Author / omniagallia

by omniagallia

Choosing to Give Thanks.

In 2003 I injured my right knee, causing tissue damage that took several years and surgery to fully heal. It was inconvenient, veered between aggravating and miserable, and was more than slightly frightening, as I felt too young to face permanent mobility impairment. But two invaluable lessons came from that ordeal: I promised myself never to take any fundamental ability like unrestricted freedom of action for granted again. Also, I accepted that my life need not be perfect to be very much worthwhile.

Ever since, I have tried not to lose sight of these realizations. Being without something so essential to autonomy, independence and enjoyment of day-to-day activity as ease of movement is a harsh, but relentless reminder not to lose sight of its value again. But also that even a constrained life may offer contentment, if one lets it in by not wallowing in resentment at misfortune. Both those lessons are proving useful now in the aftermath of COVID.

As that peril recedes, I am making a conscious effort to let something positive – or at least something other than ingrained pessimism – come of it. I’m trying not to revert to complacency about basic, but congenial aspects of life as I too often did (a habit, despite lessons from my knee) before the world around us tightened into a self-protective curl from the virus. Whatever a ‘congenial aspect’ means for each of us; climbing Yosemite, enjoying some long anticipated in-person event, reveling in a gathering of loved ones, or simply drifting along in some unconsciously-cherished routine.

As we have now seen, such things are not ‘granted.’ They can be lost, or at least compromised. However, we may cherish them more when, and if, they return.

For example, Talleyrand, the French aristocrat-politician whose career spanned (and abetted) several upheavals of history, once said ‘No one who did not live before the Revolution (of 1789) can know the true sweetness of living.’ Life was indeed sweet then for nobles like him, though miserable for most other French subjects whose labor and poverty sustained Elysium for a narrow elite.

Still: We might take a lesson from his perspective, belatedly appreciating our blessings as we recover from months of stressful anxiety. Talleyrand’s class privilege was never fully restored after the Revolution, whereas most of us can return to largely the same patterns our days had before COVID. If life was not always ‘sweet’ for us, perhaps neither were we fully attuned to its delights, grand to subtle. And at least it was not ambient dread, disruption and death for most of us, as it became after March, 2020.

Might we now grant such unremarked mellowness as much weight as we previously accorded our lives’ struggles, or mere monotony? Might we now viscerally grasp what a treasure being alive is, just in itself? After having our cocoons of personal freedom and safety ruptured, can we resolve not to return to dashing reflexively from one stimulus to the next as our acquisitive, tech-driven, Self-focused culture cumulatively prods us to do?

(I must note in passing how the Pandemic exposed and worsened many inequities in society. How it cast harsh, accusing light on whom our economy is meant to serve, and whose interests – even lives – are expendable for its benefit. Further, there are ‘elites’ in America today who’d do well to recall Talleyrand’s regrets at what can happen when a privileged few indifferently exploit the many. They may be rich, but are nevertheless fools if they assume such a reality will be tolerated forever. France’s pampered court at Versailles learned that in 1789.)

It may be salutary how COVID forced us all to face insecurities (financial, mortal, etc.) which confront many of our fellowmen constantly. Thus, the more sheltered among us could emerge more fully ‘human’ than mere consuming organisms if we now try to be more conscious of the challenges of others who share our nations and planet. As we revert to familiar pre-Pandemic regimens, we might, mindful of our own recent vulnerability, try to let our world expand to overlap more with the ‘worlds’ of others. Especially of those whose whole existence is chronically precarious, at least by being more sensitized to their daily struggles.

The types of experience which, prior to the great lockdown, bolstered us to carry on (and to which we would now return) are, as noted before, different for each of us. Many people draw peace, strength, contentment, etc. from the embrace of Nature – azure seas, mountains, fantastical tropics – absorbing vitality from the presence of such elemental power and beauty. Less adventurous souls, like me, prefer our man-made world; in my own case, most familiarly, the ‘Golden Mile of Broadway,’ my name for the nearby stretch of the main commercial street of my Chicago neighborhood.

Though very ‘pedestrian’ both literally and architecturally, pre-COVID Broadway was for me simultaneously invigorating and calming, thrumming companionably in a gritty gavotte of commercial and social interaction; my own concrete ‘comfort zone.’ But during lockdown, it became a hollow of its former self, its absence of life echoing a palpable presence of danger. I feared the minor magic of my Golden Mile might never revive fully. If at all.

And if such a throbbing artery could not pulse again, maybe no place could. Between the menace of the virus and the upheaval of social discontent (and reaction) forced to the surface when the dampers that had muffled it got jammed by shredded economic activity, who could be sure we were not falling into some new Dark Age? That didn’t feel implausible; and surely not just to me.

But Broadway has since revived; and seeing it now, changed but flourishing with vivacity, makes me feel finally, unreservedly safe to (metaphorically) let out a breath long held in from a sense of foreboding.

Perhaps withstanding the Pandemic – whether we, or loved ones got sick, or were lost to it – may now help us more consciously appreciate just being alive, rather than gravitate back to some materialist tunnel vision of what we lack. When forced to face an alternative like early death, we sure as Hell didn’t like it. A healthy Epiphany that, even if set in motion by a health calamity?

So now I will invoke memories of my handicapped/restored knee, to focus on all there is to give Thanks for in my life. Our individual worlds may not have been as luxuriant as Talleyrand’s, but COVID (during which we all largely lost ‘unrestricted freedom of action,’ as I did with my knee injury) certainly gave us a taste of just how bitter our spheres could become. Also perhaps reason to consider if our pre-Pandemic discontents were proportionate.

All of us who survived this catastrophe are still mortal, so we will pass away eventually. Humanity has faced worse misfortunes than COVID, but none has snuffed out the illumination of our species’ consciousness, and it will not be extinguished when we too are gone, for we are all part of a Continuity greater than our collective Individuality. The ‘Great Chain of Being’ will continue to unwind fundamentally as it should, even as we each choose to play a positive, or a harmful, part in that process.  

Accepting this requires resignation, but this premise also yields some comfort: We are all sparks of an energy that will not just vanish after us. If acquiescing to this cannot dispel the melancholy of our mortality, it may at least shine a bright corona around the edges of its shadow, as the Sun does behind the Moon during an eclipse: The Light will never actually be gone.

And by making life ‘sweeter’ for anyone – making the world in general less harsh – we shall make it less so for ourselves. (One way of doing so might be accepting that workers in COVID-devastated industries deserve a decent living wage they didn’t always get, paid for in our higher charges for their labor. That is putting money where one’s mouth is, in espousing a kinder, fairer culture and society.)

My city, Chicago, is not widely thought of as a gentle place. Yet a natural reassurance can be sensed in its ambience, the promise of plenty inherent in a patch of Earth where a blue freshwater sea laps at soil so rich the first French explorers here thought they had found the Garden of Eden. Land from which thriving human activity now sprouts, ready to calm any who listen, with a wordless whisper: Don’t fret too much; if all else seems to fail, Nature can provide. And the world will unfold as it should.

If such a whisper may be heard in a place often seen as being lackluster as is Chicago, perhaps you, dear reader, will find that some comparable version may sprout wherever you call home, too.

But experiencing that may be more a matter of yielding than pursuing. Trying to ensnare something as unquantifiable as a tranquil aura may be like trying to seize iridescent mist with your hands; it will just flow through your fingers. Perhaps you must just let its presence steal over you. Although this runs against our culture’s ideal of self-realization, it may be that bliss does not come when bidden, but when it finds us ready for it.

For me, a ‘blissful,’ restorative sensation, which soothes yet strengthens, is present in Scarlatti’s exquisite song, ‘Gia’ il Sole dal Gange,’ ‘The Sun Shines Brightly on the Ganges’ (a glorious performance is provided below), whose imagery also reminds me of glittering Lake Michigan. This music’s comely merriment seems so detached from much of our human domain’s upheaval as to assert resolutely that there is always – if we look – more to our world than ‘upheaval.’

Perhaps listening to it will help you feel the same.

And if you do so, please also ponder this cycle: Sorrow goes and Joy comes – and vice-versa. We should reflexively seek to overcome hardship if possible, but should not be despondent that it even exists. The same power that spawned COVID also offers us means to make surviving it very much worth our struggles to do so, tantalizing us with sparkling images like the Ganges, Lake Michigan, the faces and voices of loved ones, or whatever makes existence brighter – like a passing eclipse – for each one of us.

Such things are every bit as much present on our Earth as are reasons for sorrow and despair. The Pandemic has been a global nightmare, but if we waken from it having learned to be thankful for graces we previously ignored, then our experience may be like a broken joint (as with my injured knee) that may emerge from a daunting trial better than it was before.

by omniagallia

‘The Night Watch,’ Amsterdam:

CONTEXT: In my July 17, ‘22 post about visiting the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam at the end of my most recent visit to Europe in 2016, I referred to two extremes in that city as a ‘summit and an abyss of human endeavor.’ The ‘abyss’ was the Nazi Holocaust of Europe’s Jews, which devoured Anne Frank. The ‘summit’ in question was Rembrandt’s remarkable group portrait ‘The Night Watch’, housed at the Rijksmuseum, a mere 12+ minute walk from Anne’s home and hiding place.

Please bear that stark contrast – summit and abyss – in mind as a point of reference about the breadth of what we are capable, if you read the post below, which I wrote about my personal experience of that seminal painting. As it notes, I chose Amsterdam deliberately (instead of Frankfurt, Germany) to depart from Europe, in order to see the ‘Night Watch’ there.

Rembrandt’s conception for the piece both reflected and reinforced a seismic shift, going on during his lifetime, in the perceptions, priorities and purposes of ‘Western’ culture. In my Aug. 28 post about the stuffed Ocelot, also at the Rijksmuseum, I touched on commercial and scientific aspects of that shift, but here, turn my attention to what the art of that era reflected about its time and place; about an outlook that often both fed, and was fed by, those contemporary ‘commercial and scientific’ developments; and to energies those developments released – but also alludes to ones they would eventually ‘unleash.‘

Later, I will re-post other items I composed about my time in Amsterdam and Cologne, my other destination for meditating on how a society that spawned a specific cultural artifact – in Cologne’s case, its extraordinary cathedral – perceived life, and the visible world it encompassed.

The Night Watch” by Rembrandt van Rijn: One of the most pivotally innovative and visually agitating paintings in history; seeing this was my main reason for coming to Amsterdam. The title (which Rembrandt did not give it) refers to these men, members of a local guild, who, in an era before regular police forces, intermittently patrolled city streets after dark.

It may not be apparent to modern viewers what a vault of imagination this picture was, compared to previous conventions for the genre. Most group portraits at the time were static ranks of figures, all ‘shown’ equally, but ‘portrayed’ little, if at all; monotonous rows of semi-identical faces that most painters lacked the skill or time to fully differentiate. Rembrandt invigorated that template in this large canvas, using a dynamic flourish that invokes the individual personhood of its subjects (and better represents their appearances) with a potion of color and kinetics, chiaroscuro and character.

(We know the identities of all the men shown here because a graphic survives listing their names and locations within the composition. Some of them however grumbled that despite paying equal shares for the work, they had been reduced to blurred ciphers in its execution. True; this arrangement made for a great image, but not for equal shares in its drama. Further, they had not asked for, nor expected such a novel conception. Some art scholars believe that as a result of the mixed reception his daring “Night Watch” got, the career of Rembrandt – at the time, Amsterdam’s most sought-after portraitist – went into a slow, but steady decline.)

People in the 21st Century have seen many action-oriented paintings like this, and so may find it difficult to grasp how novel “The Night Watch” was for its context. But at its time, it was an astonishing leap of creativity, like the music of Beethoven would be later. Both seemed to come from some entirely new dimension; unfamiliar, unexpected, even jarring.

Unfortunately, its vision has been significantly diminished from its full original ingenuity. At one point, this picture had to be moved from the hall it was painted for to a smaller space, and substantial parts of its edges were cut off to make it fit, badly distorting Rembrandt’s original arrangement. So I was thrilled to see a smaller copy beside it that some lesser artist had made of it before it was hacked, showing its intended layout. It did, indeed, sit its space better than as it appears today, but even truncated it is wondrous, a harnessed optical tempest; the Elements masterfully deployed, rather than randomly released.

This work could scarcely be more different from another era-defining masterpiece, da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.” She is a rendering of cool intellectual rumination, a subject serenely detached from the petty reality of her mortal spectators; floating outside eternity and untouched by it. “The Night Watch” is no such exercise of calm introspection; one can almost feel wisps of breeze set off by the bold advance of the forthright men shown in it. It surges with movement and champing energy, the vitality of its participants fully realized by Rembrandt’s skillful integration of technical effects – as much as by the indefinable, but unmistakable, mystery of true “artistry.”

The subjects themselves, and Rembrandt’s treatment of them, reflect – among other things – the maturing self-image of the Protestant Netherlands regarding the efficacy of human enterprise, to a step beyond its classically-based stirrings in the Renaissance. That is, this picture focuses on actual people, not merely as backdrop in some crucifixion scene, a disport of Greek gods, martial valor, or some other elevated tableau. Rembrandt, in successfully executing a truly compelling group portrait, thereby presents its members’ reality as living, self-directed personages rather than space-filling scenery for some worthier center of attention.

And that was no minor adjustment of emphasis. At the time, Protestant cultures such as the Netherlands generally looked upon most Christian religious graphic art as akin to idolatry (though Rembrandt produced a good deal of it himself), so paintings depicting faith-oriented subjects faced shrinking patronage in Northern Europe. Instead, when members of the expanding Dutch middle class sought pictures on which to spend their growing earnings, they were likelier to prefer domestic scenes or portraits that edified the here and now, rather than evoking a putative, better afterlife.

Rembrandt was one of the very greatest devisers of a new real-life, real-time aesthetic. “The Night Watch” was painted when he and his work were at the height of their contemporary fame and desirability, showing Amsterdamers as they wanted (generally speaking) to see themselves: Masters of their own Fate, through their own vigor and resolve. And this approach produced a self-perpetuating cycle; the more self-assured the commercially-oriented Dutch became, the more Rembrandt and his colleagues were inclined to depict them that way, till a corpus of creativity emerged that insistently exalted such everyday references of relatively “ordinary” people. Imagery and actuality augmented each other.

As I had hoped, savoring this splendid image surely made Amsterdam a far better last memory of this journey for me than Frankfurt could have been. And having now seen ‘The Night Watch’ (marvelous though it is), I find I prefer Rembrandt’s single portraits to a larger work like this. Many of his clients were newly affluent people looking for possessions through which to display their hard-won prosperity, and portraits (previously the province of the high born or truly rich) had great cachet. To me, his portrayals of lone subjects seem to benefit from the fuller attention he could give them, the palpable presence he could elucidate when representing a single personality.

It also bemuses me to think that such peoples’ acute trading instincts might have been thrilled to discover that, in having had Rembrandt paint them, they eventually got unimaginably more than they had bargained for: True immortalization. In many cases we do not know the names of his sitters, but even anonymous and silent, he made their life realities converse with us across infinity.

Look at some of his later portraits, and you may see what I mean. Far from just giving his clients prestigious wall decorations, Rembrandt transfixed their “selves” forever in the gleaming amber of his genius, putting them among the first common people – those without high formal status in their societies – anywhere, to be explicitly monumentalized in paint.

For in that new era, ‘common’ people could not just afford to be portrayed: They were felt worthy – As individuals – of Being portrayed. Such an assertion of a self-generated, rather than divinely bestowed, value of every person (though still far from our more fully-formed 21st Century ideas of individuality) was one of many major changes western Europe underwent at this time, from the mindset that had driven, for example, the inception of Cologne cathedral.

That evolution from quasi-passive acceptance of, to active participation in, Earthly existence has admittedly brought human life immense benefits. But it would also later lead to unforeseen and stupendous costs, as I will discuss in other postings here.

Apropos: In Amsterdam, after fortifying myself by seeing at the Rijks the beauty produced by some of our species’ best spirits, I made the short pilgrimage to Anne Frank’s house to confront what we can do at our worst.

by omniagallia

Reaping the Whirlwind:

It was obvious that a day would come when U.S. states whose political cultures deny Global Warming would have to confront its inescapable effects. Please see the article below, from January, 2020 (shortly BC – Before COVID).

First, a few relevant thoughts:

In the year 2000, Florida put Denier-in-Chief, George W. Bush in the White House instead of environmentalist Al Gore, due to a recount of the state’s votes (the Supreme Court shut the process down when ‘W’ was ahead). During that sharply contested recount, the media spoke a lot about ‘hanging chad,’ the not-quite-detached punches of paper ballots that were being examined.

Well, now ‘Hanging Chad’ has led to ‘Sinking Flo.’ It is an unhappy, but remarkable irony that Florida – mostly surrounded by the sea and largely flat – was pivotal (no doubt, against the wishes of many if not most of its voters) in halting progress to address climate change for the 8 years of W’s terms. Not long after Bush’s ‘election,’ I predicted that this outcome would eventually bite Florida in the backside due to rising seas. Sure enough, now they are more at risk from that threat than almost anywhere else in the U.S.

I don’t like ‘Schadenfreude’ (the German word for the unkind act of reveling in the misfortune of others). But it’s hard for me not to be at least somewhat bemused by the predicament Florida’s vote back in 2000 has now helped land it in. I will not ‘revel’ in their misfortune, but is a bit of ‘Chad-enfreude’ – feeling some (bitter) satisfaction at having been proved right – permissible?

The article ends by saying that some of these states’ officials might walk away from federal aid rather than admit the reason they need it is that Global Warming is not just some liberal hoax or fantasy – though not Florida’s officials, who realize they now need all the help they can get. As to those officials in other at-risk states, let this sink in (so to speak): They would sacrifice their own citizens – often the most vulnerable, like the minorities in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 – rather than admit they were/are wrong. How low can they go?

We may find out. Sadly, many innocent victims of their stubborn refusal to acknowledge accelerating (and frightening) evidence – and not just in the U.S. – may also find out.



by omniagallia

A Vision worthy of reflecting?

This is the head of Christ of Michelangelo’s Pieta, usually seen from the side rather than in this arresting full-face perspective. In a rendering whose eloquence itself radiates the miraculous, it conveys epic suffering, but also serenity that such has been endured to open Paradise to all the children of God.

Might this image suggest what the ultimate evolved state of humanity could be? Or should be? Capable of Love that, counter-intuitively, actualizes the Self by acting with regard for the Other that is limitless, and thereby – for the ‘Self’ passes away, but there will always be ‘Others’ – merging with eternity and infinity? In my view, that may be the truest possible meaning of Enlightenment.

As we all know, altruism can be dauntingly difficult in practice. But for inspiration, one may reflect on Michelangelo’s depiction here of how a sublime benevolence might appear.

by omniagallia

‘By the Grace of God, Elizabeth II’

Queen Elizabeth was likely the most globally famous person, for the longest time, of anyone in history. Thus, she was a constant in the firmament of most people in the world today, including mine, if rarely consciously. Hence her death seems an occasion for some reflection.

No doubt the Queen had many failings, limitations any of us might have, was neither perfect nor saintly. But her privilege and fame should not be held against her, as they probably came at great personal cost, which only those nearest her could be aware of. Also not, in light of how she often put those advantages to use for the common good.

As an American, I have no direct experience of monarchy, but have seen what my society, which routinely sanctifies unrestrained pursuit of personal interest with no tempering presence (like the institution Elizabeth embodied, to try and remind us of values like moderation and ‘honor’) can become. This perspective colors the remarks that follow.

Unlike many people in my circle I am not a fervent fan of theater, but the only New York Broadway show I ever really wanted to see, and did, is relevant for Elizabeth’s passing: ‘The Audience,’ with the marvelous Helen Mirren portraying the Queen. It was a fictionalized version of a weekly meeting (audience) she had with her then-current Prime Minister; 14 of them, from Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson. Those encounters were the Prime Minister’s obligation to keep the sovereign informed about all important matters (presumably including secret ones) the government was undertaking. Those conferences were absolutely confidential; no one else knew what was said during them. So ‘The Audience’ is only thoughtful speculation.

Mirren’s Queen was admirably regal, yet deeply humane. Also pretty savvy, for someone whose position put her above the muck of practical politics, but to whom the highest ranking politician in the land was responsible. Mirren’s age (makeup) changed as the show progressed, from the 25 year-old Elizabeth was at her accession to the throne, to the font of mature, self-reliant wisdom she became.

I believe the play reached an ingenious – and now very pertinent – resolution. In scenes where the Queen was alone speaking to us spectators, and also summarized at the end, she pointed out that her role caused her to cross paths with many of the smartest, toughest, bravest, most talented and generally remarkable people in the world, from Britain and beyond. But she was self-aware enough to recognize that she herself was no prodigy, just an ordinary person whom Fate had thrust into an extraordinary locus of fame and influence which her own modest abilities could never have won for her.

From that realization, Mirren’s Elizabeth offered a great lesson: That all these extraordinary people had, like her, gifts that amounted to random acts of Fate. Like so many of them, she made the most of her position and what skill she had, or learned, to use it. Yet also like them, she could have been just an anonymous citizen but for the intervention of events she could neither foresee nor control. In their cases usually their own favorable genetics, in hers the abdication of her uncle King Edward VIII which led to the unexpected reign of her father George VI, because of which Princess Elizabeth became heir to the throne, then Queen, in 1952.

‘The Audience’ suggested (if I recall) that Elizabeth’s very ‘ordinariness’ qualified her to speak to the Mighty and the prodigies of the world on behalf of us common folk. Including the world-class politicians who became her Prime Ministers, and to whom she (not having to worry about re-election) was shown as often giving good advice.

Perhaps in real life, the actual Queen Elizabeth bore such contingency in mind to try to restrain, or at least reproach – within her limited temporal scope – the most extreme actions of the callous gifted with whom her station brought her face to face (for me, epitomized by Margaret ‘feed-the-weak-to-the-strong’ Thatcher).

The overriding lesson is that we are all on the ‘wheel of Fate’ to some extent, from a hereditary sovereign to those ‘smartest, toughest, bravest, most talented people’ in the world – whether they recognize (or admit) it or not – whom she would never have met but for the circumstance of her birth. In ‘The Audience,’ the Queen adroitly reminded Thatcher that as a person born fortunate and gifted (and I assume, ruthless), she should not regard everyone who had not succeeded financially or professionally as failures, their lives and labor to be exploited by the world’s ‘winners.’ Like Margaret Thatcher.

If the late Queen truly did harbor such attitudes, it surely helps explain why she was as successful – stabilizing, reassuring, beloved – an entity as she was. In this interpretation she could, and did show how a less-gifted person might determine to exemplify grace, probity, continuity, etc., while (because there was no place higher for her to rise) immune to personal ambition. She apparently simply expected of herself what her people expected, and needed, from her.

Elizabeth II helped her monarchy to evolve, survive and in some ways, thrive. No longer holding absolute power as ‘the Lord’s anointed’ as Kings long did, British royalty’s most useful purpose today may be to pull the attention of the Mighty – like it or not – to the interests of those who have less voice in the running of their country than the Westminster cliques, and barely covert, but massive power of the financial City of London.

Another aspect of her life that deserves reflection is speculation about her degree of emotional depth. To that end, I offer the accompanying photo of her taken in Aberfan, Wales after a catastrophe there in 1966. A huge pile of spoil from a coal mine collapsed, buried part of the town, including its grade school, killing 144 people, mostly children.

The Queen has periodically been said to lack normal emotions, but look at her facial expression here, from when she visited the site several days after the disaster. This is hardly the face of one unmoved by the sorrow and tragedy she is seeing in a devastated community. The Aberfan avalanche was one of most terrible domestic events during her reign. She didn’t go there immediately after it, but as she confided much later, that was not because she was unsympathetic, let alone unfeeling.

On the contrary: She’d feared that if she went there while they were still dragging out the bodies of dead children, she might dissolve in tears at the spectacle. But that was exactly what this shattered village did not need; confirmation, by one who had not lost a child there, that their calamity was indeed, overwhelming. So she waited till she felt sure she could display supportive empathy, rather than more fuel for the grief by succumbing to it herself.

This was one of very few occasions when she was seen to shed discreet tears in public. In fact, it took much courage and sense of duty to voluntarily walk into a setting of horror most people would shun. Nevertheless, she later confessed that letting a week pass before going to Aberfan was one of her worst regrets as Queen. For Elizabeth, it was that, as personification of ‘the Nation,’ she must share – and be seen to share – in its tribulations, not just its triumphs.

(The people of Aberfan understood her hesitation. Further, they later said they would have been too dazed or absorbed in frantic rescue efforts to register her presence had she visited sooner. Her arrival after the initial shock passed allowed them to benefit from her recognition and support in their unspeakable loss.)

Look at that picture again. Her heart was probably cracking at the ghastly distress around her, but breaking down herself would not have helped her suffering subjects, so she forced herself to be strong for their sake. For that matter, during those Prime Ministerial audiences, she was probably told horrifying state secrets. No one will ever know what dreadful knowledge she had to bear alone, without even the comfort of her husband and children.

To reference the play ‘The Audience’ again, I could well believe that a person as feeling, and empathic, as Helen Mirren portrayed might well display such a facial expression, of being profoundly moved by events around her, even as she knew it was vital to (visibly) maintain her composure.

Bearing such burdens, publicly or privately, for the welfare of her people, is what I call truly ‘princely.’ Am I allowed to use the low term ‘gumption’ about royalty? For the late Queen sure seemed to have it, proving that monarchy and democracy are not invariably incompatible.

Her walkabout in Aberfan, along with many other high-visibility episodes of comfort and soothing, on top of the re-assurance of her consistent presence in the national consciousness shows just how much good a supposedly ‘ordinary’ person can do, if they believe that their duty is to embody and vocalize the better aspects of our Nature.

Elizabeth I was called ‘Good Queen Bess,’ in the golden later part of her 45-year reign, after the defeat of the Armada in 1588. Elizabeth II is surely as deserving of that title, both as a devoted ruler and orienting landmark in the background of so many of her subjects’ lives.

Contemporary considered opinion, including of many Britons, seems to be that sophisticated people look upon monarchy (even Queen Elizabeth) as a quaint anachronism to be indulged at best, but eliminated if possible, as contrary to logic and utility. But our world is not composed of only ‘sophisticated’ people, and does not function solely for their benefit.

More important, nor should it. Less cosmopolitan individuals, everywhere, should have someone who can speak on their behalf to the powerful, and uphold values like the need for some persistent degree of comity and civility, which get routinely violated in daily life. Queen Elizabeth, at the summit of her society, had both the visibility and inclination to do so. Surely there is some middle way between Pollyannaish optimism, and well-informed nihilism.

And the Queen seemed to try to navigate that indistinct line, affirming that all traditional values are not outdated or toxic. For her countrymen who deeply revered her and her title, despite her lack of power or Britain’s isolation among major nations in retaining a crown – indeed, for less jaded citizens for whom the complexity of the modern world seems overpowering – some sort of boosting inspiration may be essential. Perhaps including respect for largely benign traditions, upheld by a gracious, and caring sovereign – herself a ‘benign tradition.’

Moreover, it is ill-judged to dismiss or disparage the sheer, centering power of familiarity. Watching and listening to her address to her Realm during the worst days of COVID, surely gave great solace to millions of her people who feared the world as they knew it might be coming to an end – no doubt, even to many sophisticated (otherwise) anti-Monarchists. Just as she intended it to.

Forgive me now, for getting somewhat political: I am confident my readers are informed enough to know that a British sovereign has little real power (as I have noted in here), though not none. But far from being a ‘quaint anachronism’ or vehicle of tourism-generating spectacle, I hope that, as King, Charles III might be able to use his position as skillfully as his mother did, to temper (within his constitutional boundaries), how Britain since Thatcher has reverted to red-fanged Capitalism. Its economy now looks, in large part, like a Lucretocracy mainly conforming to the interests of the Square Mile (the district around the Bank of England, one of the dominant financial centers of the world; sometimes called ‘The Second British Empire’).

These financiers’ laser-focused, limitless appetite for profit has led them, for example, to suck in the blood money of villains from around the globe, making a laughingstock of the vaunted British self-image of ‘fair play,’ to say nothing of worldwide tax evasion and resource despoliation. They also treat most of the United Kingdom as a negligible, disrespected backwater, existing mainly to support the needs of greater London as a playground for plutocrats. Or for a small stratum of unreformed British aristocrats who haven’t gotten the memo about the perils of excess inequality amid the rightful expectations of a functional democracy.

(This attitude probably had a lot to do with why so much of England beyond London voted for Brexit. To the shock of the home counties’ ‘Elites,’ whom such voters felt routinely ignored them, their values and their well-being. That pushback must come should have been obvious.)

So may King Charles rise to challenges as great as his title is grand, to be as much a stabilizing gravity, and wise counselor as his mother strove to be, in a society evolving so spasmodically that it could fly apart with no sturdy hub – like a crown? – around which to revolve as a common point of cultural reference. As the ultimate ‘elite’ institution, the monarchy dare not be a focus for resisting change, where change is needed for the sake of fairness and civil stability. On the other hand, out-of-control deformation can lead to centrifugal forces that could cause said society to come undone.

A wise King may still dampen or discreetly channel such energies, for an institution that may be an encumbering obstacle in some situations may be a saving anchor in others. Like the address by the Queen and other Royals during COVID, when the British people badly needed encouragement that they could resist and defeat the menace. As the Queen’s father, George VI did during Hitler’s Blitz.

For Charles to reign successfully thus would be to continue his mother’s devotion to all the people of Britain. No statue or other monument could be a greater testament, or tribute, to her memory.

Returning to ‘familiarity,’ if I may close by presuming to speak for hundreds of millions of other people worldwide who, like me, are not from her Kingdom or her Commonwealth: Elizabeth was, in a very real sense, ‘the World’s Queen.’ She was more peripheral to us than to them of course, but nevertheless, a familiar, and reassuring part of our ‘firmament.’ Her COVID address helped calm me that there was still sanity, resolution and empathy in the World (especially in contrast to America’s own Head of state during the crisis).

For all like-minded people everywhere, may I say, Thank you, Your Majesty – Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God – for showing, and upholding, what nearly divine Grace looks like.

by omniagallia

A Splendid Act to Follow:

I will be putting up a full post on Queen Elizabeth and her reign by the time of her funeral, Monday. But for now, an interim observation:

Judging by the live BBC video of her lying in state, the reaction and behavior of her people is perhaps the finest reflection of, and tribute to the personal example she set. They are waiting for more than 10 hours in line, for only about 10 seconds near her coffin. Apparently without misbehavior or histrionics, and with a quiet dignity.

Her Majesty would have been proud of their acts of decorous duty – as she long performed her own duty – as well she should be. Common people, acting not at all ‘common.’

I am not sure such decorum would prevail in similar situations elsewhere. But then, there probably are few, if any ‘similar situations elsewhere,’ because the Queen’s office and role in the life of her nation were so unique. ‘Majesty,’ in every sense, as much for them as for her.

And as if to honor that dynamic, here, traditional British values are emerging again, to show the bond between Elizabeth and so very many of her subjects. Few mourners are wearing the sort of dark, formal clothes probably worn at the funeral of her father, George VI, 70 years ago; they are dressed comfortably for a long wait out of doors. But such externalities aside, the synergy of respect and affection – long reciprocated between them and her – is apparent, and vital.

The regal setting and flawless ceremonial are marvelous to watch, but perhaps the greatest spectacle is seeing her legacy of leaving a nation still willing, able and glad to act in a seemly manner – and not just in a ceremonial occasion like this – as expressed by a line in a hymn sung at her coronation, addressed to ‘All People that on Earth do Dwell’:

‘For it is seemly so to do.’ Even in grief, as part of the ongoing story of British civilization.

(BBC video feed URL)

by omniagallia

Good Queen Bess; Platinum Jubilee Delight:

One need not be British to find this absolutely charming.  At first, I couldn’t believe this wasn’t some CGI Platinum Jubilee stunt, but it is in fact Her Majesty, proving that being ‘regal’ need not mean being serious to the point of pomposity.  Would that every renowned person – and no one alive has (ever?) been so renowned, for so long, as the Queen – displayed such easy and gracious aplomb.

I approve on principal that hereditary monarchs no longer have substantial power. But cursory observation shows that popular election does not invariably yield deserving, trustworthy or competent leaders. And a sovereign like Elizabeth shows there is much to be said for having a stabilizing institution that embodies reassuring continuity and solidarity, its legitimacy granted by Fate (birth), rather than political clout obtained through crass maneuvering, often beholden to interests at odds with those of a nation as a whole.

Vivat Regina!

by omniagallia

Amsterdam; Preserved Creature from Tropical Dutch Territory:

CONTEXT: My 2016 journey through Europe began in Paris, but ended with less than a full day in Amsterdam. I selected that city as a departure point because I wanted to see Rembrandt’s masterpiece, ‘The Night Watch’ there (which I’ve written on extensively, items I may re-post here). Writing about that quick visit later brought out my inner historian, in my observations below about the Netherlands, especially in the mid-17th – mid-18th centuries when it was a principal world power.

Before Amsterdam, I had spent several days in Cologne, Germany inspecting and pondering its cathedral (the ‘Kolnerdom’, shown earlier in this blog, lit by the setting sun). In this piece, I graze upon the differences in the two worlds represented by Cologne’s great church, and the very different world nurtured in, and by post-Reformation Amsterdam (noting its most famous church, the Westerkerk, tellingly modest compared to the Kolnerdom).

The ‘Rijksmuseum,’ or ‘State Museum,’ houses many of the greatest works from the Dutch Golden Age of painting, including Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch,” but it is not only an art collection. It displays items that show many aspects of the nation’s history and contributions, including the outsized role the little Dutch Republic played in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries’ great burst of exploration of the wider world by Europeans.

I had hastened from lunch to see ‘The Night Watch’ before the museum closed. After paying that homage, I spent the remaining 40 minutes examining the rest of the paintings there (all of them Dutch, I think, as a place dedicated to telling only the homeland’s story, not of world culture in general).

So there was really no time for me to do more than pass through other galleries of artifacts of the nation’s scientific, commercial and maritime, etc., heritage, nor the many displays from Dutch colonial territories around the world. Their empire later ebbed in size, much of it taken over by the British, including their North American and South African possessions. The Dutch East Indies, modern Indonesia, remained their largest foreign colony until after World War II, when it became independent.

But this beastie in the Rijksmuseum caught my eye; there was no explanatory panel, but I think it is a stuffed ocelot. It was probably from some tropical colony of the Netherlands, brought (alive or dead) back to the homeland as trophy or curiosity. Presumably, elsewhere in the museum were also relics of the spice trade in the Far East, the greatest single source of wealth from Dutch overseas domains, and perhaps specimens of the plants on which the precious herbs grew.

Such items (likely privately acquired and eventually chosen for the Rijks) showed the people back home how wide and varied the world really was, very different from the flat Earth Medieval view that had preceded it. What Medieval Europeans knew (or thought they knew) about other parts of the world was mostly via convoluted and often inaccurate legends, but here were genuine articles brought from distant places previous Europeans had not even known existed, let alone seen.

Such questing and curiosity were consonant with the incipient Renaissance-Reformation mindset that human beings can control their fates and environments; very different from the other-worldly preoccupations of Cologne cathedral. However, looking back on how exploration, colonial exploitation and subsequent developments harmed other parts of the human and natural world – in some ways that still continue into the 21st Century – whether that new quest for control, propelled by still-imperfect men and their desires, was an unreservedly good development is not entirely clear.

Amsterdam was one of the places where the practical effect of Protestantism leading to greater individual self-actualization began to manifest itself most visibly and extensively. In that outlook, men did not have to believe that they were, more or less, essentially at the behest and mercy of divine manipulation and intervention.

That certainly is not, of itself, a bad thing, as I, steeped in the American culture of self-determination, will vigorously agree. It is splendid that we can better understand and manage the planet we inhabit, and human life today is unquestionably better in innumerable aspects than when either the Kolner Dom or Amsterdam’s (much later) Westerkerk were begun.

Yet, our world today – now, so much the product of human reason and individual autonomy – is still hardly Utopian. That is a realization that merits reflection.

by omniagallia

Christmas Holiday, 2019:

Please find peace, hope and joy wherever you seek them, in this customary season of gladness. The ability to reason is part of being human, but every bit as much so are impulses to rejoice and to hope. So though logic may suggest life is inherently sad and futile because it ends, our reflexive reluctance to accept that bleak conclusion leads us, rightly, to use faculties other than logic alone. Hope is just as vital and elemental. And ‘Accuracy’ is not necessarily the same as ‘Truth.’

Few of us can be so monolithically rational as to easily embrace a self-annihilating interpretation; nor should we be. If logic demands we do so, then it – used exclusively – may be thwarting us as much, or more, than it empowers us. Reason itself, arguably, makes it implausible that the marvel of existence could be pointless, however obscure its intent may seem from our finite perspective.

Western culture developed to hold that the cosmos isn’t just an indifferent, devouring void. Anything so amazing, if mysterious, could not be mere happenstance; it had to arise from an act of loving Creation. That led to faith that each human life, by virtue of our consciousness enabling us to ponder our origins and purpose, parallels the mechanism of Creation, and is thus a precious sprig of it. And the Christmas story (in which I personally find deep comfort and lofty joy) proclaims that every such sprig is worthy of love, validation and, if needed, saving, despite what it has done or failed to do.

Whatever you believe, celebrate every aspect of your personhood, and savor hope and joy wherever you find them, or where they find you. To do so is to defy that supposed ‘indifferent, devouring void’; or to negate its power. Your spirit – our spirit – may be stronger than it could be. Besides, you are a member of the human family, and realizing that one is part of a family should always be cause for happiness and belonging.

And for Peace on Earth.

by omniagallia

A Delightful Bit of Nonsense:

CONTEXT: Lest new readers assume that I only think, or write about serious matters, here is something that appealed to my taste for communal mirth. I often try to articulate things people may be aware of, but only consider in passing. But in this post, I just let myself get caught in the current of a charming bit of silliness that wafted across my (cyber-) path. Because life should be ‘savored,’ not just ‘chewed upon.’

As many of you know, I am a stalwart Gallophile, a lover of France, her people, culture etc.

But cruising YouTube recently, I found this video, a reminder of the marvelous eccentricity of which British society (for all its supposed stiff-upper lip values) is capable. A gloriously silly song being performed by its creator, while the audience thrills and deftly contributes. It happened at the enormous, august Royal Albert Hall (RAH) in London, the site of many such wonders of public whimsy and informality. RAH has certainly seen terrific high-art performances, but its massive size makes it inherently ‘popular’; even ‘democratic’ (witness the audience participation here).

So for a venue dedicated to the memory of the late Prince Albert by his stubbornly-grieving widow (and reputed royal killjoy) Queen Victoria, RAH has seen some highly eccentric, but hugely entertaining spectacles. Perhaps some have even coaxed unintended smiles out of Victoria and Alberts’ spirits?

(I incidentally wish Good Queen Bess – as I call Elizabeth II now, as Elizabeth I was known late in her reign – had been there for this shared fest, joining in the fun.)

To hearten anyone shell-shocked by COVID and all the world’s other travails of late, here is a paraphrase of a line from the poet Shelley, in which Life may be speaking to us all:

‘Look upon my works ye heartsick, and be glad.’