The Countess Robusta's
Blend of the Day
Culture, art, literature, movies, book reviews, cricket, mental health, coffee and coffee houses, astronomy, and anything else in the world not related to sex. |
Culture, art, literature, movies, book reviews, cricket, mental health, coffee and coffee houses, astronomy, and anything else in the world not related to sex. |
A list explaining the origins and inspirations for Pia Palladino1. British mentalist and illusionist, Derren Brown. Brown is in a different category of magician than David Copperfield, Chris Angel and Penn and Teller. This is how Wikipedia describes him: Brown does not claim to possess any super-natural powers, indeed his acts are often designed to expose the methods of those who do, such as faith healers and mediums. He makes clear in his performances that all of his apparent abilities, which manifest on stage/screen as feats of memory, intuition, mind-reading and control of other objects/people, are achieved through a variety of psychological means, such as hypnosis, suggestion, cold reading, misdirection, and showmanship, and in many cases he will often give detailed explanations of his specific methods during or after the performance. In some performances he also uses his techniques to explore issues of personality such as fears and motivation. Brown's psychological focus is infinitely interesting to me. I've watched almost all his shows and what finally struck me was when I finally grasped the concept of vision. We see the world in a specific, narrow way. And it is on the outreaches of this vision is where magicians work. This caused me to question my own vision, and my own desires to want to believe certain things.
0 Comments
Princesses are a relatively new phenomena. Devised in the 90s, the group was a gimmick designed to bolster falling sales and puff up Disney appeal. It worked to a staggering degree. One cannot go into a Disney store, or any building that has children, without being inundated by pastel tulle, glitter and bejeweled crowns. Being a Princess is an ideal that all girls (and secretly, I'm sure, some boys and transchildren) don't just aspire to be. They already are princesses. They can wear the crowns and tulle and glitter because they are special and magical and one day their prince will come. Without a moment's hesitation, feminist were all over this like maggots on a dead caribou. They have many great points about the diminishment of a girl's abilities and talents, the hope to be saved by a man, the inability to be in a story that doesn't involve romance and a platonic relationship with a man. Not to mention the emphasis on appearance, the implied sexualizing of young girls, the heavy make up and skinny bodies that provoke speculation that Barbie is a princess herself. None of that matters at all. If anything, I think adult women are much more obsessed with these attributes than little girls. All one has to do is search on "Disney Princess" on Pinterest and one's computer nearly has a melt down. Women have taken this Princess obsession to quite complex levels which are intellectually dizzying and culturally amazing. Artists have created the "What if" Princess. What if the Princesses all had blue eyes (for example)? What if the Princesses were all dogs? What if the Princesses were jewelry? These are only a few of the examples I found, and it's a long list. I wanted to include as many as possible to illustrate my point. By the way, almost all of these images I found on BuzzFeed. I think BuzzFeed has fertilized this wonderful madness. And I also think this is entirely illegal and the Disney Corporation would react poorly to these manipulations of their copyrighted material. 1. What if the Disney princesses were burlesque showgirls? |
Subscribe to this blog at Feedburner:Countess RobustaI'm Lady Ristretto, writing under a pseudonym. My pseudonym has a pseudonym. Archives
January 2019
Categories
All
|