MY DAUGHTER, THE ORIENTAL GODDESS (repost)

Li Qin poses for her Goddess-loving father Li Zhuang Ping

These iconic paintings are by Li Zhuang Ping, a romantic-realist artist born 1948 in Szechuan, China. Though technically flawless, Li's compositions can be said to be mostly derivative, borrowing heavily from the work of well-known European masters like Raphael, Renoir and Velázquez. What has brought this particular collection - popularly known as the "Oriental Goddess" series - to international attention is the fact that Li used his beautiful 23-year-old foster daughter, Li Qin, as his model.

"Qin's perfect form and her natural beauty are what I had in mind for the image of a goddess," Li told an interviewer. "I created the 'Oriental goddess' series with her. She serves as both my model and muse. She inspires as well as lends form to the work. In that sense the paintings are a collaboration between us."

"And, yes, my wife approves," added Mr Li with a smile.

Li Qin, herself an artist, said she began modeling for her foster father five or six years ago, and worked closely with him to create the 'Oriental Goddess' series of oil paintings on canvas which instantly gained notoriety in the Chinese art world.

As to be expected, murmurs of disapproval were soon heard amongst the more conservative. Some critics aver that, while there might be no biological relationship between Li and Qin, the paintings constitute a form of "artistic incest."

My personal take on Li Zhuang Ping's "Oriental Goddess" series? I think the paintings are too kitsch to qualify as "high art" but Li Qin's exceptional beauty certainly deserves to be celebrated. And who better than a doting father (albeit a foster father) to do justice to such distinctive feminine beauty? Transmuting paternal affection, aesthetic ardor and erotic desire into art is the most sublime expression of a father's love I can imagine. What a delightful way to mark the end of the long, dark patriarchal era - when fathers traded off their daughters for social or political advantage, sold them to the highest bidder, intimidated, raped, humiliated, mutilated or impregnated them... or murdered "wayward" daughters to save the "honor" of the family.

Li Qin with her proud and doting grandfather

[First posted 14 March 2009, reposted 16 January 2015 & 16 May 2016]

You never know who you might bump into in the Cartoon Universe... (reprise)

You might just stumble across a procession of Oodlies on their way to an art gallery in Melbourne for Joi Murugavell's solo opening on 14 June 2011...

Is this Joi Murugavell? Nope... it's just another one of her infamous Oodlies...

Is this Joi Murugavell? Hmmm... it could be... with a bit too much make-up...

Blame it on Facebook. I randomly clicked on a comment Joi Murugavell left on her brother Vijay Kumar's status - and it led me to her website... where I got zapped with a colorful explosion of sheer creative genius and unmitigated zaniness - and it got my mojo all fired up.

Not since I bumped into Nina Paley at a cartoonists conference back in 1989 have I encountered such a succulent energy field, emanating from such smoochable brainlobes. Who is this entity named Joi Murugavell, I wondered... so I sent her a short message... and after a couple of exchanges, I learnt that Joi was born in Malaysia and, in her early teens, she opted to study in New Zealand, then moved to Australia... and never came back, except on vacation.

She knew of me in one of my earlier incarnations as a cartoonist named Kit Leee and asked if I would agree to be interviewed for Oodlies.com. How could I say no to such a vibrant and vivacious young lady? She requested that I scan some of my doodles and send them to her, so she could arrange some sort of blind date with her Oodlies.

Well, my random doodles (first published 1994 in Moth Balls, a collection of my "scatological and eschatological" poems) had been gathering dust in my rusty filing cabinet for decades... they literally hadn't seen the light of day since Joi Murugavell was in kindergarten. I imagine as a kid she must have looked just like an Oodlie...

So I spent an entire afternoon scanning a pile of spontaneous sketches (mostly done while chatting on the phone) and rescuing them from analog oblivion. I have absolutely no idea what Joi is going to do with them (for all I know she may be a sadist or an even worse pervert than I am), but nothing terrible can possibly happen in the Cartoon Universe, so why worry about it?

Anyway, the Cartoon Universe is where I'd like to migrate if those destructive dickheads with heavy investments in the so-called "defence industries" decide to blow up planet Earth.

Meanwhile, before Joi Murugavell gets to work digitally mutating my random doodles (or Oodleees, since I went by the name "Leee" in my cartooning days), I'd like to share a small selection with you...

[First posted 15 May 2011]

OFFICIAL INTERVIEW WITH 

JOI MURUGAVELL

Meet Lakshmi, Goddess with Dancing Bedroom Eyes... (repost)

[Brought to my immediate attention by Shreejeiyalachmee Appadorai]


BLESSINGS OF INFINITE ABUNDANCE UNTO THOSE WHO GAZE UPON MY RADIANT FORM WITH PURE AND LOVING HEARTS!

[First posted 3 May 2009, reposted 10 May 2016]

NO MORE WAR!!! (reprise)

Letter from an Angry Soldier
Date: 2007-04-10, 1:00PM

I'm having the worst damn week of my whole damn life so I'm going to write this while I'm pissed off enough to do it right.

I am SICK of all this bullshit people are writing about the Iraq war. I am abso-fucking-lutely sick to death of it. What the fuck do most of you know about it? You watch it on TV and read the commentaries in the newspaper or Newsweek or whatever god damn yuppie news rag you subscribe to and think you're all such fucking experts that you can scream at each other like five year old about whether you're right or not. Let me tell you something: unless you've been there, you don't know a god damn thing about it. It you haven't been shot at in that fucking hell hole, SHUT THE FUCK UP!

How do I dare say this to you moronic war supporters who are "Supporting our Troops" and waving the flag and all that happy horse shit? I'll tell you why. I'm a Marine and I served my tour in Iraq. My husband, also a Marine, served several. I left the service six months ago because I got pregnant while he was home on leave and three days ago I get a visit from two men in uniform who hand me a letter and tell me my husband died in that fucking festering sand-pit. He should have been home a month ago but they extended his tour and now he's coming home in a box. [Read the rest]

"A cigarette hung from his mouth in the manner of John Wayne or Humphrey Bogart, his grime-covered face showed the exhaustion of battle.This image of US Marine Lance-Corporal Blake Miller, taken by a Los Angeles Times photographer during the battle of Fallujah, instantly captured the public imagination and for a while he was known simply as Marlboro Man. But 15 months after that photograph appeared in more than 100 US newspapers, the 21-year-old is back from Iraq, back on civvy street and he is talking about the trauma of what he experienced and the scars he still bears, physical and mental. The once unquestioning Marine is now also questioning whether US forces should be in Iraq." (Andrew Buncombe)


Click here to view larger image

Former Marine Claims Illness From Mystery Vaccine

CLERMONT COUNTY, Ohio - Target 5 has discovered that an alarming number of U.S. troops are having severe reactions to some of the vaccines they receive in preparation for going overseas.

"This is the worst cover-up in the history of the military," said an unidentified military health officer who fears for his job.

A shot from a syringe is leaving some U.S. servicemen and women on the brink of death.

"When the issue, I believe, of the use of the vaccine comes out, I believe it will make the Walter Reed scandal pale in comparison," said the health officer.

Lance Corporal David Fey, 20, has dialysis three days a week. His kidneys are failing, his military career is over, and he feels like his country abandoned him.

"I can't look at my old pictures. I really can't," said Fey. "I start looking at my old pictures, and I start crying."


Why is the American press silent on the report of 655,000 Iraqi deaths?
by Joe Kay and Barry Grey
13 October 2006

The US media is virtually silent on a new scientific study that estimates the Iraqi death toll from the US war at 655,000. The study, conducted by Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health and funded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was posted 11 October 2006 on the website of the British medical journal, the Lancet.

The study is the only systematic estimate of the number of Iraqi civilians and military personnel to have died as a result of the US invasion and occupation to be brought to the attention of the American and international public. Unlike previous estimates, which were based on reviews of media reports or tallies made by the US-backed Iraqi government, the Johns Hopkins study was carried out by Iraqi physicians who interviewed - often at great personal risk - nearly 2,000 families spread across the country, utilizing standard and widely used statistical methods to arrive at an objective estimate of the death toll from the war and occupation. The vast majority of the reported deaths were substantiated by death certificates.

The researchers further estimated that about 600,000 of the deaths were due to violence in some form, including gunshots, air strikes and bombings. They concluded that US and allied military forces directly caused at least 31% or 186,000 of the violent deaths. [Read the rest]

A new definition of beachhead: salam, shalom, pax, paz, paix, paco, heiwa, amani, mir, ping, fred, peace! First posted 10 May 2007

Why can't we be... Just Good Friends? (repost)

Why can't UMNO get along with Everybody Else? Why does PERKASA have to play childish games of holier-than-thou, been-here-longer-than-thee, got-more-political-clout-than-you, nyeh-nyeh-nyeh-nyeh-nyeh... and my songkok much bigger than yours, heh heh heh?

55 years after 13 May 1969, let's grow up, people! Stop kicking that race and religion shit around... you'll only end up with Stink-Foot and lose all your friends. It's time we grow up and realize that hooliganism and violence are the most dimwitted way to deal with differences of opinion; that hiding under the skirts of established institutions and traditions keeps our mindsets locked in the past; and that the way to the future lies in embracing the necessary changes and integrating the foreign with the familiar.

It's time we understood that the primary prerequisite of making it through the gates of paradise isn't how much big your mansion is... or how good you are at fooling others... or how much fear you can instil in others... or how long your listing is in the Who's Who... but simply how open-hearted and honest you can be.

Those who cling to power because they fear the consequences of their past misdeeds are already the living dead, they are without souls... they are zombies disguised as humans... they are the condemned... and the only way they can be released from a hideous damnation of their own making is to seek forgiveness from those they have wronged... and then throw themselves at the mercy of heaven.

[First posted 13 May 2011]