The Arts

Key To My Mind: The "Ring" by Wagner

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« Elaine Meinel Supkis My father wanted to name me 'Brünnhilda' but my mother didn't allow him to do this. But when I was less than five, I discovered the famous Arthur Rackham illustrated books of the liberetto. I opened it up and suddenly saw my future selves. Even the pet ravens, I had those as the years went by! Like Brünnhilda, I love to fight. I wanted to be a beautiful lady but instead ended up a fighting woman. Instead of innocence, I had to live a life of periodic violence. It was very strange, this attraction to Wagner's huge opera complex. The first recordings of the entire series of all four operas was first done by the London Symphony from the mid 1950's to the mid 1960s. When I was only nine, my father bought me 'Das Rheingold.' During the following year, I memorized the music from the first opera. I wanted badly to be a Rhine maiden. Since I love swimming, I would splash around in the sea, pretending to torment dwarves and show off my sexual attractiveness. Only due to being raped when terribly young, I was very defensive, too. Simultaneously. This was all rather psychotic. I then discovered another world: history. Namely, my father's past was tied up within this opera. In many strange ways. My father would never play any Richard Strauss or Wagner but he allowed me to collect and play their music. Independently, I discovered Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' at this same time. and the two became strangely intertwined within my own world. Somehow, I knew there was some family secret involved here and the music was a possible bridge. One day, when I was temporarily living in my father's office, I found some pictures of him at the Nüremberg trials. This surprised me a great deal but when I asked, there was tremendous revulsion on his part. Solving this riddle directed my life: I decided to learn German, go to Germany and find out the truth. This mission was quite successful. Too successful. I learned all about the darker magical side of the Nazis and how this all dovetailed in my own fate. The fatalism of the German romantics and how this got twisted into the mythical/magical Teutonic darkness haunted my youth and when I stood in the death chamber at Dachau, it all came into focus. The curse of the Ring of Doom, the Ring of Power, far from being ended by the victory in Europe, infected us in turn as we took the Ring and now use it to gain wealth and power. Only we lost love. At the Gates of Death, I realized that nothing, not one bit of power, not so much as a penny of wealth, passes through. All these things are brutally stripped from the soul as it passes from the living world to death. There is only one thing: love. The power of this empherial inner feeling is one of the little bits that is carried past the Guardians at the Gates. That and guilt. For they are twins, coupled forever to each other. This is why the machinations of the powerful dismay me. The dreams of domination and wealth, pushing helpless populations, driving them into destruction just so one can be rich and powerful, is all in vain for Death gets everyone, there is no exceptions. Hitler's mad dreams tore apart my Meinel side of the family. One relative ran the notorious Stalag VIIA just as my father, in the secret service seeking rockets, blundered into several concentration camps. My father is a romantic, a 19th century scientist living in this century. These encountered nearly destroyed him. He was unprepared for man's madness and inhumanity. He got the rockets, he got the scientists in the secret caves to join him and come to America. And these rockets were used to set up a Gôtterdämmerun for the entire planet, setting nuclear bombs on thousands of rockets set to take off in an eyeblink and thus, destroy humanity! And mad with power of the Ring, we menace the world while crying, we are saving humanity. And as we kill and as we pollute and devour this precious world, we claim we are saving it! The irony of all this has been deeply impressed upon my mind thanks to memorizing all these operas. The genius of Wagner is, he could see this future yet he was a tool of the worst evil to inflict humanity. For he wanted power, he wanted glory, he wanted everything for himself and his grand designs. Tolkien's Ring was taken from Wagner's Ring. Only it took the power of the Tarnhelm that makes one invisible or hidden under a disguise, and put them together in the Ring of Mordor. It never ceases to amaze me how rightwingers cling to these books, the Lord of the Rings, totally misunderstanding even the simplest basics of the story's morals. The mistake of Tolkien was to have heroes. He was right to have Frodo weaken and fail in the end but all the other heroes spoiled it all, for the victory didn't come from the People understanding their fate and working to wrest it from the despots but rather, a King saving them from themselves. Tolkien was correct to show Frodo putting on the Ring and declaring war on all humanity. His salvation was quite accidental. But this subtlety passes right over the heads of the right wing Americans dreaming of domination. I used to talk on the phone frequently with Hastert's press secretary. We talked about Tolkien a lot and I urged him to try to understand the point of the stories. He couldn't see it at all. It was a huge blind spot for him. When the election of 2000 failed and the votes weren't counted, he and I had a big fight in DC. He thought it was just fine, not counting the votes because his side 'won'. My attempts at trying to get him to understand, this attitude would cause great evil failed. The right wing loves these stories. The love the idea that one can use magic to gain power. They really do want the power of these magic rings! They think they can use them to 'save' humanity only their idea of salvation is murder. And this is why it pays to learn the myths, to see the stories they tell each other. Even evil people can deliver important messages. Tolkien and Wagner loved royalty and both created art that on the surface, celebrates royalty but in reality, are warnings about kings and rulers. This is why the Hobbits tolerate no kings or wizards ruling over them. This is why the world of the Gods of Valhalla burns. When Wagner died, all the emperors and kings went to war in Europe. And his wife and sons celebrated the Nazis in a vain atttempt at gaining power and glory. And the kings and despots nearly destroyed civilization. And now, today, we face the same harsh choices. The desire to gain the gold, to have our own way, is destroying us. Even facing defeat, America still dreams of victory. We think, if we kill everyone, even the smallest baby, we will be victorious and our rule will succeed because we can hide ourselves behind a veil of words, hollow promises and delusional dreams of fixing everything we break. All this is false and makes things worse. This is why I am sharing this excellent synopsis of the Wagner operas tonight: it has some interesting points. It is also a window into my own mind. It is the bridge I used to find Shadowlands, the secret undercover world of our government, the dark continent where we commit crimes in the name of democracy, and there, in the center, is a group of satanists, practicing black magic. Thanks to the Skull and Bones. http://www.bookmasters.com/marktplc/01098.htm

Fearful Fashion Designers Make Scary Models For Ruling Elites

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Throughout history, despots and rulers express themselves by wearing dominating fashions. These clothes tend to be very uncomfortable since they are basicall armor. Evidently our fashion designers sense the wealthy elites need body armor again. The very rich don't wear armor-like clothes, they instead use armored vehicles and private jets to encase themselves in a steel bubble.

Fashion designers are more vulnerable so they express their fears in their fashioons.

By Robin Givhan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 4, 2006; Page C01

PARIS, Oct. 3 At Tuesday morning's runway presentation by Balenciaga, the models balanced atop platform heels that seemed to be composed of layers of shiny cogs and widgets. They wore breastplates of loosely looped bands of wool, and cropped blazers that looked almost like wings. Leggings were constructed with articulated joints, rivets and metallic patches. The models -- stoical behind clear safety glasses -- were exquisite cyborgs: daring, superhuman, beyond compare.

Creative director Nicolas Ghesquiere's collection was the most compelling presentation since the spring showings began unfolding last month in New York. As his models moved briskly and confidently through the room, they sparked the desire that fuels luxury high design. For a moment, suspended in the vacuum of a dark gray loft on this city's Left Bank, one wanted to look just like those models: women as all-conquering machines.

The 'civilized' (sic) world has been undergoing a rash of fearful events. This season's events seems to feature freaked out frustrated males attacking young girls and boys. It all began with the resurrection of the horrible child beauty queen murder. The whole country shut down in order to obsess over this hideous pornographic story complete with tittillating photos and drooling descriptions of a child molester arrested in Asia claiming falsely that he was her murderer.

So the Zeitgeist was set for all the men lusting for Lolitas to emerge from their own coccoons.

By Tamara Jones and Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 4, 2006; 7:42 AM

BART TOWNSHIP, Pa., Oct. 4 -- Haunted by an ugly secret he claimed to have kept since childhood and recurring dreams of molesting young girls, Charles C. Roberts IV clearly "planned to dig in for the long siege" and torment his young victims in an Amish schoolhouse before executing them and killing himself, investigators said Tuesday.

Five suicide notes the 32-year-old gunman left behind also describe his anguish over the loss of a premature baby nine years ago, police said, and a checklist found in his milk truck offered a sordid blueprint for the mayhem that left five girls dead and five more fighting for life after Roberts stormed into their classroom Monday morning.

The escape of a kidnapped child who was now an adult in Austria fueled these Freudian fires. Then various males were set into motion to create these crimes as one mass killer after another have assaulted our school girls, raping and shooting them, lusting for scenes of sadomasochistic torture inflicted on child beauty queens.

As a survivor of this sort of mayhem, this freaks me out a lot. The desire to rape innocent girls is a frightful one running in tandem with the desire to dominate young men sexually. So we have the entire GOPredators going down in flames now over their joint desire to dominate innocent children.

The ruling elites don't mind sexual mayhem so long as it comes from themselves but they do want the proles under control. The very lower classes don't matter, sex keeps them satiated and disorganized. But the upperclasses need the bourgeoises under control so they can do their jobs and sex interfers with this.

Over the centuries, fashion has vacillated between the Dionysian and the Apolloian. Namely, sexy and free and armored and restrained. Right now, we see the ruling elites wanting to don armor while still being totally free, sexually.

This armor-plated Dionysian riot is at the roots of the war of the Crusaders vs Islam. Islam's armor plate is to lock women up and veil them totally while the men run riot while the Crusaders want to do the same for the lower classes but want the women have enough political power to want to run riot upstairs.

This happened in the 1600s. Namely, women became startlingly free but were still vulnerable. So they put on 'body armor' that, unlike the soft, comfortable fashions of the Middle Ages, was constrictive and yet overwhelming, the skirts taking up huge psychic space, the bodice emphisizing the feminine shape while bristling with bustles and lace, untouchable yet powerful.

Namely, a woman became an Armada, sailing through the palace, all sheets to the winds.

The severe fashions of the Spanish court under Philip II of Spain were dominant through the early part of the period everywhere except France; black garments were worn for the most formal occasions. Regional styles were still distinct. Janet Arnold in her analysis of Queen Elizabeth's wardrobe records identifies French, Italian, Dutch, and Polish styles for bodices and sleeves, as well as Spanish.
Ruffs increased in size throughout the period and then began to disappear everywhere except Holland, where they remained in fashion well into the next century.

The Spanish fashions which were designed to control women's sexuality ended up giving her more power, paradoxically. The finest example of this power was embodied quite literally by Queen Elizabeth who used fashion as a diplomatic and social weapon system. This is why she gave her wardrobe great thought. The point was to make her imposing as well as a blaze of glory.

Today, fashion designers can't look at women as truly powerful but rather, they despise feminine sexuality and can only see it as an amputation job, trying to rid themselves of all things female and replace it with ersatz masculinity. Rich women can toy with the concept of being machine-women so long as they are hidden from exposure to crazed males seeking to destroy them using guns and bombs.

Many years ago, women joggers in Central Park were being assaulted and raped. Everyone was getting very nervous about this. During this time, I was one of the very few women in the Society for Creative Anacronisms, a Medieval recreationist group, who actually fought men while I was wearing full steel armor.

We decided to give a demonstration of our game in Central Park. At one point, I had to trot off to my van to pick up some equipment. So in full steel armor, I ran down the jogging trails to Park Avenue. Everyone stopped and stared. I yelled, 'This is the latest in jogging fashions!' and people laughed and applauded.

Needless to say, with or without armor, I was a very dangerous person to attack in the park. Once, after a demo, I was driving through lower Manhattan with my equipment when I saw an assault on the street. A baseball bat wielding man had hit a couple with a baby! I jumped out of the van, took my rattan sword which has a steel cage hilt and ran up the the man with the bat and struck his bat and thus, disarmed him. He ran away.

Women wearing real armor is quite different from fake armor. The women putting on this designer stuff want men to fear them and lust for them. They hope their bodyguards and steel SUVs will protect them from sexual assault and thus, they will be in full control, all Whores of Babylon without responsibility.

This is an illusion. As we see in Iraq, these armored vehicles and armed men are very vulnerable. As we all are which is why we should be cultivating civilization and not barbarism. We must understand our own inner demons and why we want to sexually provoke people while at the same time preventing them from acting out their sexual insanities. Across Iraq and Afghanistan, women are pulling over themselves the frail cloth of veils in the hopes the angry eyes of sexually disturbed males will find them invisible.

And so Adam and Eve struggle to cover up their nakedness but fail. No veil can stop the men seeking deadly domination. Nor can armorplated fashions. What has to change is upstairs, in the brain.

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