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Usually Ferrebeekeeper writes about crowns, but today, as a special treat to celebrate the end of February (which is also Black History month), we are going to write about a throne instead…and this is not just any throne! It is also my favorite visionary art installation [as an aside, I believe it would help to contextualize the problematic nature of monarchy if we called all thrones “visionary art installations”–and it wouldn’t even really be inaccurate]. Anyway, above is the Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly, by American outsider artist James Hampton which is currently held at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington DC. Created between 1950 and 1964, the enormous work consists of 180 individual objects hand-crafted out of broken furniture and everyday found objects which were gilded with aluminum and gold foil.
Hampton’s tale is as American as possible, while somehow simultaneously as outsider as possible too. He was born in South Carolina in 1909, the son of a Baptist preacher with the same name. His father, James Hampton Senior was a traveling Baptist preacher and a gospel singer, but he was also a grifter and a ex-convict with a history of time in the chain gang. He abandoned his family and vanished away into the William Faulkner style goings-on of the south during the tumultuous decades of the teens, twenties, and thirties leaving his 4 children and wife to scrape by as well as possible.
After this hard-scrabble upbringing, young James Hampton moved to Washington D.C. where he was a short-order cook during the Depression and was then drafted into The United States Army Air Force during Word War II. He served repairing airstrips in Guam for which he received a Bronze Star. In Guam he also first began building visionary devotional shrines. After the war he moved back to Washington and obtained a job as a janitor at the General Service Administration, where he worked until his death of stomach cancer in 1964. We would probably not remember him at all, except, when he died, his landlord approached his sister about what to do with the contents of the garage which Hampton used as a workspace/devotional area. Hampton had largely kept his artwork hidden from even his tiny circle of friends and family (perhaps he did not even regard it as artwork per se). Only after his death did it come to the world’s attention, along with St James: The Book of the 7 Dispensation a religious book which he mostly wrote in a private (and untranslated) tongue.
Hampton’s Christianity was non-sectarian (enough of his writing is in English to inform us that he wisely believed that the doctrinal schisms which characterize organized Christianity detract from the sacred unity of God) and highly mystical. I first saw the throne on a High School Field Trip in the nineties, when its awesome otherworldly glory and strangeness was enough to silence a whole class of 16 year olds (an achievement accomplished by few other cultural masterpieces in the nation’s capital). Its glistening cat-eyes and complex Baroque shapes are characteristic of American dime stores and carnivals of the early 20th century…and yet they also very much of Africa, Polynesia, and the Holy Land as well.
You will have to examine the shrine of your own–as with some of the finest religious art of South East Asia or the Middle Ages, its splendor and complexity initially baffle the eye. However, it is based on Saint John’s New Testament description of the silver and gold throne of God on Judgement Day (Revelations 4). This description includes mention of Christian elders wearing sacred crowns, and these crowns are very much a part of the larger installation, so even if you are lost in the material complexities of James Hampton’s personal devotion, at least there is highly recognizable iconography for the rulers of Earth…and for this blog’s readers too!
Even back in the world that used to be, we all knew that 2020 would be a bitter pill to swallow because of the horrible election (not that elections are usually horrible–this one is unusual because of the super polarized citizenry and because one of the participants is such a shameful cheater). At least we had the Summer Olympics to look forward to though! Alas, the year has swept away the great international contest of sport, and we will have to wait until 2021 to learn if we will have any Olympics at all this cycle.
This leaves sports-crazed Americans with football, a proxy war game which allows us to illustrate our fierce devotion to Mars, God of War, by means of low-grade human sacrifices. I only started watching football late in life (as a way to bond with a sports-crazy business partner) and, having no team affiliation, I jokingly swore to root for the team with a flower for an emblem. It actually turned out that there was and is such a team–the New Orleans Saints, and, for a variety of improbable reasons I root for them.
This year though, an even more fascinatingly improbable team brand has emerged. After long decades of willfully ignoring the issue, the Washington Redskins finally gave up on their shamefully racist name. The “Redskins” are now no more (which is good…even typing that name out makes me imagine a tribal elder stoically shedding a single tear at the callous brutality of franchise nomenclature). Instead of immediately rebranding, the football team which represents the nation’s capital has embraced emptiness and they are now called “The Washington Football Team”.
I for one salute the monastic new direction the team is going in. It is dangerous for sports franchises to trifle too much with their brand (since it might be revealed that teams are just big collections of burly mercenaries supported by various lawyers and agents), yet the Washington Football Team has come by its generic new name through a comprehensible set of circumstances. I feel like they should travel further towards ego-death by giving the players long hard-to-read numbers, choosing a less flashy team color like gray, beige or umber, and, best of all, choosing an appropriate mascot like a blob of tofu, a block of bleachers, or a concrete block.
Perhaps the fate of the Washington Football Team will hinge on what happens to them during what is sure to be a strange (or possibly curtailed) season. Let us hope they either have a super boring season and remain the only team without a symbolic name, or they go on some incomprehensible vision quest and become something really weird and interesting (or would that offend native Americans…again)? In the mean time maybe you should propose some possible mascots below (in the spirit of Wenlock and Mandeville). I would propose “Washington Flounders” but we are trying to re-enthuse people about the government (come to think of it, our eagle might need a makeover after 2020 too). Let me know what you think in the comments below!
We will get back to plans for a Hart Island memorial in the immediate future, but right now there is something which needs to be dealt with right now. Eight years ago, Ferrebeekeeper blogged about the nightmarish Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia) a 5 centimeter (2 inch) long flying murder machine from East Asia. The Asian giant hornet’s sting contains neurotoxins and an enzyme which dissolves flesh. They are capable of stinging again & again & again…and then going home and living long successful lives untroubled by regret (unlike poor honey bees which perish after delivering one sting). Every year the giant hornets kill dozens of innocent people who aren’t even allergic to bees.
And now they are here…
To quote ABC News,
The hornet was sighted for the first time in the U.S. last December, when the state Department of Agriculture verified two reports near Blaine, Washington, close to the Canadian border. It also received two probable, but unconfirmed reports from sites in Custer, Washington, south of Blaine.
This is obviously bad news for humankind…but, let’s be honest…nobody is really that worried about us. We are already the Asian Giant Hornet of the primate world (and primates are truly aggressive, cunning animals). Plus there are billions of us and we have all sorts of diabolical machines and contraptions. The ones who are really in trouble because of this terrifying invasive hornet are bees. Asian Giant Hornets live by hunting other insects like smaller hornets, praying mantises, and, especially honey bees. Washington is the nation’s orchard. It’s honey bees were already in trouble and they are not ready for this (did yoou click that link to the earlier post). Gentle, kindly honeybees may never be ready.
All of this means the giant hornets have got to go. We have a brief window where we could maybe stamp them out (figuratively…even our big feet might not be big enough to stamp them out literally). So if you see a hornet the size of a goldfinch with Deadpool’s face (except the color of a finely aged, um, schoolbus) kindly call the Washington Department of Agriculture as soon as possible*. Do not grab a machete and a flamethrower and try to tackle these things on your own: you will just end up on the Schmidt pain index.
(*Seriously? It’s only May, how much weirder are public service announcements going to get this year?)
I have a weird confession. I don’t usually get too upset by paying my taxes. I can’t explore space by myself…nor can I invent the internet, fight Ebola, or operate a nuclear aircraft carrier. The government does amazing things which benefit everyone! [plus I barely make any money anyway]
Yet some group of marketers with deep pockets has been trying to convince everyone that the government is incompetent and you should give all of your money to reclusive billionaire twins and evil cartels instead.
And their efforts are working! This year I was pretty unhappy to turn over my meager earnings to be used on golf outings, summer palaces, estranged trophy wives, and brownshirts. I was peeved with Intuit as well, even though I have used them for many years. Not only did Intuit lobby the government to keep the tax code exhaustively complicated, but Turbotax kept demanding that I buy a more expensive software package and the numbers changed wildly for no coherent reason. I only have one W2. What the heck? No more Turbotax from now on. I finally gave up and used the el cheapo knockoff that the IRS referred me to. I have recorded this spring experience for posterity in this little sparkling picture of floundering beneath the cherry blossoms of our nation’s capital. I call it “Turbot Tax” and I think the symbolism is self explanatory.
But whatever…at least I have fileted my taxes…er I mean filed. Now that we have got that chore done, we can get to spring flowers in earnest!
The Purple Heart Medal
The Purple Heart is a military award given to United State soldiers who are injured or killed in combat. Since April 1917 the medal has been awarded in the name of the President of the United States to men and women of the armed forces (and, for a brief period, to civilians who were injured in meritorious action with the enemy). The Purple Heart medal is indeed a purple heart with a profile relief statue of George Washington. Above his head is the coat of arms of the Washington family (who were descended from British nobles) which consists of red and white bars beneath three red stars with holes in them. The medal hangs from a purple ribbon with silver-white edges—which is also what the service ribbon for the Purple Heart looks like.
The Purple Heart Service Medal
In 1945, the United States military was planning an all-out amphibious assault on Japan. Military planners reckoned that this campaign would lead to an unprecedented number of casualties, so the Pentagon ordered 500,000 purple hearts to give to the troops injured or killed. However, thanks to hard-working scientists, the physical nature of the universe, and President Truman’s uncompromising orders, the assault on Japan became unnecessary. In all succeeding years (and throughout all subsequent wars), total American casualties have never approached this number, so Purple Heart awards given out today are practically antiques.
The Badge of Military Merit
The Purple Heart is an incredibly distinctive looking award with a unique name and a powerful, unusual color. What is the meaning behind the color of the medal? The color and shape of the medal were conceived by no less a person than George Washington himself in the midst of the Revolutionary War. Washington wanted to award common soldiers who had committed deeds of unusual merit and he commanded that such soldiers be honored with the Badge of Military Merit, a purple heart shaped patch sewn onto their uniform. The Badge of Military Merit is generally viewed as the first military award of the United States Armed Services, but, most unfortunately we do not know what exactly the enigmatic Washington was thinking when he chose the color (although the meaning of the shape, at least, seems obvious). Perhaps the general associated purple with the noble qualities of sacrifice, valor, and courage which the badge was meant to embody. Whatever the case, Purple Hearts bear a unique personal connection to George Washington, the foremost of the fathers of the nation.
An artist’s interpretation of George Washington awarding the first Badges of Military Merit at Newburgh in 1783
ferrebeekeeper 