Bible CAMP: MAYHEM Requiem

[gagacabana 6,522]

43 minutes ago, bxr said:

“But/and/then on the eighth [episodic play] …”—a reprise, in real time! 

  Hide contents

Bible CAMP … lil’ zephyr echoes in the zeitgeist … 

This just convinced me to watch the season 

[bxr 1,904]

2 hours ago, gagacabana said:

This just convinced me to watch the season 

Genuinely looking forward to your episodic exegeses and/or catholiqueer insights 

[bxr 1,904]

Cross-thread reprise … elements of Bible, CAMP, Mayhem-adjacence, requiems-en-route …

Spoiler

 

“Not sure what it means, but this photo …”

Spoiler

Spoiler

[…]

It’s hard to pick a favorite, but what other scenes will you remember?

I love the two scenes in the Last Supper. They are just really beautiful, really resonant. The one where Miranda accuses Andy of betraying her is just so wonderfully dramatic. And then the dinner scene where Benjy — this character that you think is kind of a whack job billionaire — delivers really the most profound speech in the movie about the future and how it’ll come for us all. Miranda’s there, making a plea for the human touch and preserving the best of human achievement. That scene is, obviously, what the movie is all about: this battle between man-made creativity and whatever is coming next; we don’t know what it is, but we’re terrified of it, and we know it’s coming for us.

Tell me about shooting with that incredible tableau in the background.

We scouted the actual Da Vinci Museum, and we could have shot the one scene with people talking in front of the painting. They would have been fine with that. I said, “Can we do a dinner with candlelight?” and they said, “No, absolutely not.” So, we built a set.

But I got to spend a lot of time in the room with the real Last Supper and learn a lot about it. It’s amazing; you’re standing there with a 600-year-old painting that still moves you. There’s no better way to dramatize the best of human achievement than that painting.

And having that painting really underscores what Miranda’s saying to Andy. She’s asking, “Are you Judas?”

There’s definitely that undertone.

In retrospect refresh, the image itself echoes Fiske‘s media event lens …

Spoiler

The term “media event” is an indication that in a postmodern world … a media event, then, is not a mere representation of what happened, but it has its own reality, which gathers up into itself the reality of the event that may or may not have preceded it.

Beyond the image as immediate representation within focus, the image as event (albeit niche) expresses its own reality, which gathers up into itself the reality of The Last Supper locus, in the linger of AI discourse, and in light of a kind of inter-media-dimensional dynamic between Gaga & Madonna, Miranda, and/or Meryl, for instance (which, low-key Music Fashion Film—A Contrast!), within contemporary culture‘s sui generis backdrop … dissolving the fourth wall into a new frame … but, neither here nor there, really, just abstract associations articulating 

[gagacabana 6,522]

6 hours ago, bxr said:

dissolving the fourth wall into a new frame

Absolutely absolutely 

6 hours ago, bxr said:

And why are they giving Jesus/Judas ; Eve/Lilith realness here.... the catholiqueer-motifs about to keep me up all night  

[Ladle Ghoulash 48,320]

6 hours ago, bxr said:

Cross-thread reprise … elements of Bible, CAMP, Mayhem-adjacence, requiems-en-route …

  Reveal hidden contents

 

“Not sure what it means, but this photo …”

  Reveal hidden contents

  Reveal hidden contents

[…]

It’s hard to pick a favorite, but what other scenes will you remember?

I love the two scenes in the Last Supper. They are just really beautiful, really resonant. The one where Miranda accuses Andy of betraying her is just so wonderfully dramatic. And then the dinner scene where Benjy — this character that you think is kind of a whack job billionaire — delivers really the most profound speech in the movie about the future and how it’ll come for us all. Miranda’s there, making a plea for the human touch and preserving the best of human achievement. That scene is, obviously, what the movie is all about: this battle between man-made creativity and whatever is coming next; we don’t know what it is, but we’re terrified of it, and we know it’s coming for us.

Tell me about shooting with that incredible tableau in the background.

We scouted the actual Da Vinci Museum, and we could have shot the one scene with people talking in front of the painting. They would have been fine with that. I said, “Can we do a dinner with candlelight?” and they said, “No, absolutely not.” So, we built a set.

But I got to spend a lot of time in the room with the real Last Supper and learn a lot about it. It’s amazing; you’re standing there with a 600-year-old painting that still moves you. There’s no better way to dramatize the best of human achievement than that painting.

And having that painting really underscores what Miranda’s saying to Andy. She’s asking, “Are you Judas?”

There’s definitely that undertone.

In retrospect refresh, the image itself echoes Fiske‘s media event lens …

  Reveal hidden contents

The term “media event” is an indication that in a postmodern world … a media event, then, is not a mere representation of what happened, but it has its own reality, which gathers up into itself the reality of the event that may or may not have preceded it.

Beyond the image as immediate representation within focus, the image as event (albeit niche) expresses its own reality, which gathers up into itself the reality of The Last Supper locus, in the linger of AI discourse, and in light of a kind of inter-media-dimensional dynamic between Gaga & Madonna, Miranda, and/or Meryl, for instance (which, low-key Music Fashion Film—A Contrast!), within contemporary culture‘s sui generis backdrop … dissolving the fourth wall into a new frame … but, neither here nor there, really, just abstract associations articulating 

Interesting choice of image with them burning money in front of the Last Supper, perhaps intentionally mirroring the painting itself. Could potentially tie back into broader motifs we’ve discussed about decentering patriarchy, capital, received notions of religion by mirroring the breaking of bread with a bowl of money (the body of the modern antichrist) and, instead of devouring and disseminating it, burning it (perhaps as a metaphorical rebellion against the weight of capital, not just on the music industry, but as the nexus of many structures of oppression). 

[Apec 222]

On 5/25/2026 at 3:05 AM, bxr said:

A trove of intrigue throughout the abovementioned, but/and particularly the revisitation of Black Jesus † Amen Fashion … the story within the song always feels like a sphinx hidden in plain sight … you explore the record‘s eponymous duality quite beautifully … somewhere at the locus of the existing dichotomy (Black Jesus, Amen Fashion) and evolving into this blossoming integration with the rosary and a certain portal into divine feminine / sacred matriarch embodied consciousness … I was just thinking of The Black Madonna (Monsterrat, Czestochowa, etc.), and am really curious wondering where / how / if you see any narrative association … ?

Hope you‘re resting well!

  Reveal hidden contents

Also 

[T]he line that embodies the entire song for me has always been the one you quoted, “concrete poetry to feed my mind, old symbolism was left behind", embedded in a song in which she indeed centers a notion many Westerners still find too radical: That Jesus, geographically, would never be white, but darker in skin tone merely JUST CANNOT BE according to so many because of dogma. He needs to look like "us" to be acceptable. 

 

That "Black Marxist Jesus" chasing his whip after bankers had me in tears, ngl. 

I'm also going to become a bit personal here and then I finally answer (sorry) your great question about the dark Virgin Mary examples you've given me.

I definitely think a woman who went to a former convent remodeled into one of a network of semi-independent schools called The Convent of The Sacred Heart (a network that all bears the same name and almost came to be called Lady of the Sacred Heart) - they are all Girl's schools and the very first one was built, I kid you not, in the middle of Paris right after the French Revolution, which uh, great timing guys! 

Anyway, they were copied across Europe and many girls (of different faiths too) attended them because they mostly didn't require tuition and girls were either not schooled or pulled out when boy's tuition went up at 10 to 12 years of age - some of the Sacred Heart schools even went up to 18 years old and were academic moreso than preparing them for being the town seamstress, joining businesses that washed/dried clothes by hand, creating big batches of food to sell at the local market, housekeeping at stranger's houses, and farmwork farmwork farmwork etc. in the 19th Century - even though women weren't allowed at most Universities yet. The very first has been demolished now in Paris because all education is free and secular with a small fee for University (very small compared to US Universities) and in its place they built the Rodin museum. If you're ever in Paris, I highly recommend going there. Rodin was a genius. If you need a refresher, he's best known for "The Thinker". 

The Gates of Hell (Bronze)

New York was the first American Convent of The Sacred Heart school, but many others followed, as did tuition in the 20th Century. Gaga has stated some of her teachers were nuns, and to be blunt, while places like Middle America and certain European countries definitely worshipped Mary and even had Marian Sects, the convents all over the world worshipped something-odd-for-patriarchal-Abrahamic-religions: the worship of the Virgin Mary almost just as much if not more (in practice and not that they'd say it aloud) than Jesus himself. She must've learned about Montserrat at the very least as it is the most famous. Thank you so much for mentioning Czestochowa, most people don't know it and it happens to be near to my heart and I'Il tell you why in a second.

Detour here about my family 

I myself am a quarter Polish, with family back there and everything, and the rest is Belgian and I am so proud of that quarter. Poland has, besides being devoutly Catholic and worshipping the Virgin Mary, always been more of a French-aligned typical Western European country than what the Nazis, Soviets and Russians before them have tried to make it. They border Spain! My grandma was in the Polish Resistance, badass that she was. She was frequently sent through checkpoints and even covert ops with Nazi soldiers because she had perfected her German (for the cause) and looked the most "Arian" because of her blue eyes and light hair. Plus, they underestimated her because she was a woman so she could snoop more without being seen as a possible threat. She helped bomb Nazi supply lines and much, much more.

One day she was to bring food to refugees far into a certain forest, hidden in a deep, claustrophobic hole dug in the ground and covered with leaves and mulch. My grandfather had just arrived there after escaping two labour camps with a plastic spoon (!). He had been wandering the forest for years, subsisting on berries and the occasional nut. He was a Belgian who had just inherited a factory making very artistic, artisanal Antverpian rugs in '39 - it never turned much of a profit under him or his father however, since they were known for their high wages (the rugs were all handmade so no dangerous machinery) and having paid sick leave, even the beginnings of paid maternity leave. Then Germany occupied Belgium, my granddad had already sent the workers away and gave them money to hide.

He waited until the Nazis came knocking. They didn't want to throw him out because he knew the factory inside out - but they needed any factory they could get their hands on. Refusing to become a collaborator like shamefully many of the bigger factories had become (his was small), they arrested him and sent him to his first labour camp where many died of malnutrition, overwork, sicknesses spreading easily, etc. The rest you know until the hole in the ground - My grandmother was immediately smitten with grandpa and vice versa. In those WWII days you could marry without witnesses, a priest/secular version/or the like, they were iust papers both of you signed and you were legally married in both countries you lived in, in the hope that occupation would one day stop. Since my grandpa was a fugitive he had to keep moving so after a few visits he had to go and both of them didn't know if they'd ever see each other again.

About a month or three after our Armistice/Surrender in Europe Grandma (I sadly never got to know her) used those papers to track him down and found him, all shaved and cleaned up, at his home. She rung the bell with a two-year old boy holding her hand - his child. My mother would follow a couple years later.

BIGH SIGH... Back to Czestochowa. She has an illustrious career of protecting the Byzantine Empire until she was brought to Poland (which is very devoutly Catholic but has a majority of Marian worshippers as well) by its prince and his horses refused to go any further than the monastery it is still at (um, maybe they were hungry and tired? Not everything is a sign! ). Anyhow, during the Middle Ages we have Iconoclasts trying to destroy the painting but creating healing springs instead... But what is so important to me is not the supposed protection of the Virgin Mary, especially that of Czestochowa, but that SHE has been THE SYMBOL AGAINST repression by Russians, she was even the National symbol for Poles who believed in/were fighting for liberation from Nazi occupation. Czestochowa the city has been deemed holy for the Black Virgin Mary's help in being liberated from first the Nazis, then the Soviets. While I'm no believer in the magical realism, I am proud that they turned their Marian worship into making this very painting THE symbol of fighting against oppression.

Anyway, back to Gaga and Black Jesus. I think she didn't want to be obvious with a Montserrat reference, which would be making it more of a runway song than it already sounded. Women's fashion is the peacock version of human fashion, everybody talks about the women's lines primarily even though men also show off new collections - and since we discussed that I think young Gaga here was expanding her mind in both religious and secular ways, while dreaming of her future, she subverted the obvious - she made the fabulous person strutting down the runway "Black Jesus" instead of "Black Mary", so to speak. She also used the profane to praise him ("Jesus is the new black") and literally Amen's fashion itself. I think this all congeals into a young mind liberating herself from metaphorical shackles imposed by strict received religious notions, creating new forms of what she believes is ecstasy and basically starting to think for herself re: religious beliefs to follow and those that don't rhyme, plus everything I mentioned in my previous post. This obviously takes place way before she became famous so it's not a philosophy/theology as tightly knit yet as in, say, BR or Alejandro with the last one going into BTW making her able to embody the divine feminine/Goddess-like Matriarchal figure who can't stop life from creating a shadow self who WOULD use evil in this intersectional struggle for equality (at the very least). But these are TFM-BTWGa thoughts, here in BJ + AF her mind has just started exploring new ideas. It must not have been easy to go back to a state of mind you were in years before you were world famous but she pulled it off, I think.

I am so surprised by that House of Z poster! What?? Is this just AI? That "promo" poster is everything! But now I see it's AI, I didn't even recognize Gaga....Okay, I'm diving into @bxr's explanations now.

Edit: Thanks @Ladle Ghoulash for pointing me to the original thread. So it has nothing to do with anything coming up. Just Madonna using Gags for promo as always () and hitting the jackpot with a definite Eve/Lilith burning Capital itself in front of the breaking of the bread in the last Supper (probably metaphorically as you say) as well as a heavy plotting against Patriarchal Apex Hegemony and received notions of religion vibe in this picture. Still going through @bxr archives on this! I wanna know what that duck is doing there though! 

Lilith, Eve and Persephone analysis in both GOE's next! Persephone is the main star in Requiem!GOE for me, but Lilith is super important in both. Let's dive into short histories and then see where they fit...

Edited Thursday at 11:48 PM by Apec

[bxr 1,904]

6 hours ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

Interesting choice of image with them burning money in front of the Last Supper, perhaps intentionally mirroring the painting itself. Could potentially tie back into broader motifs we’ve discussed about decentering patriarchy, capital, received notions of religion by mirroring the breaking of bread with a bowl of money (the body of the modern antichrist) and, instead of devouring and disseminating it, burning it (perhaps as a metaphorical rebellion against the weight of capital, not just on the music industry, but as the nexus of many structures of oppression). 

3 hours ago, Apec said:

I am so surprised by that House of Z poster! What?? Is this just AI? That "promo" poster is everything! But now I see it's AI, I didn't even recognize Gaga....

 I wanna know what that duck is doing there though! 

Brief blink association on the duck blush … Gaga is sitting with the burning capital, Gaga is actively engaged with the burning of capital, Madonna sits adjacent, witnessing but not participating … on the opposite side of burning capital, positioned before Madonna, is a drake … so, just a brief salt grain musing on the blink … would be to consider … whatever a drake means to contemporary music culture industry capital (and/or what a GenAI rendered prompting to include a drake in said frame means) … and where the two aforementioned diametric figures are positioned in association

 

And, in the meantime/intermission, before proper reflection response … Apec—the lineage stories: Aces, on, deck 

[bxr 1,904]

On 6/4/2026 at 1:13 PM, Apec said:

I'm also going to become a bit personal here and then I finally answer (sorry) your great question about the dark Virgin Mary examples you've given me.

I definitely think a woman who went to a former convent remodeled into one of a network of semi-independent schools called The Convent of The Sacred Heart (a network that all bears the same name and almost came to be called Lady of the Sacred Heart) - they are all Girl's schools and the very first one was built, I kid you not, in the middle of Paris right after the French Revolution, which uh, great timing guys! 

Anyway, they were copied across Europe and many girls (of different faiths too) attended them because they mostly didn't require tuition and girls were either not schooled or pulled out when boy's tuition went up at 10 to 12 years of age - some of the Sacred Heart schools even went up to 18 years old and were academic moreso than preparing them for being the town seamstress, joining businesses that washed/dried clothes by hand, creating big batches of food to sell at the local market, housekeeping at stranger's houses, and farmwork farmwork farmwork etc. in the 19th Century - even though women weren't allowed at most Universities yet. The very first has been demolished now in Paris because all education is free and secular with a small fee for University (very small compared to US Universities) and in its place they built the Rodin museum. If you're ever in Paris, I highly recommend going there. Rodin was a genius. If you need a refresher, he's best known for "The Thinker". 

The Gates of Hell (Bronze)

New York was the first American Convent of The Sacred Heart school, but many others followed, as did tuition in the 20th Century. Gaga has stated some of her teachers were nuns, and to be blunt, while places like Middle America and certain European countries definitely worshipped Mary and even had Marian Sects, the convents all over the world worshipped something-odd-for-patriarchal-Abrahamic-religions: the worship of the Virgin Mary almost just as much if not more (in practice and not that they'd say it aloud) than Jesus himself. She must've learned about Montserrat at the very least as it is the most famous. Thank you so much for mentioning Czestochowa, most people don't know it and it happens to be near to my heart and I'Il tell you why in a second.

Detour here about my family 

I myself am a quarter Polish, with family back there and everything, and the rest is Belgian and I am so proud of that quarter. Poland has, besides being devoutly Catholic and worshipping the Virgin Mary, always been more of a French-aligned typical Western European country than what the Nazis, Soviets and Russians before them have tried to make it. They border Spain! My grandma was in the Polish Resistance, badass that she was. She was frequently sent through checkpoints and even covert ops with Nazi soldiers because she had perfected her German (for the cause) and looked the most "Arian" because of her blue eyes and light hair. Plus, they underestimated her because she was a woman so she could snoop more without being seen as a possible threat. She helped bomb Nazi supply lines and much, much more.

One day she was to bring food to refugees far into a certain forest, hidden in a deep, claustrophobic hole dug in the ground and covered with leaves and mulch. My grandfather had just arrived there after escaping two labour camps with a plastic spoon (!). He had been wandering the forest for years, subsisting on berries and the occasional nut. He was a Belgian who had just inherited a factory making very artistic, artisanal Antverpian rugs in '39 - it never turned much of a profit under him or his father however, since they were known for their high wages (the rugs were all handmade so no dangerous machinery) and having paid sick leave, even the beginnings of paid maternity leave. Then Germany occupied Belgium, my granddad had already sent the workers away and gave them money to hide.

He waited until the Nazis came knocking. They didn't want to throw him out because he knew the factory inside out - but they needed any factory they could get their hands on. Refusing to become a collaborator like shamefully many of the bigger factories had become (his was small), they arrested him and sent him to his first labour camp where many died of malnutrition, overwork, sicknesses spreading easily, etc. The rest you know until the hole in the ground - My grandmother was immediately smitten with grandpa and vice versa. In those WWII days you could marry without witnesses, a priest/secular version/or the like, they were iust papers both of you signed and you were legally married in both countries you lived in, in the hope that occupation would one day stop. Since my grandpa was a fugitive he had to keep moving so after a few visits he had to go and both of them didn't know if they'd ever see each other again.

About a month or three after our Armistice/Surrender in Europe Grandma (I sadly never got to know her) used those papers to track him down and found him, all shaved and cleaned up, at his home. She rung the bell with a two-year old boy holding her hand - his child. My mother would follow a couple years later.

BIGH SIGH... Back to Czestochowa. She has an illustrious career of protecting the Byzantine Empire until she was brought to Poland (which is very devoutly Catholic but has a majority of Marian worshippers as well) by its prince and his horses refused to go any further than the monastery it is still at (um, maybe they were hungry and tired? Not everything is a sign! ). Anyhow, during the Middle Ages we have Iconoclasts trying to destroy the painting but creating healing springs instead... But what is so important to me is not the supposed protection of the Virgin Mary, especially that of Czestochowa, but that SHE has been THE SYMBOL AGAINST repression by Russians, she was even the National symbol for Poles who believed in/were fighting for liberation from Nazi occupation. Czestochowa the city has been deemed holy for the Black Virgin Mary's help in being liberated from first the Nazis, then the Soviets. While I'm no believer in the magical realism, I am proud that they turned their Marian worship into making this very painting THE symbol of fighting against oppression.

Anyway, back to Gaga and Black Jesus. I think she didn't want to be obvious with a Montserrat reference, which would be making it more of a runway song than it already sounded. Women's fashion is the peacock version of human fashion, everybody talks about the women's lines primarily even though men also show off new collections - and since we discussed that I think young Gaga here was expanding her mind in both religious and secular ways, while dreaming of her future, she subverted the obvious - she made the fabulous person strutting down the runway "Black Jesus" instead of "Black Mary", so to speak. She also used the profane to praise him ("Jesus is the new black") and literally Amen's fashion itself. I think this all congeals into a young mind liberating herself from metaphorical shackles imposed by strict received religious notions, creating new forms of what she believes is ecstasy and basically starting to think for herself re: religious beliefs to follow and those that don't rhyme, plus everything I mentioned in my previous post. This obviously takes place way before she became famous so it's not a philosophy/theology as tightly knit yet as in, say, BR or Alejandro with the last one going into BTW making her able to embody the divine feminine/Goddess-like Matriarchal figure who can't stop life from creating a shadow self who WOULD use evil in this intersectional struggle for equality (at the very least). But these are TFM-BTWGa thoughts, here in BJ + AF her mind has just started exploring new ideas. It must not have been easy to go back to a state of mind you were in years before you were world famous but she pulled it off, I think.

I am so surprised by that House of Z poster! What?? Is this just AI? That "promo" poster is everything! But now I see it's AI, I didn't even recognize Gaga....Okay, I'm diving into @bxr's explanations now.

Edit: Thanks @Ladle Ghoulash for pointing me to the original thread. So it has nothing to do with anything coming up. Just Madonna using Gags for promo as always () and hitting the jackpot with a definite Eve/Lilith burning Capital itself in front of the breaking of the bread in the last Supper (probably metaphorically as you say) as well as a heavy plotting against Patriarchal Apex Hegemony and received notions of religion vibe in this picture. Still going through @bxr archives on this! I wanna know what that duck is doing there though! 

Lilith, Eve and Persephone analysis in both GOE's next! Persephone is the main star in Requiem!GOE for me, but Lilith is super important in both. Let's dive into short histories and then see where they fit...

First, just, wow … this reads somewhere between an interpersonal pilgrimage iconography and people‘s history of patron / matron guardians

I had no idea about the Convent of the Sacred Heart history, but/and in contextual retrospect, (again, as always, in the key of “even if that‘s not how it was written, thus is how it proximally reads”) the parallels between that Sacred Heart scaffolding (so to speak, its certain identity, its form and function as characterized by its own specific journey / trajectory) and Gaga‘s artistic identity or creative evolution—maybe, as expressed or edified through the architecture of her work—reflect, in many ways it seems, this sense or motif of music as her monastery, or the concert as her convent (or coven, some might suggest in adaptation) … and then, moreover, to bring it back to the central reference, the definitive rubble and ruin of Mayhem: Requiem feels that much more proto-revolutionary (timing!) … again, the emphasis on the Requiem of this cycle, this era, this epoch, in particular … and how she describes it in graduating hindsight—even the most recent reflections in the DWAS Requiem IG post

Spoiler

I wanted to flip “Die With A Smile” harnessing “Nightcall” with a French electronic energy and relentless arpeggio that would ground it with more dystopian tension and maybe even a fear of the unknown of the future—contrasted with the joy of a new version of the songs original melody and finding the love and hope through the music.  I tried to perform how it would feel to me to say goodbye to my record, my loved one, or my fans if the world around me was changing.🖤

echoes how your illustrate the narrative association between the cultural history of the Convent, the contemporary iteration of Manhattan‘s Sacred Heart, and the spiritual / religious / civic formation of Gaga (Stef?) as a pupil (makeshift missionary-in-progress) … like, at this stage, what was dismantled, and what will develop … (I still haven‘t given the behind-the-scenes a screening, but Ladle‘s earlier reference to “finding the religion” of the show feels relevant here) … was Mayhem Requiem the proverbial pop-up Rodin Museum upon The Wiltern‘s Angeles Hollywood‘s-a-ghosttown rubble (probably not, but just proximal parallels to keep the musing moving) … where will LG8 set its conceptual foundation … a return to Gotham akin to Born This Way‘s metropolitan cultural ties (I‘m reminded, in immediate retrospect, of the Angel Orensanz launch party venue … the architectural identity syncretism, in particular), or any elsewhere … also, interesting to have the Requiem Premiere ceremony at The Grove … ARTPOP, Joanne, ASIB, Chromatica, MAYHEM, all felt Los Angeles / Malibu within a crucial capacity … this next stage, buoyed by hotel studios and work on the road, feels like a return to pre-Angeles creative production in a way … so, where will the next sonic convent / pop priory emerge with revival rotation the eighth … if that makes any sense, which, is anyone‘s guess really … but again, just musing (I‘ll keep it moving)

The “something-odd-for-patriarchal-Abrahamic-religions“ is interesting; it‘s quite true, at least from my experience, the certain de facto echelon of paramount reverence for the Virgin Mother (particularly in the alcoves of Parochial school communities / environments) … I found it beautiful in its humble magnanimity or subtle fidelity …

And, the Rodin (and The Gates (!); The Museum is on the list for the next Paris visit)! I caught a glimpse of The Thinker when I visited Detroit Institute of the Arts a few years ago—kismet!

Spoiler

#shadowofaman 

The Czestochowa story is absolutely incredible; you have a screenplay in there … the family detour would be a director‘s dream. Magical realism is a fascinating lens, as well … I‘m still wrapping my head around the range and nuance of the narrative landscape, but/and—“a plastic spoon (!)” [!!] Amazing

The Black Jesus † Amen Fashion exploration makes sense … edifying the erstwhile embryonic “new forms” … concrete poetry cornerstones and baby bricks … and it sort of goes back to composing / curating expressions of identity from the raw material of incumbent cultural experiences

So much happening with the [at present, but a hindsight blip on the radar screen] House of Z rendering … looking forward to the Lilith, Eve, and Persephone analyses!

Baby steps to leaps and bounds—exegetically speaking 

[bxr 1,904]

Today‘s Feast of Corpus Christi reminds me of Ladle‘s early thesis …

Reminds me of Gaga saying that she “needed to find the religion in the show” during the BTS commentary. In spite of the conversation about Gaga and religion often centering around her provocative use of religious iconography, I think her most interesting contribution to the discussion is actually decentering the ecstasy and liturgy of religious experience from the nexus of tradition/established faith practices (“my religion is you”). Taking religion, at first, as obsession and devotion during TFM, then gradually building it into a personal practice, belief system, shared ceremony, but also, probably most radically in the idea that religion is the machination of personal meaning using the world (both figurative and abstract) as raw material.

Spoiler

 

and the almost hidden-in-public-procession undercurrent motif (present throughout the repertoire anthology, but, in immediate retrospect, culminating into a beautiful crescendo with the MAYHEM: Requiem (Ascension Thursday) premiere ceremony … possibly within the realm of underscoring radical iconography, the lived reality / articulated presence of icon as alchemical vessel for communal witness) : the Monstrance

Today the Church celebrates Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, traditionally known as Corpus Christi (Latin for “the Body of Christ"). On this feast, we celebrate one of the deepest mysteries: that in the Eucharist, Christ is truly and really present: His actual Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. The Eucharist is not merely a symbol or a reminder of Jesus, but Christ Himself truly present among us under the appearances of bread and wine. Through the consecration, the body and bread becomes His real presence among us.

The feast itself emerged in the 13th century at a time of growing Eucharistic devotion within the Church. Saint Thomas Aquinas played an important role in shaping the celebration after Pope Pope Urban IV established the feast for the universal Church in 1264. Aquinas composed some of the most beautiful Eucharistic hymns ever written for this occasion, including Pange Lingua, Tantum Ergo, and Panis Angelicus. Corpus Christi soon became associated with great public processions in which the Blessed Sacrament is carried through streets, towns, and countryside in a monstrance. These processions are a public act of faith: Christ does not remain hidden within the walls of the church, but is carried out into the world, blessing homes, people, fields, workplaces, and daily life itself.

Spoiler

The Role of Processions in Catholic Tradition

Corpus Christi processions are a distinctive feature of the feast, designed to honor the Eucharist in a public and communal way. Typically, the Blessed Sacrament is placed in a monstrance, a sacred vessel that displays the consecrated host, and carried by a priest under a canopy. The procession often includes prayers, hymns, and stops at altars for adoration, fostering a sense of reverence and devotion. These processions date back to the Middle Ages, becoming widespread after the feast’s institution. They serve as a visible sign of faith, uniting parishes and communities in worship. The act of processing through public spaces also symbolizes the Church’s call to bring Christ to the world, aligning with the missionary mandate (Mark 16:15). In many cultures, the processions are accompanied by elaborate decorations, such as flower carpets or banners, reflecting local traditions. The communal aspect strengthens the bonds of faith among participants, reinforcing the Church as the Body of Christ (CCC 787). Processions also provide an opportunity for catechesis, teaching the faithful about the Eucharist’s significance. Overall, they are a profound expression of Catholic identity and devotion.

Monstrance

A monstrance, also known as an ostensorium (or an ostensory), is a vessel used in Roman Catholic, Old Catholic, High Church Lutheran and Anglican churches for ostension, e.g., the display on an altar of some object of piety, such as the consecrated Eucharistic Sacramental bread (host) during Eucharistic adoration or during the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. A monstrance may also serve as a reliquary for the public display of relics of some saints. The word monstrance comes from the Latin word monstrare, while the word ostensorium comes from the Latin word ostendere. Either term, each expressing the concept of "showing", can refer to a vessel intended for the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, but ostensorium has only this meaning.

In the Catholic tradition, at the moment of consecration the elements (called "gifts" for liturgical purposes) are transformed (literally transubstantiated) into the body and blood of Christ. Catholic doctrine holds that the elements are not only spiritually transformed, but are (substantially) transformed into the body and blood of Christ. Although the elements retain the appearance, or accidents of bread and wine, they become the body and blood of Christ. The presence of Jesus Christ God in the Eucharist is known as the doctrine of the Corporeal Presence within the Roman Catholic Magisterium. The Corporeal Presence is believed to be real (in Latin: realiter) and of the whole (totaliter) Christ, in Body, Soul and Spirit. The name "Corporeal Presence" concerns the Corporal reserved to the chalice, paten and the ciborium during the Holy Mass.

Within churches of these traditions the reserved sacrament serves as a focal point of religious devotion. In many of them, during Eucharistic adoration, the celebrant displays the sacrament in the monstrance, typically on the altar. When not being displayed, the reserved sacrament is locked in a tabernacle (more common in Roman Catholicism) or aumbry (more common in the other traditions mentioned).

A public catechesis for the whole city

The Valencian procession gradually incorporated elements intended to transmit the faith to the entire population. Biblical figures, allegorical representations, dances, music and processional floats turned Corpus Christi into a true public catechesis.

Traditions that have survived to the present day, such as the dance of the Moma or the dances of els caballets and els arquets, were born in that context as popular expressions at the service of a celebration whose center was always the exaltation of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

According to Narbona, the Valencian Corpus Christi also succeeded in bringing together all sectors of society around the Blessed Sacrament. Civil authorities, clergy, religious orders, artisans and citizens took part together in a public manifestation of faith that expressed the unity of the community under the protection of Christ.

Spoiler

Today the Church celebrates Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, traditionally known as Corpus Christi (Latin for “the Body of Christ"). On this feast, we celebrate one of the deepest mysteries of our faith: that in the Eucharist, Christ is truly and really present: His actual Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. The Eucharist is not merely a symbol or a reminder of Jesus, but Christ Himself truly present among us under the appearances of bread and wine. Through the consecration, the body and bread becomes His real presence among us.

The feast itself emerged in the 13th century at a time of growing Eucharistic devotion within the Church. Saint Thomas Aquinas played an important role in shaping the celebration after Pope Pope Urban IV established the feast for the universal Church in 1264. Aquinas composed some of the most beautiful Eucharistic hymns ever written for this occasion, including Pange Lingua, Tantum Ergo, and Panis Angelicus. Corpus Christi soon became associated with great public processions in which the Blessed Sacrament is carried through streets, towns, and countryside in a monstrance. These processions are a public act of faith: Christ does not remain hidden within the walls of the church, but is carried out into the world, blessing homes, people, fields, workplaces, and daily life itself.

Our painting by Jules Breton beautifully captures such a procession moving through the wheat fields of Artois in northern France.

The golden fields stretch across the canvas, glowing with summer light, while villagers gather in deep reverence as the Blessed Sacrament passes among them. Some kneel in prayer; others genuflect in adoration. Children carry the four-poled baldacchino beneath which the priest walks holding the monstrance aloft. Village officials and farmers stand side by side in devotion. The procession through the fields was not merely symbolic. In rural communities, people genuinely believed Christ’s presence would bless the land and protect future harvests. Farmers wanted the procession to pass by their fields, and would ask the priests to pass by. Painted in 1857 and exhibited at the Paris Salon alongside works such as The Gleaners, Breton’s monumental canvas (318 cm; 10.4 ft wide) brought dignity and spiritual beauty to ordinary rural life. It earned him major recognition and was purchased by the French state for the Musée du Luxembourg.

In the centuries following the Reformation, Corpus Christi also became a powerful affirmation of Catholic belief in the Real Presence. The Council of Trent in 1551 described the feast as a triumph over heresy because it publicly proclaimed the Church’s faith in transubstantiation: that the bread and wine truly become the Body and Blood of Christ during Mass. The heart of Corpus Christi remains profoundly simple and beautiful: God chooses to stay close to His people, every day

…

A devotion that quickly took root in Valencia

The feast of Corpus Christi was instituted for the whole Church by Pope Urban IV in 1264 and was later confirmed by the Council of Vienne in 1311. In the territories of the Crown of Aragon its spread was rapid, favored by the strong Eucharistic devotion of the time.

Historian Rafael Narbona, Professor of Medieval History at the Universitat de València, explains that the celebration soon found great popular acceptance. The first manifestations were simple, centered on the Mass and small processions linked to the Cathedral, but devotion to the Blessed Sacrament grew until it acquired an extraordinary dimension.

Its definitive consolidation came in 1355, when Bishop Hugo de Fenollet and the jurats of Valencia agreed to organize a great general procession through the city streets. Over the following decades a fixed route was established and resources allocated to a celebration that would become one of the most important in the entire Crown of Aragon.

The largest monstrance in the world

The high point of the day will come with the departure of the processional monstrance from Valencia Cathedral—considered the largest in the world. The monumental work, created by Francisco Pajarón Suay thanks to the contributions of generations of Valencians, will travel the streets accompanied by thousands of faithful, confraternities, associations and authorities.

 

 

Put Your Psalms Up, Little Monstrances … 

Edited 18 hours ago by bxr

[gagacabana 6,522]

10 hours ago, bxr said:

this sense or motif of music as her monastery, or the concert as her convent (or coven, some might suggest in adaptation) …

Godga strikes again!

10 hours ago, bxr said:

kismet!

  Hide contents

#shadowofaman 

LOVE this

10 hours ago, bxr said:

The Black Jesus † Amen Fashion exploration makes sense … edifying the erstwhile embryonic “new forms” … concrete poetry cornerstones and baby bricks … and it sort of goes back to composing / curating expressions of identity from the raw material of incumbent cultural experiences

And also the way her stages have been ones of concrete (poetry) and very intentional in its architectures... to then mayhem requiem presenting the opera haus' ruins, which could be a metaphor of godga resting on the seventh day, etc etc

1 hour ago, bxr said:

The heart of Corpus Christi remains profoundly simple and beautiful: God chooses to stay close to His people, every day

1 hour ago, bxr said:

Put Your Psalms Up, Little Monstrances … 

Catholiqueerness as the biggest moving force of Lady Gaga? Fork found in the kitchen 

[bxr 1,904]

5 hours ago, gagacabana said:

Godga strikes again! 

 

5 hours ago, gagacabana said:

LOVE this 

That we went to Motown right before—a day for the canon! #shadowofamaninthemirror

Spoiler

 

5 hours ago, gagacabana said:

And also the way her stages have been ones of concrete (poetry) and very intentional in its architectures... to then mayhem requiem presenting the opera haus' ruins, which could be a metaphor of godga resting on the seventh day, etc etc

Pop canon blueprint prophecies and 72ppi concrete gothic dreamhaus foreshadowing

5 hours ago, gagacabana said:

Catholiqueerness as the biggest moving force of Lady Gaga? Fork found in the kitchen 

Spoiler

 

[Ladle Ghoulash 48,320]

Great little tidbit I just saw where Ga talks about “subliminal”/semiotic storytelling:

”I see my work in a series of images, like a fashion editorial. Like a movie, but there’s no story. The story doesn’t matter. The story is you. You are the story and the fans are the story of the show, so I’m less concerned with the narrative of the performance and more concerned with the series of images and how they tell a more subliminal story about the music.”

 

[bxr 1,904]

34 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

Great little tidbit I just saw where Ga talks about “subliminal”/semiotic storytelling:

”I see my work in a series of images, like a fashion editorial. Like a movie, but there’s no story. The story doesn’t matter. The story is you. You are the story and the fans are the story of the show, so I’m less concerned with the narrative of the performance and more concerned with the series of images and how they tell a more subliminal story about the music.”

 

The synchroliminality—The Simpsons strike again! 

Except, instead of the Navy, it’s … lil‘ monstrances ?

Edited 16 hours ago by bxr

[gagacabana 6,522]

1 hour ago, bxr said:

7 hours ago, gagacabana said:

Godga strikes again! 

Kismet kismeting! Look letterboxd's most popular review of Mayhem: Requiem 

1 hour ago, bxr said:

That we went to Motown right before—a day for the canon! #shadowofamaninthemirror

  Hide contents

Whoaaaaaaaaa this is awesome!!!

1 hour ago, bxr said:

Pop canon blueprint prophecies and 72ppi concrete gothic dreamhaus foreshadowing

Lovelovelovelove the 72ppi are always heartwarming 

[gagacabana 6,522]

30 minutes ago, bxr said:

The synchroliminality—The Simpsons strike again! 

Except, instead of the Navy, it’s … lil‘ monstrances ?

Well