The Amazing Art of Svetlana Petrova with Zarathustra

Since I no longer have a television set and radio reception of NPR is iffy at best here in the boondocks on the eastern edge of Metropolitan Louisville/Jefferson County, I have obtained all of my information about what happens in the world via the Internet. So, I read/watch the BBC on the Internet daily.

I often encounter extremely unique features at the BBC. On May 26^th I came across this wonderful article entitled, The paintings 'made better with cats' by Genevieve Hassan.  Ms Hassan, an entertainment reporter for the BBC News, introduced me to Russian artist Svetlana Petrova and her delightful online artwork of famous portraits featuring her big ginger cat, Zarathustra.

I simply must share the works from the BBC article here on Nick’s Bytes:

You can view much more of Ms. Petrova's creations at Great Artist Mews, where Zarathustra tells us:

Our name is Zarathustra. We are a cat. According to our assistant (named by ignoramuses as our “owner”) We are the best cat in the world. By the will of the gods, We have been relieved of our animal desires, therefore Our postprandial time is given to the reflections on lofty matters. We are so gracious in Our enjoyment of repasts. And We are also very very fond of Arrt. Our main passion is to sit for the great artists. Only great artists can appreciate Our generous body and sublime soul.

By the way, Alex and Sugar are devotees of Zarathustra. (Midnight, being a kitten, is too hyper to appreciate great Arrt). 

Please

The Moment

I have previously written about this moment that took place in March of 1970; however, the moment has come back to me every Holy Week since.

From December, 1969, to March, 1970,as a fairly new army officer, I was assigned to the Military District of Washington (D.C.) while attending the Defense Language Institute at Anacostia Naval Station. In early March I received orders to go to Europe. According to the plan, I understood that this assignment was a two-year hiatus prior to being assigned to Vietnam. My feelings were mixed: my gung ho-ism low; my spirituality nonexistent.

I spent the day before I left Washington in the National Gallery of Art. As I wandered from room to room, my attention wasn’t really on the beauty surrounding me. As it has been today, my mind was centered on war in general and specifically on the meaninglessness of the Vietnam War. For weeks the evening news had centered on the courts martial of Lieutenant William Calley and the My Lai Massacre. The incident—the murders—was not something a young army officer like me wanted to consider as he looked down the road to his own involvement in that war.

As I wandered through the rooms of the National Gallery, I questioned my faith in God and my willingness to lead men into combat and, perhaps, to take human lives. I became more and more disheartened.I was about to leave the museum when I noticed a stairway to a lower level where I had never been. Like descending into the bowels of Hell, I started down the steps. On the lower level, I again wandered around, not really noticing the paintings or sculpture…until I turned and corner. There before me was a huge (5 ft 5 5/8 in x 8 ft 9 1/8 in) oil painting by Salvador Dali that almost covered the entire wall. I stared. I stood and gazed at this astounding painting until the guard told me the gallery was closing.

The Sacrament of the Last SupperSalvadore Dali

For me, in the lower level of the National Gallery, it was one of those mountain top experiences that come so rarely into our lives. Not one that immediately changed my life, but one that pointed me in a new direction, a new path. In those moments I truly began the journey of a seeker of shalom.

May you have a blessed and spiritual Maundy Thursday.

Shalom (in blue) and Salaam (in green) meaning Peace

 in Hebrew and Arabic respectively.

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Remembering Aunt Dot (Redux)

My aunt, Dorothy Hertle, died in 1995 at the age of 77. It would be undiplomatic to say that she was my favorite aunt; I can and will say that she was the most fun of my five aunts.

Aunt Dot, as we called her, never married. Maybe that’s why she spent so much time entertaining her nieces and nephews. She was athletic: she was the pitcher on a women’s softball team until she broke her thumb while sledding in a Louisville park with my sister and me. She took us on trips to amusement parks and “big” cities, such as New York and Chicago. She was musical: she played the accordion and the harmonica and, at times, an organ. She (along with my mother and sister) traveled to Germany to be with my ex-wife and me when our first son was born. Aunt Dot was a most important part of my life.

She was also an amature artist. The story, as I remember it was told to me, is that when she was in high school one of her teachers suggested that she study art. Aunt Dot’s German-born mother would have none of it. She was pragmatic, it was the middle of the Great Depression, and she compelled her daughter to study “secretarial skills” rather than playing around with her drawings.

Of course, she obeyed her mother, but spent all of her life drawing and painting. I have three oil portraits that Aunt Dot painted of three of her favorite people hanging on the walls of my house. These portraits are pictured below. The paintings are better than my photography.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

President John F. Kennedy

Aunt Dot’s “favorite nephew”—me

The Real Guy Fawkes and His Contemporary Reemergence

Guy Fawkes Day celebration

Today, The Guy is being celebrated in Great Britain (and a few other places) with bonfires, fireworks, and lots of hot foods. I have never been to a Guy Fawkes Day celebration; however, I have read the details of it in a few British mystery books. It seems that murders on Guy Fawkes Night are relatively common, at least in fiction.

I wonder how many of today’s celebrants think about the story of the real Guy Fawkes, who was discovered guarding a lot of gunpowder that was intended to be used to blow up Parliament.

The real Guy Fawkes

Fawkes (13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606), who converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism as a boy under the influence of his stepfather, fought (at the age of 21) in the Eighty Years War for Catholic Spain against the new Dutch Republic and, from 1595 until the Peace of Vervins in 1598, for France.

Fawkes, who had remained on the Continent after the war, was encouraged to join what later became known as the Gunpowder Plot against King James I and the Protestant English government. Fawkes returned to England, from which he had been away for 13 years, in April, 1604. 

The supposed purpose of the plot was to assassinate the Protestant King, James, and replace him with his daughter, third in the line of succession, Princess Elizabeth Stuart (19 August 1596 – 13 February 1662) who later was the wife of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and, following his death, the titular queen of Bohemia. The means of assassination was a large quantity of gunpowder which would be used to blow up Parliament House while the King and most of his government were there.

King James I

 Princess Elizabeth Stuart 

Fawkes, as the junior member of the conspirators and a soldier, was assigned the task of guarding the gun powder and, at the given moment, to light the fuse to ignite it and then escape across the Thames. However, the plot was discovered when Lord William Parker, 13th Baron Morley, 4th Baron Monteagle, a Catholic, received an anonymous letter warning him not to take his seat in the House of Lords. He took the letter to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, who then showed it to King James.  

King James ordered a search of the cellars beneath Parliament. Shortly after midnight, on November 5^th, Fawkes was arrested while leaving the cellar. The barrels of gunpowder were discovered in the cellar, hidden beneath piles of firewood and coal.

The arrest of Guy Fawkes

Fawkes was first interrogated by the King’s Privy Council, then transferred to the Tower of London where he was interrogated under torture until he had admitted everything he knew about the plot, including the names of the conspirators.

Fawkes tortured in the Tower of London

The Gunpowder Plot conspirators 

Fawkes and 7 of his co-conspirators were tried at Whitehall on January 27^th and found guilty of high treason. They were sentenced to be "put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both". They were to be hanged until near death, their genitals would then be cut off and burnt before their eyes, and their bowels and hearts cut from their still living bodies. They would then be decapitated, their bodies cut into parts, and the dismembered parts of their bodies taken to the four corners of the kingdom, to be displayed so that they might become "prey for the fowls of the air."

The execution of Fawkes and three other plotters began on January 31^st, 1606. Fawkes, however, managed to jump from the gallows before his execution began, breaking his neck in the fall and thus avoiding the agony of the latter part of his execution.

That is the story of the Gunpowder Plot and of Guy Fawkes, for whom this November 5^th celebration is named.

Today I believe that there are many people who do not know who Guy Fawkes was who are familiar with the Guy Fawkes mask that has become the symbol for the online hacktivist group, Anonymous, the Occupy movement, and other anti-government and anti-establishment protests around the world.

Guy Fawkes mask

Members of Anonymous

"Good Morning, World" Graphics

For quite a while, I have been collecting (and creating) graphics that I have posted on Facebook and Twitter under the heading Good Morning, World. I have decided to share a few of these on Nicks Bytes. Most of these are of a quality that they may be used as wallpaper on one’s computer. Please enjoy them as much as I have creating them.