Another OBES

Ten years, five forums, fuckwits and fortune-tellers beyond count. Too many dicks, not enough brains.

Woody Allen famously remarked that he would never want to belong to a club that would have someone like him as a member. Not being quite that neurotic, I can't stay indefinitely in a club that doesn't want people like me as members.

British Museum: Reverse of a medal for Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) showing "a complicated allegory, adapted from a woodcut, parodying a medal made for the Duke of Mantua, one of his patrons. It shows Truth sitting on a rock, looking up at the reclining figure of Zeus, who holds a thunderbolt. On the right, Victory is crowning Truth, who rests her foot on a satyr. The legend, meaning 'Truth creates hatred', shows that the image is a metaphor for Aretino's writings. His satires reveal the truth about bad rulers, placing him above others, making him a target for hatred: the satyr (meaning 'satire'), is the servant of truth and the means by which Aretino, like Zeus, can strike his enemies."

5/19 P.S. In addition to Ross' comment it has been made clear that, despite my perception of an increasingly strident anti-intellectual sentiment at Tarot History, my participation is welcomed by Robert and Jean-Michel.

January 17, 2010 postscript:

Idiot Admonitions:

Never argue with an idiot: onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.

Never argue with an idiot: the best you can hope for is winning an argument with an idiot.

Never argue with idiots: they drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

July 6, 2010 postscript:

For those with no historical, cultural perspective, an enthroned woman with a polygonal halo, holding a sword and scales, is as open to free interpretation as the third star in Orion's belt; the arrangement of elements is just an accidental pattern. Those who say it represents a personification of Justice, and who cite centuries of art and literature to support that claim, are not persuasive, despite the endless evidence that may be adduced. A skeletal reaper has an arbitrarily large number of possible meanings, as many as you care to invent and none of them more salient than any other: it is as open for interpretation as debris at the bottom of a tea cup. No allegory is more appropriate than any other, according to this ideological dogma. If fortune-tellers, Postmodern relativists, and other New Age ninnies do know anything about the meaning of didactic art, then they are frauds who hide their knowledge well. They write as trolls, intentionally misleading the unwary and annoying those who are not deceived, for the entertainment value such sport provides. If they do not know anything, then they are merely idiots. The Tarot community calls them "historians".