Parisian BS

Sia - Chandelier

Most of us have friends who are blind to the abuse-symbolism in celebrity pop videos.

The all seeing eye, the black and white checkered floors, the one eye teddy bear, the two masonic pillars Boaz and Jachin, the shattered mirrors, the manikins and it goes on and on but many can't even see the obvious trashing of humanity through sexual abuse, gender abuse, police state abuse and drug abuse dramatisation in celebrity videos and photo shoots, because they're pickled senseless in it. Like the fish who have no idea they're swimming in water they can't see what's right in front of them.

Sometimes I'm sitting in places that are playing these vacuous videos back to back with people who think they're the high point of art and it's always poignant, sickening and a little sad for the person interested in the human experience, but hey, not everyone was born to notice what's going on, and if people are too myopic to get the message then that's their journey not mine.

I was emailed to review Sia's Chandelier quite some time back, and my first observation was it's a very mediocre song with no originality and pedestrian lyrics. A power ballad of no historical importance.

Swinging from the chandeliers is most often in my experience used as a colloquial middle aged British expression for acrobatic and exotic sexual activity. It's somewhere between the Joy of Sex and Carry On Up The Khyber (Pass) for unsubtle and clichéd cultural references.

I don't know if this video is part of that genre of celebrity sausage making machine that squeezes out the Masonic/Bavarian symbolism out at a steady rate as it's also my experience that creative output can also tap into the collective consciousness as indeed this video does with its child star in a skin coloured leotard dancing brilliantly in a dystopian and provocative manner much as a seasoned interpretive dancer would.

It's also very synchronous that it was released as the VIP child abuse scandal started to be taken seriously in 2014 and will continue to be news as the US and other countries start to expose their child abusing political leaders, intelligence services and persons of power and privilege.

Meet The Romans | Mary Beard

The Romans started to come together for me while watching I Claudius some years back but only in a chronological kind of way. To get some real texture I recommend Mary Beard's Meet the Romans three part series. Mary's focus is on ordinary Roman life and after watching all three of these it's unlikely you'll find Roman history so abstract or remote as it has been previously.

There's some great scenes including the thumbnail cover for video two above where Mary sits in the public latrines. We don't know if men and women sat together but up to 40 people sitting in an open room taking a shit is fascinating anthropology. Just imagine how liberating it would be to know you're not the loudest, longest, smelliest or messiest. 

Or even if you are how you would post rationalise it as 'only nature'.

I'd love to take a shit Roman style just to appreciate modern conveniences a bit more.