A confusion glyph. A symbol that said “Look away.” New York City magic. Sometimes it worked.
T Thorn Coyle, Alighting on His Shoulders: Ten Tales From Sideways Worlds [Amazon, T Thorn Coyle]
Tag Archives: New York City
Put a Satanic Monument at OK Capitol
You may be interested in The Satanic Temple‘s crowdfunding effort, and righteous experiment in pluralism, to place “a Satanic monument to be erected at the OK State Capitol to complement and contrast the 10 Commandments monument that resides there now.”
That image above is of the proposed monument and was posted by the group in the comments on their social network page which may be of interest, as it features an iconic Baphomet figure.
“We, The Satanic Temple, an established New York City-based religious organization, seek to donate a public monument to Oklahoma’s Capitol Preservation Commission for display upon Oklahoma City’s capitol grounds. As an “homage” to Satan, the purpose of the monument is to complement and contrast the Ten Commandments monument that already resides on the North side of the building.
The existing Ten Commandments monument, donated to the Capitol Preservation Commission in 2009 by Mike Ritze, a representative of the Oklahoma State Legislature and ordained Southern Baptist Deacon, has raised the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who filed suit in August of 2013, noting that, ‘the monument stands alone, with no other monuments or memorials in the immediate vicinity.’ Also of concern to the ACLU is the ‘self-evidently exclusive’ religious message ‘that supports and endorses the faiths and creeds of some churches and sects.’ We believe that in being allowed to place our monument within the proximity of the Ten Commandments monument, we can appease the ACLU’s concerns.
By accepting our offer, the good people of Oklahoma City will have the opportunity to show that they espouse the basic freedoms spelled out in the Constitution. We imagine that the ACLU will also embrace such a response. Allowing us to donate a monument would show that the Oklahoma City Council does not discriminate, and both the religious and non-religious should be happy with such an outcome. Our mission is to bring people together by finding common sentiments that create solutions that everyone can appreciate and enjoy.
We are keenly attune to the need for a public-friendly design and plan is to make our monument an object of play for young children. The Satanic Temple is accepting donations toward the production and placement of this historic and important monument to religious diversity.” [via]
BTW, this is also the group that “performed a ‘Pink Mass’ over the grave of Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps Jr.’s mother” [via, also].
The Gentle Degenerates
Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Gentle Degenerates, Volume III in the Vassi Collection, by Marco Vassi:
Is this a novel in the form of a memoir, or a memoir packaged as a novel? The New York City setting, esoteric interests, drug use, and bisexuality of the nameless first-person narrator all tally with Marco Vassi’s biography. But the book is as tightly choreographed as any novel, with some shifts of narrative backwards and forewards in time, while each of the fourteen chapters includes one terrifically detailed sexual episode, along with introspective passages that are sometimes positively grueling.
Written in 1970, the text is unselfconsciously composed in the now-extinct dialect of groove. E.g. “I got to rapping her old man and dug they were at a place where they could use a third to catalyze their mix” (60). The language alone makes the book a period piece, although it was clearly written with an acute sense of its contemporaneity.
Vassi’s narrator sees some sort of revolution as imminent, and himself in the vanguard as a mystic and sexual explorer, and there is a certain innocence to his sexual promiscuity. But he is also a harsh judge of himself and others. He mocks himself for playing at being Michael Valentine Smith (73), and his vigorous anathema against the Esalen Institute is full of bracing insight (174-176). Ultimately, the book delivers just the tone implied in the title: a mix of humane care and sorrowful condemnation. [via]
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