautiful things of this world have the power -- if we let them -- of refreshing and renewing us in ways that sentimental prettiness cannot. The deeply beautiful things can offer us a perspective on our selves that is far more life affirming than the feelings one might have towards an all too cutely rendered painting of an English cottage at dusk.

That's why it is so important to let go of oneself at times: To allow ourselves to become lost, perhaps in the sight of something deeply beautiful. Letting go can, when one is lucky, be life affirming. But genuine letting go of ourselves is not ego affirming. And hence, it is something that we all too often are not prepared to do. Our egos, necessary as they are at times, can make us cowards even towards experiencing something as simple and life affirming as the beauty of an apple blossom against the dawning sky.

On March 23rd, in this, the sixth year of our dark lord, Dick Cheney, I committed an evil and heinous crime against good sense, as well as against Eolake Stobblehouse, when I wrote a review of his DOMAI site that contained a blatant and senseless falsehood. It's now time for me to honestly and humbly confess to my crime, correct my mistake, and spin the whole episode as the fault of Osama Bin Laden.

On March 23rd I wrote the following lie about DOMAI:

If I have any qualms about Eolake's site, they come from a conversation I had with Anne a while back. She pointed out the site pretty much represents only one standard of feminine beauty and that it tends to idealize that standard. I agree with her, and it's a serious criticism.

Shame on me! The plain and god-fearing truth is the DOMAI site represents a range of feminine beauty, rather than a single standard, and which you can see for yourself by looking at the photos that accompany this post. Had I not been under the influence of Osama Bin Laden from having too recently read his persuasive, but ultimately worthless, treatise on the uncontrollable eroticism provoked in the male animal by orange striped burkhas, I would have told the truth in the first place. Maybe.

At any rate, I hope my mistake did not cause cause any lasting confusion.

The image to the left comes from Eolake Stobblehouse's "adult" website, DOMAI. I put "adult" in quotes because I have never found an image on Eolake's site that it wouldn't be appropriate for a healthy 14 year old boy to look at.

Eolake never publishes photos that degrade his models -- unless you are deeply buried in the American psyche and warily suspect nudity itself is degrading. But Eolake is Danish and his models have actual personalities that go way beyond the playmate's plastic smile. He does not turn his models into copycat bimbos.

If I had a 14 year old boy --- or a 14 year old girl interested in girls --- I'd comfortably give him or her the link to DOMAI..

In the first place, nearly every 14 year old in the country now has access to porn --- real porn. The kind you would prefer they didn't have access to. My thinking is to guide them to something better.

Second, I like the articles on Eolake's site. You should know upfront there are no articles of general interest, no interviews with famous people who are not erotic photographers, nor updates on men's fall fashions. Instead, most of the articles are in one way or another on erotic beauty and our responses to it. The ones I've read were healthy, authentic and inspiring. Any 14 year old could do with a dose of those articles to inoculate him or her against all the bullshit that gets dumped on 14 year olds these days with regards to their sexuality.

Last, I'd be comfortable giving the DOMAI link to my 14 year old because, as I mentioned above, the models are not degraded, have dignity, and come across as real people.

If I have any qualms about Eolake's site, they come from a conversation I had with Anne a while back. She pointed out the site pretty much represents only one standard of feminine beauty and that it tends to idealize that standard. I agree with her, and it's a serious criticism. But given the site's pluses, I'd take that minus and still give my 14 year old the link.

I've been using "14 year old" here just to illustrate. But when you get right down to it, Eolake's wonderful site is suitable to any person of any age who is interested in beautiful nudes.

So there you have it. My proposal for corrupting today's youth in a nutshell. Underlying my whole dastardly scheme is the notion it is far better to guide a horny teenager to good erotica than it is to sit back and hope s/he doesn't find worse stuff on his or her own.

After all, it is foolish to tell teens sex is evil and hope that lie keeps them from corruption. And it is just as foolish to throw them to the wolves by giving them no guidance at all. So, I think my approach is actually the more reasonable and practical one. What do you think? Am I right about that?

UPDATE: There is a correction to this article here.

Late last night I was messing around with my new toy (i.e. this blog) when I noticed that Kathryn Petro-Harper had linked her blog to mine. Perhaps you can imagine my delight: For a brand new blogger, every link is a vote of confidence and encouragement. So, I headed over to Kathryn's blog, A Mindful Life, feeling very happy with this amazingly generous world, all who live in it, and especially Kathryn, who I admire anyway.

When I got there, I was not prepared to have my heart wrenched, but that's exactly what happened: My heart got wrenched.

Maybe I felt the wrenching so acutely because it was late at night and I was tired. When we're tired, we are usually more open to emotional shocks than when we're rested. But whatever the case, on Kathryn's blog I immediately came across a saddening, troubling story from her life that struck me poignantly.

I should caution you that it might not strike you quite as poignantly as it did me. A little while back, Kathryn posted her spiritual biography. I read it. Found some life similarities between us, and to some extent I can now empathize with her. Besides which, she strikes me as artistic, intelligent, spiritual and compassionate: Really, all useless qualities in today's world, but nonetheless charming. So, I wasn't prepared late last night when I showed up on her blog to read of how she had been violated and abused in an admittedly common -- but still outrageous -- way.

To really understand some kinds of common, trivial ways people are abused, we must step back and forget our familiarity with them. Familiarity can kill insight. So can the thought the abuse doesn't matter because it's so trivial. Life is more often about the trivial than the grand, and unless we understand the trivial, we cannot hope to understand life.

What happened to Kathryn was pretty simple. You can read about it here. A year ago she joined, in initial good faith, a poetry forum on which it turned out her work was continually subjected to hyper-criticism from other forum members and even from moderators.

Unfortunately for Kathryn, she seems to have made the mistake of respecting the expertise of those people, and of trying very hard to learn from them. Predictably, she could never satisfy the bastards --- for they were playing bastard games with her --- but her good faith effort to learn from them made her vulnerable to internalizing their hyper-critical view of her work.

If you have ever yourself written much poetry, you know what happened next. In Kathryn's own words, "When I write a poem now, I choke. I hear the critic before I even capture an image and taste the words. I can’t hear the music in them now." This comes from a very strong woman who has endured much and survived much in her life.

Poetry is something most of us write a bit of as teenagers and then give up when we become too self-conscious of what we're writing. The words and music have to flow from "the muses". The best poetry never comes from consciousness alone. Everyone knows that. The people who abused Kathryn knew it too. They were not playing their bastard games with her in deep ignorance of the harm they were causing by making her self-conscious and hyper-critical of her own gift. They knew, on some level, they were stifling her. And they didn't care.

Perhaps the saddest part of this story is that most of us know it's commonplace for petty people to "show their superiority" by vigorously criticizing others, but we don't always see such abusive behavior for the evil it is. It is too familiar to us. So familiar it has almost lost the power to offend, and so we are not outraged by the outrageous behavior of the petty bastards among us.

Yet, abuse is abuse is abuse. All abuse is at heart the same: An unnecessary oppression of someone. If we are going to fight abuse --- including much worse abuse than Kathryn suffered --- then we cannot allow ourselves to see any abuse of people as acceptable. For us to say that some abuse is acceptable because it is so common, or because it is so trivial, or because it only stifles the creation of a few poems here and there is akin to saying we should tolerate a sewer backing up into our living room so long as it doesn't get more than an inch deep.

Those were my thoughts and feelings late last night when I ran across Kathryn's post on her blog. Yet, there happens to be a twist to this story --- and it's a very good one.

Happily, the very next post I read on her blog last night was a beautiful poem. That is to say, Kathryn has risen above the petty jerks at the poetry forum and has started writing again (You can't keep a good woman down). She went to the beach yesterday and wrote the following, which is called, "A Visit With Mother", and I hope she doesn't mind my reproducing it in full here:

The ocean is a high contact sport. Expect to wrestle a wave.
Expect to be tackled, lifted up, tossed aside.
Waves sprint and jockey each other to the shore.
Cresting, they swap twelve-foot high fives.

Boys play tag with icy waves. Their cries of surprise
compete with seagulls. A toddler in pink totters toward
starlings holding their convention on the sand.
Her face beams as she waves to each bird.

You scuffle across dry sand and it pedicures your toes.
The wind is a penetrating caress.
It scrubs your face as its chill bleaches your mind.
Your eyes sting and weep in the salt air.

You do not come to the beach for tranquility and silence.
You do not come here for shelter.
You come to absorb ancient energy.
You come to feel the rhythm of waves in your blood.

You come to swing on the tidal pendulum.
You come to submit to the scrutiny of the baldly shining sun.
You come to gaze at the horizon melting into thousands
of miles of nothingness and possibility.

You come to release your illusions.

Anyone who can write verse like that has my admiration. I hope she continues to create beautiful poems.

The thought occurs to me --- a bit late --- that I don't actually know Kathryn, except from her blog, and that she might think me presumptuous to write so much about her. I certainly hope that is not the case if and when she reads this, but if it is, I shall willingly apologize and then delete this entry. So, if you read this one day and then find it gone the next, you'll know what happened and that it's my fault for having been intrusive.