Ania Grient

For Twain’s sake, I have never seen more religiously schizophrenic country than THE United States. This country has so many Christian “factions” that I am sure it makes Jesus and his Twelve Dwarfs roll in their graves. And, in my opinion, most of those “churches” fall under the category of “occult”. But for some reason, must be again that schizophrenia, most of the Americans throw all those occults in the bag with a big label “Christianity” and link it to THE Roman Catholic Church. So, of course, what you get now is this slogan “Organized religion is ‘aevil”” and “THE Church is aevil!”. Epic, really.

If there’s a Devil, he must be the architect of the spiritual/religion system in the America. Brilliant. No better weapon to turn people away from God of Israel than all those American occults that call themselves “Christian”.

Now, let me point out that the Catholic Church is surely not saintly and had been struggling with its own demons and its own illogicalities since its beginnings. But we all do know it, don’t we? I don’t agree with the Church’s “policy” on so many things that, at best, I could be called a heretic….at worst, an antichrist. I myself was born in a Catholic family in one of the most Catholic countries, aside Ireland, Poland. I don’t “practice” this religion, nor was I ever forced to attend Sunday masses. I don’t know, maybe that’s the reason, why my eyes go wider and wider when I read about the spiritual life of the Americans. From the outside European perspective, it’s really hilarious and surreal to watch. It seems to me that my uber-Christian country is more secular and laid-back than the so called secular and tolerant America. No one cares, you know. Your belief, your faith IS your private, even somewhat an intimate matter.

You know, I hesitated whether I should voice my opinion on the subject. But, well, to hell with it! If you’re Anne Rice reader, or an ex-reader, or just happened to add her to your Facebook “like” list because you happened to love the Interview with the Vampire film or book, you know that some time ago she announced on her Facebook she left the Church (again) and quitted Christianity. At the same time Mrs. Rice assured everyone she didn’t quit on Jesus. She basically signed herself off The Club, someone could say. My reaction to that was a bit hmm frivolous, so to speak. I couldn’t help but, hmm, smile. I didn’t have a problem with her leaving the Church and choosing something which I call “the quiet and solitary path”, but the thing which amazed me was her public exaltation with it. Now I do understand she’s a public figure, but I can’t understand how “courageous” is it to “quit religion” in a country like the United States? Nobody holds a gun to your head. If you don’t like the Church, you leave it. More, you’re free to criticise it and no one stones you for doing that.

I’d bow to a Muslim woman who’d publicly renounce her religion in – hmm let me think – Iran. And she would have guts to publicly say “I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life[...] “

I am more than convinced now that religion and faith – of any kind and source – became the device of spiritual masturbation in the country eaten by materialism and consumptionism. The country in which both religion and faith became “a product” mass-produced and chewed like a hamburger without taste.
The same “orgasmic” effect spiced with the notion of “one’s righteous and moral motives” gives the never-ending criticism on the biggest modern Satan ever created – the Catholic Church.

What we’re left with now is the term Christianity which is abused, misused, misread, misunderstood and above all, no one took time to open a book and read its goddamn definition.

“Lord, you know better than I know myself that I am getting older and will someday be old. Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.

“Release me from craving to straighten out everybody’s affairs. Make me thoughtful but not moody, helpful but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom it seems a pity not to use it all, but you know, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end.

“Keep my mind from the recital of endless details – give me the wings to come to the point. Seal my lips on my aches and pains. They are increasing, and my love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter. I dare not ask for grace enough to enjoy the tales of others’ pains, but help me to endure them with patience.

“I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and a lessening cocksureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others.

“Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken. Keep me reasonably sweet. I do not want to be a saint – some of them are so hard to live with – but a sour old woman is one of the crowning works of the devil.

“Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places, and the talents in unexpected people. And give me the grace to tell them so.”

This is said to be attributed to a XVIIth century nun. I’d read that “prayer” in Polish years ago when my mother had brought it from somewhere and had given me without saying anything. I read it and forgot about it. Later I tried finding the English version on the Internet, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t because, for some reason, this prayer (in Polish) is said to be written by Thomas Aquinas and found near his tomb.
I was reading some of notes I did a long ago, losing myself in memories and smiling at things I wrote down, and I found the sheet of paper with that prayer again. I decided to find the English translation again, because I think this prayer is not only funny, but also cheerful and wise.

First and foremost, I was and I am dedicating this “prayer” to myself. Twain knows how often I used to HAVE to say something just BECAUSE, or I’d literally and figuratively burst otherwise. How often I used to feel that I know better what was better for someone.

Laughter.
I’ve been slowly and successfully curing from that disease ever since. It’s a slow process, you know. I am Leo. And Leos are, damn, oh damn. Haha.
One of my most favourite entertainments is to sit back and look at myself, and mock myself, and eventually laugh. Distance to oneself, the world, and life…is indeed the best device to make our stay in this world pleasurable, and not end up insane, bitter, pessimistic….in other words,
a whining dead.

Over the years I’ve become unbelievably and annoyingly picky when it comes to the vampire literature. I pick a book in a bookstore, skim through its pages, read a few lines here and a few lines there, and then, usually, I put it down. I can’t be bothered to read it, many of the vampire novels are pale imitations of Rice or Holly Rice. Or they’re like Twilight. It must be said, The XIXth century vampire classics and Rice’s “Chronicals” where the last vampire books which I read from cover to cover. Anything since then has been nothing but… “skimming”, often without finishing. I easily get discouraged if a writer tries to imitate Rice’s style.
Or I if am served something like “Vampire Cowboys”….riddle it for yourselves, “darklings”.

The fact that I can’t stand Rice’s style in Rice’s books anymore does not help much either. I am prejudiced. I am sorry, all you vampire novel writers. All of a sudden, hmm no, some time ago, the Vampire Chronicals became petty and actually infantile to me, or maybe I got older and despite my sentiment for them, I can see their weak points, many of them. Rice castrated Vampire and we should all thank her. Thanks to her, the process of fang-castration continues and flowers like “Twilight” are produced. But the vampire-fans believe she made a vampire “real” and “believable”. Maybe she did. But somewhere in the process of “beatification” and “beautification”, she took away Vampire’s charm, bestiality, mystery, danger, and yes, that sublime dark beauty. Vampire became SO American.
If you’re European, you’ll understand what I am talking about.
Okay, it’s not about the Ricean world.

This post is actually about the vampire book I’ve just finished reading. I can’t say I read it page after page. BUT I read it from cover to cover, so to speak. It’s a book by Kyle Marffin titled “Gothique, A Vampire Novel”. And no, I am not writing a review, just a thought or two.

Despite the fact that I didn’t really get emotionally attached to any of the characters, mortal or immortal, I enjoyed the story, not for its “vampire” quality though. The reason why I really liked it was because it was a pretty good satire on the Gothic subculture and Goths, especially those Goths who dream of being abducted by beautiful vampires and turned. I really did enjoy scenes where such a “Gothic lovely” met her fate and faced her “dream”, and it turned out that THE vampires are nothing like those in Rice’s books. They’re beautiful, maybe, but they are not so fucking – excuse my French – damn “Ricean”, and THAT, was a – excuse my French again – fucking relief! I laughed and felt almost a sadistic pleasure reading how one mortal “sweet dark lovely” character after another was waking up from that Ricean or Britean dream…

This complete surrender to that vampire Ricean fantasy has always irritated me. It was especially seen, and could be probed, on various online role playing boards. I could never understand it, for many reasons. And it’s not a place or time to list all of them. But the main one was, to me, this quick “giving in” . It has always shown the lack of character and that need to be “owned” or “possessed”. And oh dear Twain, when the words like “morality” or “humane” or “humanist” would always come to the spotlight, I always felt like in twilight zone of the twilight zone. Trust me, when an author attempts to dwell in ethics while writing and creating his or her vampire world, it would end up being yet another existentialist novel exploring writer’s fears, questions and doubts. It could have been enough and charming when I was young, but it’s not anymore. What I want now is the book about THE vampire of flesh and blood! I don’t want a blood drinker who spends eternity on questioning his or her existence whether it’s evil or “aevil”, or searching for answers that are somewhat easily found when you pass that annoying age of adolescence filled with self-importance, acid arrogance and erecting rebellion.

Anyway, yes, “Gothique” was entertaining and fed my sadistic fantasies even if only in this literary way. Plus, the characters of Cass and his roomate and friend Colleen, who both ended up being turned into vampires, remind me myself and my dearest Parisian fiend Killian.
Hmm, yes, go and read it.

I thought that for a change I’d write something that wouldn’t be about vampires and banshees. It will be about God, Christians and Catholics. Yes, I know, it does not sound promising, but hey, give me a chance! I promise there will be no pointless digressions! I am getting straight down to my point! And here it is! The dilemma whether all Christians go straightly to Hell or just everybody who isn’t Protestant! Atheists will love it! Aaaaand, I’ll probably end up with a nice dose of ranting anyway. But, I do need it.

Catholics say that Protestant say that most people deserve to go to Hell for one and obvious reason which is called “human nature” (hard to disagree with it, really. Philosophers call it “animal soul” hmm?), whereas all the Hippie Followers of Jesus & Mary aka The Catholics strongly disagree with it and carry on happily sinning because they believe that no one goes to Hell after all, because God is apparently a really nice laid-back old weed smoker. If you’re a born Catholic and lived an atheistiQUE “fuck-you-God” life for most of your adult years, all you need to do to escape Hell is to have a brain-lobotomy when you’re in your 60’ (or sometimes earlier when your Middle-aged crisis hits you), realising that you’re not getting any younger but already with one leg in your grave, you say aloud “mea culpa” and claim you heard God calling your name. Beautiful and simple, isn’t it? It is almost like buying indulgencies in Middle Ages.

The years are almost done and there are maybe a few more left. Most of people, if not all, have a hard time coping with the idea of Death and being gone. Needless to say, that when you’re old you’re maybe wiser but never old enough to be ready to leave, never. Especially if your demons have started catching up with you. You wake up one day, as the song goes, you’re not fresh and dandy anymore and you realise you’re not eternal. What will you do? You will cling to just anything which gives any hope of “non omnis moria” – faith and religion. I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with that. Everybody copes with the passing time as they please; hedonism until you throw your guts up, botox, plastic surgeries or Jesus. Because Youth, you see, is immortal until it’s over. “So, maybe the eternity of the Soul is a nice perspective after all”, Atheist wonders. “This is what I am going to do now, ‘God, are you there?’, I will be good and believe in case you’re there and I am fucked up.” When you’re young, Death and aging are abstract words which are used sometimes for masochistic spiritual masturbation, but these ideas are too distant and science-fiction to be true for any young. The young mind does what it must; rebels, whines, gets its body laid and mind drunk.

I’ve got hard time accepting once full-time and feverish atheists now true devout believers. There’s something wonderfully schizophrenic and cowardly in that, don’t you think? This species is really a modern nuisance along with free-style Bible interpreters, self-proclaimed prophets or preachers and generally any Christian religious sect out there with the commercial approach to Faith or religion, preaching the Big Words without really weighting or acknowledging their importance. And I think, I even have a harder time accepting this modern religious nonchalance and something which appears to be a total lack of sense of responsibility for ones actions or how one conducts themselves morally through life, as well as that tactlessness when it comes to use or abuse of words such as morality or moral modulation. Actions speak louder than words or promises. There’s no forgiveness without the feeling of guilt and true remorse. There is no Heaven without earning it. One could think that most of the Hippie Catholics (and generally Christians) forgot about these “details”. How fair is that? I mean, think about it, you live a materialistic life, you don’t care about anything unless it concerns you/yourself/and Irene, you curse God for the sake of cursing and the fact that “He allows all evil on this planet and kills the innocent children”. And then…and then after one or two decades of an atheistic life you come and say, “I am sorry, God” and expect to be all absolved? If you DO feel sorry, then, well, maybe. But, be fair, and ask yourself if you earned it?

So much for the real fundaments of the Catholic faith. Jesus’ Death on the cross washed all off of our sins. Did it? Personally, I never believed in that dogma. I believe that only I can wash off my “sins” through my own deeds, so to speak. What I believe is that Christ showed people something what never had its place before in this corner of the world (In the different corner of the world, Buddha had played that miracle a bit hmm earlier), he had told people that they could forgive their oppressors. Can you believe that? And that there’s certain liberating feeling in forgiveness (yes, I am hearing all of you atheists and pagans. What are you saying? There’s a feeling of selfish accomplishment in the act of forgiving? Possibly, maybe. But I prefer this selfishness to the more common and less noble one. We all know which one I am talking about.) Anyway, it was the religion of love in the world of the strict Old Testament “eye for an eye” law and the Roman disdain for the thing called Mercy which was generally understood as weakness. From this perspective, Jesus made a revolution. He actually preached something against the common sense at that time (well, in our times too), you could say. It’s hard not to hit back when you’re harassed and Jesus tells you to turn the other cheek. It’s crazy, isn’t it? Maybe. But, there’s genius in that, you see. Hah.

What happened after the crucifixion was, in my opinion, the fixation; the New Tastement happened (as if the Old Testament had not been already hard to digest) and Jesus’s Word turned into marble. For this reason our civilization went through wars in the name of God and everyone kept/keep arguing over the famous Book called the Holy. The Good Word has been interpreted horizontally, vertically and third-dimensionally too. Scholars and theologians are so busy with either proving existence or non-existence of Jesus or/and whether the Bible is truly holy or if Mary was a virgin, that they forget what it means to believe in Jesus. Yes, what does it mean to accept Jesus as your personal saviour? I am curious. I’ve always been interested in hearing the believers’s opinions on that. It stopped being a surprise to me when I hear something along the lines “He died on the cross for me so that I could go to Heaven” or “he’s my God, my Lord”. Such attitude borders with idolatry. Somehow, I never hear anyone saying “To accept Jesus as your personal saviour is to apply his teaching to your life. It means to live, or try to live, the life he lived”. There’s science in faith, well, certain dose of it. I believe that in order to believe you must understand. Blind faith leads to idolatry. I don’t care how heretic it sounds. I believe in something I call “the metaphysical understanding”, it make sense when we apply it to faith, it comes sometimes with vision or “eureka”. If you understand why, on this philosophical/ethical level, you suddenly see all the puzzles creating something greater, something finer…that is, if it’s not later polluted by narrow-minds. So, tell me, you, what does it mean to believe in Jesus?

Now, to go back to the very beginning of this “wondering” of mine. Are the Protestants right? Do all people deserve Hell? Most Christians do, if you ask me. I’ve never heard of a more arrogant faith than Christianity! Basically all Christian religions proclaim themselves to be close to God and compete with each other over which one of them has the more private phone line with Him. And there’s Christian God himself, who –through Bible – calls Himself the One and Only true God in the whole Universe. So, naturally, we can now understand where this Christian arrogance towards any other religion and nation comes from. Even though Pride is listed as one of the Seven Deadly Sins, the Christians apparently take pride in that – after all, if their God calls himself the Only True God, then He’s better than any other god out there, and with Him, the Christians are better than anyone else, and are entitled to do whatever they please. I realise, I am sounding demagogical now, I am doing that in order to point out how the Bible is read and interpreted in the popular culture. But what is more important, how the Book is handled now. It seems that either it’s understood literally or too much is read between the lines; from one extreme to another. I suppose now I could pose a question and ask if the Bible is the Word of God? Was it written by God? People have written countless books on that and still there’s no answer to it. Personally, no, I don’t believe it’s the Word of God. The end.

As much as I am not fond of Nietzsche, I think, I agree with his statement when he said that there was only one true Christian and he died on the Cross. I am wondering whether it’s the real remorse when you’re scared of the idea of going to Hell? If it’s just the fear of the eternal punishment which forces you to get on your knees and beg, how does it make the remorse real? Man would do or say anything to escape pain or suffering. It’s a little like about that thief who didn’t regret he was stealing but the fact he was caught. Like I said, there’s no forgiveness without the understanding of what was done wrong, and yes, along with it, comes the feeling of remorse and plead for forgiveness. How does the punishment in Hell can make the understanding real? But also, how does, hmm, the idea of divine amnesty can make all people worth in Heaven? If you get everyone absolved of their sins without them understanding the nature of those wrong-doings, the possibility of moral corruption is inevitable. To sum it up, the Christian idea of Hell and Heaven and punishment is like Man himself – peculiar, kitsch, amusing and ludicrous. I think though that Mark Twain summed it up far better than I ever could in his short novel “Letters from the Earth”.

Now you could think that all of it was written by an angsty, rebellious anti-Christian atheist? If you had assumed as much, you couldn’t have been far from the truth. I was born in a Catholic family in Poland. As a happy child I did not need God, and I think He perfectly understood it. Happy children don’t need God. I’ve got my own issues with this idea of Christian God but I have never had a need to go crazy over all that “spiritual thing”. So many things happen around me that I certainly cannot call myself an atheist. I am a grown up woman now who still does not need God. I am however the woman to whom John Paul the Second’s deeds speak louder than all of those televangelists’s feverish preaching you get when you turn on tv. There are also those Christian sects, especially in the North America, of which, I bet, even Vatican didn’t heard. I seriously developed allergy to this hmm American commercial religiousness. Anyway, as much I’ve got lots of “buts” to the Institution of the Catholic Church, I can consider John Paul the Second one of my few authorities – he was the man of action, James Bond of Christianity. He believed, it’s enough for me. You see, if people believed not necessarily IN Christ but just believed enough to follow his teachings, it would be enough. Now it’s more about the Idol than the Word. Sad. There are supposedly 2.1 billion of people who believe IN Jesus, but how many of them follow the word? Riddle me that, fellow human being. Sometimes I think that religion is Faith’s nightmare… Ehh…

I thought I’d write here in my native tongue, but it’s hard. Why? My English is not perfect, it’s full of flaws, but it’s a perfect mask of safety to me. Yes, I do hide behind this English language – my alter ego, not much different from the real me though.

I’ll keep this place for myself. People will find me in time or I’ll let myself be found. For now though, I’ll bath in this illusionary idea of a complete anonymity within this digital world.

It is said that first words of the prologue as well as the title determine whether reader reads the story or not.  My story is many. It’s like kaleidoscope in a way, as you move it, the patterns and colours change. My story is ever form changing. But no, I don’t want it to be chaotic, no.

The theory of Art is an exhausting subject. The more you learn the more annoyed you become. The adequacy of Socrates adage seems so painfully true at the moment that it makes studying, not just art, everything so trivial. What is Art and is its definition? These questions are as important as questions of human existence. To me, of course, the questions about art are more important that those philosophical ones. Why? Because I’ve always believed Art to be an ultimate exit from Plato’s cave…with which Plato wouldn’t agree. I am comforted by the fact that Aristotle didn’t agree with Plato on the matter of Art.

I remember, although it seems like ages ago , that it took much courage to be able to say in the company of noble and experienced art historians – my teachers, some of them my mentors, to whom Baroque is the golden time of Art, that “the virtuosity of Baroque forms means nothing if it glorifies marble.” And later: “can we ‘verbalise’ Infinity through complicated forms which ‘gesamtkunstwerk-ness’ overwhelms the Eye with formal beauty, yet unveils nothing?” Of course, my statement was terribly fiddly and backed up with 26 pages of , I shall say, Trial which I managed to recapitulate in 130 minutes.

“Miss Anne, your views are seditious and terribly interesting. I believe it’s not due the fact you’re being young.” That was the feedback I got from Professor Wrabec who was my mentor years ago.

Most severe critics of Baroque said that that style is just a savage bastard son of Renaissance. It takes courage and doze of arrogance, as well as eloquence, to put the most majestic examples of Gothic Architecture over brilliant works of Borromini or Guarini; saoring interiors of Gothic churches over fussy Baroque sacral architecture, without falling into argument about personal tastes and style preferences. I have in mind complexity of the XVII century mindset in mind, after all the spirit of an époque has always been seen especially in Art, and through that we see its manifestation to these days.

Nevertheless, there seem to be an interesting confusion, whether this what we worship is art or its formalities? It comes down to rather old and prosaic dilemma, we look but do we see? And, is there anything to see except, like I already said, virtuosity. I am used to calling it “visual seduction” – an innocent and not trained eye bombarded with sophisticated, hmm, recherché impulses – forms that leave no place for the child’s question “why”. If we fall in love with what we look at, we often identify it with beauty, and beauty with Art. And there’s a trap hidden in this reasoning.
Do you know what this trap is?

I had to reconcile myself with the fact that Art has no one ultimate definition, no unchangeable hmm indication which would give some form of objective starting point – some objective datum point. Every époque had its own vision of Art. We do have two definitions of art – normative and relative. The normative being; “the conscious production of things according to certain rules” This definition excludes coincidence and lack of artisanship. It was the definition popular in the Ancient Greece and Rome as well as in Renaissance Europe. You’ve got to keep in mind that to Romans or Greeks – this what we think as Art was called “techne” and was neither noble nor “high”, art was not one of so called intellectual disciplines. In Renaissance the standard of workmanship determined if something was called “good”, but even then, classifying something as art…was a rather problematic issue.

The relative definition of Art, which is the child of the end of XIX century and has been popular to this day, says that Art is everything what is claimed or said to be art. And here you’ve got a total Licentia Poetica – from Art being self-expression through emotional boasting, through destruction to live performance, messing in photoshop, creating personas et cetera.

People look at things and call everything that’s pretty, shocking or moving – Art. Courbet was right! I know now; very few people understand Art, they do understand images though, naively taking one for the other. If you become sentimental about Art, you’re no longer an art historian; you become a lover. Believe me when I say that Art is dangerous. If you don’t see a medium in Art, you’re in danger. Understanding Art can only be done through reconciliation reason with heart. It is not as impossible task as it may seem.

But then again, do we need to understand Art? I suppose not. It matters only to us – art historians. Hah. I’ll drink for that.