Tag: Art
-
A Hand Shake across Thousands of Years
When caves are mentioned, some of us may still imagine unwashed, unshaven, grunting brutes lumbering about, dragging women behind them by the hair. These hand prints from the Cave of El Castillo, made at least 37 centuries ago, tell a different story. Let’s think about how movingly astounding they are. Early humans worshipped the Earth…
-
What is (or are) Real?
Since this is so counter-intuitive, and goes against ‘common-sense’, let’s have another go at asking the question, what is real at the most fundamental level? What can we say about the most basic building blocks of all that exists? This doesn’t seem like an unimportant question, because I’m part of whatever it is that’s real.…
-
Fern Hill (Dylan Thomas)
Fern Hill was the farm, rented by his aunt Annie, at which young Dylan Thomas spent summer holidays, and is ‘remembered’ in the poem as a place where “all the sun long“, there poured forth “rivers of .. windfall light“, so much so that “it was all shining“. For me, this isn’t a poem for…
-
Wagner – Monstrous and Magnificent
How can we explain, or reconcile, the greatness of Wagner’s musical genius, with the baseness of so much of his life? He was an unsurpassed egotist. The focus of his endless monologues was entirely on himself and his self-assured opinions, to the exclusion or disparagement of others. He was a swindler who cheated people out…
-
Shelley – Ozymandias – Trump
Shelley’s poem is about the fallen statue of the leader of a nation. “Ozymandias” was the Greek name for Pharaoh Rameses II, thought by some scholars to be the Pharaoh who enslaved the Israelites, prior to their exodus from Egypt. For today’s readers, a certain Donald J. Trump may also come to mind. This…
RAY'S VIEWS ONLINE 