27 Comments
User's avatar
George Neidorf's avatar

Oh Mama,

can this really be the end?

I'm stuck inside my mobile,

with the Mephis Blues again.

(With apologies to B. Dylan)

Expand full comment
Marco Romano's avatar

Herr Forkenspoon and I listen to music. So there's that. I have to agree with you Su about Romanticism. In these times, I think that Romanticism would be ground to bits. Something more robust and tender is needed and called for. I do not know what that something is. I do know that the animamundi needs some love and recognition. One does not have to look far to see that.

Expand full comment
Su Terry's avatar

Yes, as far as my remark that people don't listen–present company excepted!

Expand full comment
Su Terry's avatar

When they said "who wants to go to Earth?" and we all raised our hands....

Expand full comment
Marco Romano's avatar

In the "Return of The Goddess" by Edward Whitmont he states that the change he foresees in psyche will come from below.

Expand full comment
Su Terry's avatar

"Below." Like, the subconscious.....or, someplace else......

Expand full comment
Marco Romano's avatar

I assume the chthonic realms of the unconscious. Not the southern hemisphere ;)

Expand full comment
Nina Ott's avatar

“Soundtrack music to life.” Just sitting and appreciating what someone else is doing without inserting oneself seems sort of rare nowadays.

Stealing data. Stealing art. Appropriating the entire human race. Why is this acceptable?

Jaron Lanier said we should be getting compensated for supplying the tech behemoths with basically everything.

You’re right… it’s time for a rebellion. I am completely with you. But … How?

Expand full comment
mary-lou's avatar

being true to one's self; enjoying and sharing the good things we experience; to love life with all that's in it. and laugh about it too, sometimes :-))

Expand full comment
Su Terry's avatar

I've been following Jaron for years! He says there needs to be a payment scenario built into the data collection system.

Expand full comment
Tina Stolberg's avatar

I had to laugh when I read your line that unlike the Egyptians we aren't buried with our stuff. I am in the process of downsizing my mother into an independent living situation and the hardest thing about the whole ordeal is "what to do with her stuff." Overwhelmed we agreed, "We should just build a pyramid, might be easier." LOL

Expand full comment
mary-lou's avatar

'been there, done that'.... (with my dad, last year): quite an experience!

Expand full comment
Su Terry's avatar

Yup, me too.

Expand full comment
mary-lou's avatar

Monet was impressed too by 19th century technological advancements, it seems, or....? - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Claude_Monet_004.jpg

https://www.impressionists.org/images/paintings/the-gare-saint-lazare.jpg

the Vikings too buried their dead with grave objects.

Expand full comment
Su Terry's avatar

That's interesting...maybe the steam engine was not looked upon as askancely as airplanes or nuclear power plants?

Expand full comment
mary-lou's avatar

Dickens would severely disagree (Staplehurst rail accident, 1865) - https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/day-charles-dickens-nearly-died-5369771

Expand full comment
Su Terry's avatar

What an amazing story! Never knew about it

Expand full comment
mary-lou's avatar

included in the following article is one of Dickens' letters, in which he describes what happened to him at the time of the train crash - https://archive.is/20120904183558/http://www.mytimemachine.co.uk/dickens.htm

according to his children Dickens was reluctant to travel again and apparently never quite recovered from the shocking experience - https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-near-fatal-train-crash-left-charles-dickens-traumatized-for-the-rest-of-his-life/ar-AA1dJrev

Romanticism might have been greatly influenced by the ugliness of the rampaging Industrial Revolution.

Expand full comment
Su Terry's avatar

Yes indeed! Thanks for this info on Dickens ML!

Expand full comment
Dom Aversano's avatar

Complete agreement. The world has enough melodrama and grandiosity. Much romantic art was wonderful, but I can think of nothing the world needs less right now.

Expand full comment
Ulysses's avatar

What do you think of Brian Eno?

Expand full comment
Su Terry's avatar

He's not someone I follow so I really can't say.

Expand full comment
Ulysses's avatar

He had a whole thing about music as entertainment versus music as soundtrack to life or spaces.

Expand full comment
Su Terry's avatar

If you come across a link do send my way!

Expand full comment
Perry J. Greenbaum 🇨🇦 🦜's avatar

Part of the reason for Romanticism was in contra to the Enlightenment and its scientific understanding of Nature and also of the Industrial Revolution and the mechanization of society. The conditions are the same, but it is now a backlash against the digital revolution and the overly functionality of society.

There is a desire for beauty and aesthetics, which is a natural progression away from the modern brutal and, frankly, ugly architecture of condos and office towers.

Why did people escape to Nature during the Pandemic? Because they did not want to be locked up in a rectangular ugly artificial box that is the same as the other boxes.

So, yes, neo-Romanticism is a departure from the ugliness of modern life, including that of competitive capitalism, and Nature is calling people to return to their more human and humane selves.

Expand full comment
Su Terry's avatar

Right you are. My hope is that the nourishing aspects of this new Romantic movement will be its driving force, so it doesn't swing all the way to self-centered tunnel vision.

Expand full comment