I reconnected with Kasimir Malevich’s beautiful and haunting 1933-34 painting entitled The Running Man or Peasant Between A Cross And A Sword while researching the text and history of Tom Clark’s Beyond The Pale entry (Link).
Dating from the very end of the great Suprematist artist’s career, The Running Man is interpreted as an indictment of the Holdomor, the 1932-33 Soviet Russian-perpetrated “Terror Famine”in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which killed many millions. This Stalinist scar across the 20th century is justifiably recognized and annually commemorated by post-USSR independent Ukraine, among other countries, as a political, class-cleaning, genocide.
I couldn’t help contrasting Malevich’s brackets (hieratic figures and shapes; color borders; arrested time and motion) with yesterday’s annual nauseating public relations distraction force-feeding the idle (because jobless) American public the crucial news of the U.S. president’s NCAA “March Madness” basketball predictions. (“My pick: Michigan State. Bring it home for me. It's been a while since I've won my pool.") Good golly Miss Molly. Where does he find the time?
I love when Ian Hunter asks at the end of Mott The Hoople’s All The Young Dudes: "How are you feeling?” and then answers his own question, "I bet you're feeling really sick.”
Cheer up (dude). It’s Spring.
Why is it I'm beginning to make out a link between the Holdomor and March Madness?
ReplyDeleteDo you suppose the POTUS has some sort of advisors who tell him that filling out a bracket makes you One of the People?
I believe there must indeed be some sort of contagion of madness involved.
The Obama/Brackets conceit/exercise has bugged me since its inception. No objection (or particular interest in) brackets per se. I just know, from having watched work colleagues engaged in the exercise, how time-intensive it is and how inconsistent it seems (haler fellow better met deception notwithstanding) with everything else I feel should be occupying the leader of the free world at the moment. This has been a trying period for us and for a lot of people, I know. For us, it was fairly hopeless from the beginning, so at least I didn't have any hopes dashed. I do love (and had forgotten about) the Malevich painting and was very grateful to be reminded about the Holdomor. I remember learning about it a long time ago in high school, but obviously one's mind gets so crowded with the day-to-day that forgetting important things happens much too often. Watching the Putin vs. Obama action distresses me a lot and reminds me of business situations I've observed close-up from the predictably losing end. Curtis
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