The Tears of Things

"female atheist 'artists' mocking religious art made to female deities."

Where's that in the description of either show? According to the azcentral.com blurb, The Invisible Pink Unicorn is a fake god invented by atheists. "The Visible Pink Unicorn" is an art show whose title is a play on the phrase.

Yes, you have to symbolically hold me by the hand and hit me with a two-by-four for me to get what someone's talking about sometimes. Feel free to do so if you're interested in helping me understand. Thanks.

I apologize for using words of violence.

Ms. Peterson:

This is Jerome. The answer to your question is in your own response --"a fake god [actually a goddess, right? that's crucial] invented by atheists." Which is no different from mockery. Unless you claim these fools seriously worship a Pink Unicorn.

You're picking nits here. It's obvious that you're afraid to stand up for women's dignity, and that some of these downtown clowns are your friends and you want to defend them. As Catherine said, "Someone crossed a line with me." She has boundaries. Do you?

And while you're picking gnat shit out of pepper --invisible, visible-- it's been obvious for years that we object to misogyny,and the even more humiliating sight of women signing off on their own debasement, over and over --it's not invisible, it's nauseatingly in our faces-- and NOBODY OBJECTS BUT US.

And out there, always, are the great mysteries, which awe us, and draw us, and which we keep plunging into; too bad we have to keep brushing off resentful, shallow twits along the way.

But the atheists who did the mocking and made up the Invisible Pink Unicorn are not the female artists represented in the current show that is not about atheism but has a name that is a play on words in a phrase made up by (earlier, unconnected) atheists. How is that nitpicking?

Mr. DuBois, you are unfoundedly inferring things about me again (the most I can cop to in today's list is being acquainted with Amy Young), and saying that they're obvious (the latter of which is your call, of course). I don't find it appropriate. So there's one thing about which you need not wonder or speculate: I don't.

Sorry, it's du Bois.

Catherine,

First off, love the authoritarianism in this post: "FEMALE ARTISTS MUST BELIEVE IN WHAT I BELIEVE!!!"

But then, of course, we have to understand that athiests don't believe in *any* God, not just the "Goddess Woman", but the Oversoul, Jehovah, Allah, Bondye, etc. And you're right, women taking back their right not to believe in a god they believe was created by other women is totally anti-feminist. I just wasn't aware that feminism is tied to directly to the belief in the "Goddess Woman".

And then of course, let's attack women for being sex-positive. Because sexuality should remain behind closed doors, and women who express themselves with their bodies, celebrating their womanhood - total affront to the "Goddess Woman".

But don't worry, Big Daddy Jerome's going ride in during the comment phase to tell a woman she's afraid to defend her own diginity. Not that that's at all chauvanistic.

And this line: "they are so empty inside that they can't imagine that Life and the Universe have any meaning." Do you apply that standard to Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Or does her anti-Muslim stance give her something to fill her athiestic emptiness... Whoops! Narrative losing cohesion!

Don't f*ck up, Bernard. You're only here by my good graces right now. The Bernard and Julie Peterson, true to form, couldn't wait to attack my words and sentiments.

That's to be expected. And didn't I say right off the bat that I knew no one would agree with me? Didn't I also say that I consciously chose not to debate Feminism with anyone in the local arts community?

Little Cape Man better not bore me and insult my intelligence by pointing out that every Bratty Whore has the right to express her female powerhood on a tabletop. Get past that right now, b boy, or you will have your IP banned once again, you tiresome child.

I said that I feel sorry for these female atheist "artists" and I told you why. Reasons existential and spiritual.

But their "art" is crap, and another subject I do not care to debate with Julie Peterson is how LAME it is for artists to make "theme art" for "theme exhibitions."

I also know full well that very few people understand how it is to be COMPELLED to make original art. Not a lot of the artists around here. They're more whore than artist.

Now back off, I'm trying to get some work done.

Ms. Peterson:

It's nitpicking because you're smuggling in assumptions that need to be examined. "Playful atheists" is a far from innocuous phrase. Any woman in the show who adopts this stance is either a fool or a vicious underminer of the religious impulse, something so central to our history it goes back over 100,000 years. As a knowledgeable Darwinian, I know that religion is a conundrum for the theory, upriver all the way, fighting the tide, and I respect it for that. It's unstoppable. Also, the person who chooses atheism steers their rudder toward deep, dark, despairing waters indeed. It's not a pleasure cruise, and such a person deserves our good wishes, and our prayers.

Catherine reiterates:

"It's not about feminism. Those women are free to do whatever skanky thing enters their minds. I don't want to think or write about it. My posting was about religion, about the need for a spiritual direction in artworks."

Questions: why is it always all right to parody paganism, Goddess Religion, spiritualism, to make a dumbed-down, sophomoric reduction of the awesome weave of the universe, shrinking it into a pink unicorn? but it's not okay to have show called The Pink Menorah or The Pink Cross or The Pink Crescent?

To us, the answers to these questions matter more than tweezing out the meaning in the antics of your quasi-meta, quotes-within-quotes handwaving female dingalings, playing on their hollow words.

When it rains, it pours. Right now blessed, drenching rain falls endlessly outside our picture window. What a beautiful day.

As for Bernard:

Yes, it's true, there's nothing wrong with your screen: I deleted your second comment here. Hell, man, you get your foot in the door and the next thing we know you've got both feet on a soapbox, thinking, once again, that you own the place. Must be too many nights on small stages in front of your few fawning fans, or too many gaga schoolroom gigs; you forgot I can cut your mike at any time.

Your first statement in your first comment sets up your straw person, something Catherine never said nor claimed; the rest of your nattering is just batting down the pinata you've created. It's got nothing to do with us.

Finally: "sex-positive"? Man, along with "women of size," that convinces me that you are nothing but an apparatchik.

"but it's not okay to have show called The Pink Menorah or The Pink Cross or The Pink Crescent?"

Maybe because that's not the main thrust of the exhibtion.

But you're right Jerome, no one in the history of art has ever criticized Christianity, Judaism, or Islam.

And Theo Van Gogh was killed for his Nike wooden shoes.

a personal little riddle just for Mr. Kape:

it rhymes with low brow and begins with G and N

Oh, Catherine, I couldn't attack or disagree with you (not that I want to) unless I understood your initial post, and I still don't.

I believe I get what you and Jerome have been saying since then, and I respect your integrity. What I don't get is what makes this show, these artists, an atheist thing. The Republic's spin on the origin of the title? Sigh. I had figured that if I asked, I might find that it's something more significant that the guilt by association incurred by everyone but you when we inhale and exhale these corrupt atomospheric gases day and night instead of choosing to turn blue. (Yeah, that's hyperbole -- but then, you believe in black and white.) Happy New Year.

To Bernard:

You know how I feel about Theo van Gogh, and you choose to make a cheap joke about his vicious murder. Don't bother trying to comment again; you're banned. And I say you have truly shitty soul, Bernard Shober.

YOU may find a need for spiritual direction in your art, and that is absolutely just fine. Many of us, however, do not have such a need.

Your insistence that atheists are necessarily all headed for "dark, despairing waters" is both condescending and disrespectful. As an atheist, a woman AND an artist, I find plenty of wonder and joy in this life without having to attribute it to some unknowable creator who shows no sign of dropping by for tea. I find it much more awesome (in the original sense of the word, emphasis on "awe") to simply observe the intricacies and unexpectedness of practically everything in this world.

It's plenty fine to not agree with other people's points of view, I would never deny that. But your repetitive refusal to afford any respect or attempt at understanding to anyone who doesn't agree with you completely reveals you both as the fearful bigots you really are.

The last post to Bernard was by me, Jerome du Bois.

To Ms. Peterson:

We cannot help you if you can't understand simple English sentences. As for those who want to play around with the definitions of words --if you want to go on and on and on about atheist or whatever-- we haven't got the time, you dimwit, so we suggest that if your ignorance persists, just fold it six ways and put it where the sun don't shine.

JdB

To Michelle:

Here comes another idiot who cannot seem to understand that we are not coming down against atheism, but are proclaiming our defense of the spiritual in art --both sides. Read our words. They are clear. "Fearful bigots." Crap! Grow a brain before you comment again. It's the pink twits down at LAS, and anybody who supports them, who insult humanity, not us.

JdB

I understand that you don't have time to answer simple questions. I guess people who understand what you're talking about don't need to leave comments, and the rest of us don't deserve to know. That makes it nice and neat -- I don't quite get why you have a blog, though, then. As I recall, The Boy Who Cried Intelligent Dialog was eventually devoured by it.

"Also, the person who chooses atheism steers their rudder toward deep, dark, despairing waters indeed. It's not a pleasure cruise, and such a person deserves our good wishes, and our prayers."

Could you explain to me how this statement could be interpreted as NOT coming down on atheism?

Also, what's with the name-calling? I posted a comment that avoided any slander or childish name-calling and you respond by calling me an idiot? Very mature indeed.

To Ms. Peterson:

I think we've been quite patient with you; we haven't deleted any of your comments, and we'll let readers decide if they can make sense of what you say. We sure as hell can't, and we've run out of patience with your obtuseness. Move on.

To Michelle:

Atheists are arrogant as hell. In the face of the palpable uncertainty of all we know, they proclaim they have the answer once and for all (and anybody who questions that is the real idiot, they say under their breath). Even the most string-crazy physicist doesn't make such a claim, but atheists do offhandedly, with the bland confidence of a veteran snake-handler. I've studied physics and cosmology for thirty years, and I make the claim that there is a spiritual world. So when I see somebody sailing away from it, it looks like despair to me; it is despair to me. So I will say it, and not take it back.

Neither I nor any atheists I know claim to have the answer to all the of the things that are unknown. Not even Richard Dawkins, the very face of atheism right now, claims to have answers to everything. The most basic part (and for some people, the scariest) of atheism is coming to terms with the fact that the universe is full of unexplained things, and that making up an answer (as many religions do) is no better than not knowing the answer. In fact, atheists must make peace with the idea that there are a lot of things out there that have no explanation. How does that make us arrogant? We believe that a supernatural being isn't the explanation to that which has no explanation as yet. We believe that we don't know the answer to certain things right now, but that someday we might.

In fact, true atheism is the absolute opposite of what you say it is. We never, never claim to have the answer once and for all. If anything, it's religions that claim that over and over again. Have a question? God's the answer, end of discussion. I don't really understand how you interpret an admission of not knowing the answer to everything as arrogance. I don't understand how you can totally miss the part where what you said, "they proclaim they have the answer once and for all" is the very definition of religion. The reason religion is so popular is because it's claims to be able to answer all of life's mysteries for people offer a degree of comfort that many can't live without.

Just because my answer to the unknowable is different from yours does not make me arrogant. However, your penchant for calling names at anyone who doesn't blindly accept everything you say, as well as your generalized statements that absolutely contradict the entire basis of atheism, does a lot to advance the theory that not only are you racist and close-minded (things you have proven yourself through your own rantings in the past) but also arrogant and uninformed.