Re: "Moments of Pleasure" single cover

[smc@gandalf.rutgers.edu (kirke)]

dlangs@sunstroke.sdsu.edu (Derek Langsford) writes:


>Douglas Alan (nessus@mit.edu) wrote:
>: In article <2fq7rk$7n7@pandora.sdsu.edu> dlangs@sunstroke.sdsu.edu
>: (Derek Langsford) writes:

>: >   Meredith, you are not alone.  I mentioned this in a post several
>: >   weeks ago because it was terribly poignant, my wife and I just
>: >   having scattered the ashes of our baby boy who died on 13th Nov.
>: >   I am not sure what this image has to do with the sentiment of the
>: >   song.  It is rather contrary to what I feel when I hear the song.
>: >   Is Kate just being bizarre?

>: It is the practice of some to celebrate upon the death of a loved one,
>: rather than to mourn.  I.e. to celebrate the accomplishments, lasting
>: affects, and memories that that loved one will leave behind.  I think
>: that Kate is getting at this in both the song and the cover picture,
>: which both combine imagery of anguish and happiness.

>Even though I am particularly sensitized at the moment, the picture 
>to me is of Kate *enjoying* dancing on burning skeletons, and like
>dancing on someone's grave, is an expression of disrespect.  Celebrations
>of someone's passing or wakes usually involve a group of people and does not
>take place at the graveside.  Maybe I'm being too literal but IMO the image
>does not bring wakes or celebrating dead one's lives to mind.  For me
>it does not evoke the sentiments of the song and thus seems bizarre.

>Derek
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Derek H. Langsford                                            Dept. of Biology 
>dlangs@sunstroke.sdsu.edu                           San Diego State University 
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------




	In another post I mentioned the popular Hindu image of the goddess
Kali, destryer and death-bringer, often shown dancing gleefully on human
skulls.  I went and looked kali up in my New larousse Encycliopedia of
Mythology, and in the chapter on Indian Mythology, on page 335 I found:


	"Siva's wife assumed as many as ten terrifying shapes to destroy
the demons.
	One of the most horrible and the most venerated was that of kali,
often called Kali Ma (the black mother).  In this incarnation the goddess
fought with Raktavija, chief of the army of demons.  Seeing that gradually
all his soldiers were being killed, Raktavija attacked the goddess himself.
She smote him with her formidable weapons, but every drop of blood which
fell from his body gave birth to a thousand giants as powerful as he.  Kali
was only able to overcome her adversary by drinking all his blood.  Having
conquered the giant she began to dance with joy so wild that the whole
earth quaked.  At the request of the gods her husband begged her to stop,
but in her sacred madness she did not even see him, cast him down among
the dead and trod on his body.  When at last she realized her mistake,
she was covered with shame.  Kali is represented as a woman with a very
dark complexion, with long loose hair, and four arms.  One of her hands
holds a sword; the second holds the severed body of [sorry---the severed HEAD
of] the giant; and with the other two hands she encourages her worshippers.
Her ear-rings are two corpses and she wears a necklace of human skulls.
Her only garment is a girdle made up of two rows of hands.  Her tongue
hangs out, her eyes are red, as if she were drunk, her face and bosom are
polluted with blood.  The goddess is generally shown standing, with one foot on the leg and the other on the chest of Siva."

	MY FIRST (sorry, caps lock got in the way) memory of seeing a
Hindu statuette is an image of Kali dancing on a pile of skulls.  My
impression is that this depiction of her is as common as the one showing
her on the body of Siva.

	This image is very gripping, and within the context in which it
was born, it is not that bizarre.  Kali is a great destructive mother,
sort of a devourer that enables life (you know, that whole idea that
without death, there can be no life).  I think she represenrts one way
in which people confront death: rushing into it rather than running from it.
The image of Kali dancing on skulls is really common now, with the advent
of art history in universities, and I bet most of you have seen it at
some time, probably along woith an image of Siva dancing.

						kirke
						smc@gandalf.rutgers.edu