Powerful Men

Subject: Powerful Men Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:43 am

Since I am a woman, I do not pretend to know much about men. So I will defer to a man, Robert Bly, author of Iron John: A Book about Men, which according to the New York Times, was "Important...timely...powerful."

from the chapter: "The meeting with the God-woman in the Garden"

Quote :: For men an unnamed god of duty holds down the surface of the earth; and all stock markets, all football fields, all corporation parking lots, all suburban tracts, all offices, all firing ranges, belong to him. There a man makes a stand, makes a farm, makes an impression, makes an empire, but sooner or later, if he is lucky, the time comes to go inward, and live in “the garden.”…It is in the garden that a man finds the wealth of the psyche…..in the walled garden, as in the alchemical vessel, new metals get formed as the old ones melt. The lead of depression melts and becomes grief. The drive for success, an insistent tin, joins with Aphrodite’s copper, and makes bronze, which is good to make both shields and images of the gods. The enclosed garden then suggests cultivation as opposed to rawness, boundaries as opposed to unbounded sociability, soul concerns as opposed to outer obsessions, passion as opposed to raw sexuality, growth of soul desire as opposed to obsession and a generalized greed for things…..In the garden, soul and nature marry. When we love cultivation more than excitement we are ready to start a garden…..Paying attention to tiny, hardly noticeable feelings is the garden way. That’s the way lovers behave.
The enclosed garden is a right place for lovers…. The enclosed garden encourages true desire for the intimate more than the greed for objects; and we know that true desire is dangerous……..The heat of Eros is a delight mixed with danger….We know from Renaissance accounts, that it was not at all unusual for a young man at that time to take two or three years off, and spend it learning to be a lover. We spend those years in graduate school instead. He would learn how to play a musical instrument because the resonance of the strings affect the heart. He would learn poems “by heart,” practice setting them to his own music, and then sing them to introverted women sitting behind iron window bars. [For “introverted," read intellectual, thinking women, who were considered "dangerous" and often kept “behind bars.”] It was garden work, with longing in it.

Now, I don't know if the men here would agree with Mr. Bly, but I, as a woman, find this passage incredibly sensual. I have a thing for men who have tended their inner gardens. I find them intensely powerful, in a good way. Such men inspire me to create my own works.

Just me.

Ann

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Mon Oct 24, 2011 12:26 pm

Quote :: For men an unnamed god of duty holds down the surface of the earth; and all stock markets, all football fields, all corporation parking lots, all suburban tracts, all offices, all firing ranges, belong to him...

I wrote a comedy monologue based on that premise. The thrust of the story is that women are encroaching onto territory traditionally reserved for men. The project was inspired by a woman driver who thought I cut her off, so she gave me the finger. It just naturally led to more situations. One of the bits that drew more laughs was about the apprearance of women journalists in sports. Particularly when they go into the locker room right after a football game where players are changing, going to and from the shower, etc.

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Mon Oct 24, 2011 12:29 pm

1. George Washington
2. Abe Lincoln
3. Harry Truman
4. Louie B. Mayer
5. Tarzan

Cheers..Joe

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Mon Oct 24, 2011 12:39 pm

William Shakespeare
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
T. S. Eliot
John Milton
Don Miguel de Cervantes

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Mon Oct 24, 2011 1:11 pm

Art Tatum

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Mon Oct 24, 2011 1:25 pm

Al Stevens wrote:: Art Tatum

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Mon Oct 24, 2011 1:47 pm

That's the Man. Thanks for the clip.

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Mon Oct 24, 2011 2:38 pm

A pleasure.

Ann

10/24/2011 " Great Piano Player !" Cheers..Joe

10/24/2011

" Great Piano Player !"

Cheers..Joe

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Mon Oct 24, 2011 5:45 pm

Do you think that the people chosen as epitiome of power felt that they were powerful or is power the conception of their beholder.

Is a god a god if no one worships?

I am reminded of the mirrors where one looks at themself in one mirror and are reflected into the next and on and on and they see their reflection into infinity. A kind of magnified Narcissus effect. Like kissing one's own reflection in the glass.

Love,

Betty

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Mon Oct 24, 2011 7:08 pm

I hear you, people can only have as much power as others are willing to give.

That magnifying narcissist effect, though, reminds me of Richard Nixon. If you believe your own lies, you can convince those others, but it's kind of like (was it Abe Lincoln who said this?) You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.

Tricky Dicky and The W.

Ann

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Mon Oct 24, 2011 7:36 pm

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:58 am

copy of Domenic's post removed by Alice

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Tue Oct 25, 2011 5:20 am

I like most men. I have a view that they like appreciation and love and so do I.

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:33 am

Subject: Re: Powerful Men Wed Oct 26, 2011 12:20 pm

As far as I am concerned, Love is powerful.

Whether exhibited by a man or a woman, it is compelling.

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