Gaugin is big in Japan

(Click the image for the full painting)

There's a GREAT article in the Boston Globe today about the Gauguin masterwork "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" which is visiting the MFA's sister museum in Japan and causing all sorts of awe-struck wonder:

One woman in the throng of admirers stood in front of the painting and cried. Another had just driven 2 1/2 hours from Osaka to be among the first to get close to it. "I felt goose bumps in my skin," she said after she did. A third, in halting English, struggled to explain the significance of the work, a dark and ambitious meditation on the meaning of human existence. "The picture purifies us," she said exuberantly. "It gives us power and energy."

The Globe story delves deeper into this quasi-religious fervor over the painting noting:

Though the enormous painting is set in Tahiti and has never been seen before in Asia, the Japanese embraced it with a kind of fanaticism usually reserved for their baseball players. Gauguin's work is much loved in Japan, where it has a special resonance, with its subtle references to Buddhism, its embrace of the natural world, and the deep Zen-like riddle of its title...To enhance the visual experience, the Nagoya museum created an unusual viewing setup: Visitors ascend a few steps to stand on a raised platform, as though approaching a venerated shrine

Two thoughts:

1) When was the last time a painting visiting the MFA in Boston caused this kind of jubilation? Even Hopper's "Nighthawks" which took a trip to the MFA two years ago wasn't set up over a raised platform!

2) It's stories like this one that make me glad the Globe is still around: revealing, thoughtful, international but with a Boston focus.

It's the National Day of Prayer, do you know where the Religious Right is?

Answer: Unlike the last eight years, not in the White House.

The holiday which has roiled those of us who believe in a little thing called the Establishment Clause has been celebrated since it was signed into law by Truman at the outset of the Cold War in 1952.

It's one thing to have a non-denominational day of prayer, it's quite another to host an official gathering of far right Christian leaders every year at the White House as Bush did for all his eight years in office. The National Day of Prayer Task Force, the group whose members were the guests of honor during the Bush administration, is an arm of the bat-shit crazy Focus on the Family and is unnervingly militant in its stated goals:

The National Day of Prayer Task Force's mission is to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, mobilizing the Christian community to intercede for America and its leadership in the seven centers of power: Government, Military, Media, Business, Education, Church and Family.

Can't imagine why Obama might not want to be associated with that! The Obama administration has sought a middle ground, signing a proclamation noting the National Day of Prayer, arguing against a lawsuit that challenges the day's legality, but not holding an official White House function. Even the Presidential proclamation has been toned down from the Bush era. As the conservative Dan Gilgoff observes in the US News and World Report's God and Country blog:

Whereas Bush's last proclamation focused on the one being prayed to, Obama's focuses on the people doing the praying...Whereas Bush employed overtly Judeo-Christian language when invoking God in last year's proclamation, Obama's goes out of his way to emphasize religious pluralism, even acknowledging nonbelievers...

Needless to say, the Focus on the Family people are none to pleased about this (then again are these people ever happy?), but are keeping their rage in check. Yesterday they released a statement that was politely chiding in tone, "We are disappointed in the lack of participation by the Obama Administration. At this time in our country's history, we would hope our President would recognize more fully the importance of prayer."

This is the second perceived snub this week for the Religious Right. On Tuesday the Family Research Council released a statement excoriating the Jeb Bush, Ginchrich, and Romney lead National Council for a New America (the latest re-branding effort of the Republican party) as not religious enough:

The group's priorities, which were unveiled at a pizza parlor press conference, include the economy, health care, education, energy, and national security. Notice anything conspicuously absent? Former Gov. Jeb Bush explained the values void by saying it was time for the GOP to give up its "nostalgia" for Reagan-era ideas and look forward to new "relevant" ideas.

I wonder if the FRC knows that their beloved Sarah Palin is also part of this Pizza-eating heathen cabal.

In any event I know what the Religious Right will be praying for on this National Day of Prayer, relevance.

Quote of the Day

"Nationwide, Joe Sullivan is one of only two thirteen-year-old children who received life-without-parole sentences for crimes in which the victims did not die...Both of these sentences were imposed in Florida, making Florida the only state to have sentenced a thirteen-year-old to die in prison for a non-homicide."

--Bryan A. Stevenson in a legal brief challenging the sentence of Joe Sullivan, a case now before the US Supreme Court. Stevenson's quote also reminds us that Florida may soon overtake Texas and California as the state with the most ass-backwards criminal justice system.

Nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide....

It is just getting harder and harder for members of Bush's "Torture Team" to hide from the tough questions:

Days after telling students at Stanford University that waterboarding was legal "by definition if it was authorized by the president," former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice was pressed again on the subject yesterday by a fourth-grader at a Washington [Jewish Primary Day] School...Misha Lerner, a student from Bethesda, asked: What did Rice think about the things President Obama's administration was saying about the methods the Bush administration had used to get information from detainees?

Even more impressive, apparently the question was TONED DOWN!

Misha's mother, Inna Lerner, said the question her son had initially come up with was even tougher: "If you would work for Obama's administration, would you push for torture?...They wanted him to soften it and take out the word 'torture.' But the essence of it was the same."

The Boston Globe should hire this Misha Lerner, I'd get a subscription if I knew he was on staff!

RELIGION V. HYPOCHONDRIA

Apparently religious groups are altering their worship practices to avoid inadvertently spreading swine flu.

Among the steps being taken by some churches:

Bishop Gregory Aymond of Austin, Texas, where 26 cases of swine flu infection have been confirmed, has asked priests not to offer Communion wine at Mass "until more is known about the virus.""It seems that having the public drink from the chalice is an unnecessary risk," Aymond wrote in a public letter on Wednesday (April 29).

Now, I'm not a medical doctor, and I'm not a theologian (heck I'm not even a Christian) but shouldn't swine flu be no match for the blood of Christ?

At least that's what the movies would have me believe.

More evidence Giuliani is a jerk (as if more were needed)...

THIS WEEKEND, FORMER NYC MAYOR AND NOTED DRAG ENTHUSIAST RUDI GIULIANI (below with the Trump) SKIPPED THE WEDDING OF THE GAY COUPLE WHO LET HIM STAY IN THEIR APARTMENT FOR MONTHS AFTER HIS WIFE KICKED HIM OUT OF GRACY MANSION FOR HAVING AN AFFAIR!

From the NY POST :

The couple [Koeppel and Hsiao] famously let the ex-mayor crash at their luxury $2.37 million three-bedroom Manhattan apartment while he was going through a nasty divorce with Donna Hanover in 2001. Later, Giuliani married the "other woman," Judith Nathan. " Rudy and Judith were both invited with a beautiful written invitation by mail," said Koeppel. "His secretary called Thursday and said he was not able to come to the wedding and wished us all the best."

Seriously? Gulliani declined through HIS SECRETARY?

You know what? It gets WORSE...

According to Queerty the wedding wasn't some grand fete where one could easily ignore the absence of an important friend of the family, THE NUPTIALS WERE A 10 GUEST AFFAIR.

A follow-up in the POST reveals that Koeppel and Hsiao anticipated Giuliani acting like a douche:

"We're still friends,"...Koeppel said, "I danced at his wedding with [his wife] Judith [Nathan], and it would have been nice if he'd danced at mine." Hsiao said the ex-mayor's snub "did not spoil the day -- we actually didn't expect him to come." Koeppel said, "I understand why he's doing what he's doing. If he decides to run for governor . . . he's a Republican, and he's taking a Republican stand" on same-sex marriage.

WHAT A JERK!

Quote of the Day

"The idea of living a multifarious identity is something that has always occurred to me to be absolutely the norm...You could say that everyone, at any one time, is a mother, a lover, a daughter, a sister, a neighbor, a colleague, an antagonist…I’m no more exotic than anybody else.”

Um, I beg to differ...

The exquisite Tilda Swinton interviewed by Amanda Fortini of The Daily Beast.