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purejuiceSo said the Archibishop of Canterbury -- with all the 600 years of Chaucer's anglophone word-coining power behind him -- to start his homily at the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles.
Seven hundred million people watched the wedding, which gives it immense power, being, and moral authority. Arguably witness of evil as well as good engenders existence in the moral universe, with eternal moral resonance for all who witness.
Why, is the question, ranging from what exactly is the agency of spectacle and pagaentry and sacrament and ritual, to how where you put your dick is precisely and most powerfully political, to the Schadenfreude of noting that monarchs have arguably used this power to impact history most profoundly by marrying badly -- Hello, Protestant reformation -- or not marrying at all -- So my old brother-in-law Philip has sent me the Armada? -- to noting that the choice of a bride by Charles and his son, William, may be the most morally authoritative thing either of them can, or will, do. Prince Charming, noted a black woman as Charles and Camilla drove Diana crazy, is just another dog. This is truly heart-breaking, I suspect, to every one of the seven hundred million who wished them so much good fortune. Hundreds of thousands of people surrounded the cathedral when they were married and listened to the ceremony, which was broadcast live to them. When Diana said I will, the hundreds of thousands cheered. Inside the cathedral, she heard them, and smiled.
Kate Middleton, like Diana, now has what Umberto Eco called the aura of burnt flesh -- referring to martyred saints -- about her, sporting Diana's own sapphire of death by paparazzi, along with all the other rivetting attributes of being struck by lightening, chosen by God and Prince William, and being Captain of the Girls' Team. Diana was, and Kate is now. Camilla never was, and it occurs to me both Charles and the Duke of Windsor were struggling for authenticity when they went for the slags. Hopefully, Waity Katie is a good old girl for whom William might, as gracefully as Sweden's Crown Princess did on marrying a commoner, thank the British people for giving him his princess.
Stepping into eternity, or history as the atheists call it, at the age of 28 is a very strange thing to do, as is throwing in your lot with someone who will be king, if he lives, whether he is Caligula or Jesus Christ. The wedding is between someone who needs to do nothing, and someone who has, we believe, done everything, or achieved it, been struck by lightening, elected by God, sold her soul to the devil, or won a battle better than history's most successful generals -- eight years! -- and the idea that she caught his eye and kept it and compelled him to marry her invests Waity Katie with a wile and a guile and a street wisdom we all wish we had. We will listen to whatever guff she says because we think she has the mojo, the key to paradise, is beatified as blessed among women, and she can be as useless a piece of shit as Wallis Simpson and history itself will spend the rest of eternity trying to figure out her secret.
This sense of not having to do anything to have a great destiny, or at least to be the cynosure of history, or the Helen of Troy of the paps, is I think the key to the interest of the seven hundred million. Is such a person truly lucky? Or truly touched by God? Or the most successful social climber of the century? What do they do with the moral authority conferred upon them by the happiness and good will of the seven hundred million who bless the fairy tale?
Is the best thing a King has done in the last couple of hundred years to step in where his pussy-whipped brother abdicated -- I mean, seriously, nobody but the King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India would give it all up -- India! -- for Wallis Simpson -- struggle with some success to overcome a serious stutter, make speeches, be photographed in the rubble during the Blitz, and have your wife, who did not stutter, announce, during same, that her children would not be evacuated to Canada: 'The children won't go without me. I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave' ? When George VI died, Churchill sent a wreath which simply said, For valor. That may be enough, the simple valor which sustained the stuttering king and his children against Hitler and which kept the first Elizabeth unmarried.
>
London during the Blitz: The Queen Mum contemplates the abyss as George VI eyes the skies.
I am thinking about the connection between pageantry, spectacle, a royal wedding, and a metaphor for eternity in which, by dressing up and marrying at Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's, Kate and William join the cloud of witness -- as by giving Kate Diana's sapphire William is well aware -- of history, as if in joining the parade of a wedding they are also literally transubstantiating themselves into the parade of eternity -- by enacting the same rituals and routes and sacraments, Kate and William join eternity and also invoke the spirits to join the parade. He said giving her his mother's ring was his way of inviting Diana to be part of the fun and the excitement. It's one of the first things I've ever heard him say about Diana; that what might be the most significant act of his life should invoke the 20th century's most mediated woman, who is also just this boy's mother, who really loved him, unlike Charles' mother, brings us back to investing with huge moral portent the utterings of the very, very un/lucky.
The locust sound of the cameras on this announcement vid, and William's clear sense of the mediated danger his mother did not survive is what strikes me now.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2010/nov/17/prince-william-monarchy-video
Next up, the thing about aristocrats and princes is that they just have to Be. Like freaks, as the photographer Diane Arbus noted, aristocrats have already met their challenge in life. What they, as simple men with free will chose to do with this Being, is, I think, what brings the attention of the seven hundred million: You who have everything, what is it you want? Authenticity, or your crabbed version of freedom, via the Parker Bowles? Charles' whinging and petulance are proverbial, as is the "frightening intensity" with which he informed his staff, and, I believe, the Queen's, that "Mrs. Parker Bowles is non-negotiable."* To use the moral authority of our own projected hope, Prince Charming himself, to secure the Parker Bowles -- the Queen rightly called her "used-looking" -- diminishes us all, in the moral universe, where we live. I can't get over the feeling that her bathrobe smells like bacon, and that is the mess of pottage he was ready to sell his birthright for. Non-negotiable.
The rest of us have to manifest our destinies. Coming up, scenes from Sir Oswald Mosley's enchanted childhood (he was like the 6th baronet of an idyllic estate) and from Between the Acts, by V. Woolf. Watch this space.
______________________________
*For an authoritative account of the bad relations between Elizabeth an Charles, how the Diana and Camilla situations seemed to threaten the monarchy, and how it was handled neither by Charles nor Elzabeth but by her private secretary, Robert Fellowes, who was also Diana's brother-in-law, see this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3294538/The-real-Elizabeth-II.html
The mystery of why it was felt that it threatened the monarchy not to have a flag at half mast over Buckingham Palace during the time between Diana's death and funeral when an enormous public outpouring of grief took place, and the tabs demanded that the Queen lower the flag, is not elucidated. But the courtiers felt the monarchy was in danger and persuaded her to do the flag thing. I'll never understand. Meeting Camilla was also a big deal; I should have thought she -- a recent poll asking whether or not Camilla should be crowned Queen has 86 per cent of those polled saying no -- was the greater threat to the monarchy.
Seven hundred million people watched the wedding, which gives it immense power, being, and moral authority. Arguably witness of evil as well as good engenders existence in the moral universe, with eternal moral resonance for all who witness.
Why, is the question, ranging from what exactly is the agency of spectacle and pagaentry and sacrament and ritual, to how where you put your dick is precisely and most powerfully political, to the Schadenfreude of noting that monarchs have arguably used this power to impact history most profoundly by marrying badly -- Hello, Protestant reformation -- or not marrying at all -- So my old brother-in-law Philip has sent me the Armada? -- to noting that the choice of a bride by Charles and his son, William, may be the most morally authoritative thing either of them can, or will, do. Prince Charming, noted a black woman as Charles and Camilla drove Diana crazy, is just another dog. This is truly heart-breaking, I suspect, to every one of the seven hundred million who wished them so much good fortune. Hundreds of thousands of people surrounded the cathedral when they were married and listened to the ceremony, which was broadcast live to them. When Diana said I will, the hundreds of thousands cheered. Inside the cathedral, she heard them, and smiled.
Kate Middleton, like Diana, now has what Umberto Eco called the aura of burnt flesh -- referring to martyred saints -- about her, sporting Diana's own sapphire of death by paparazzi, along with all the other rivetting attributes of being struck by lightening, chosen by God and Prince William, and being Captain of the Girls' Team. Diana was, and Kate is now. Camilla never was, and it occurs to me both Charles and the Duke of Windsor were struggling for authenticity when they went for the slags. Hopefully, Waity Katie is a good old girl for whom William might, as gracefully as Sweden's Crown Princess did on marrying a commoner, thank the British people for giving him his princess.
Stepping into eternity, or history as the atheists call it, at the age of 28 is a very strange thing to do, as is throwing in your lot with someone who will be king, if he lives, whether he is Caligula or Jesus Christ. The wedding is between someone who needs to do nothing, and someone who has, we believe, done everything, or achieved it, been struck by lightening, elected by God, sold her soul to the devil, or won a battle better than history's most successful generals -- eight years! -- and the idea that she caught his eye and kept it and compelled him to marry her invests Waity Katie with a wile and a guile and a street wisdom we all wish we had. We will listen to whatever guff she says because we think she has the mojo, the key to paradise, is beatified as blessed among women, and she can be as useless a piece of shit as Wallis Simpson and history itself will spend the rest of eternity trying to figure out her secret.
This sense of not having to do anything to have a great destiny, or at least to be the cynosure of history, or the Helen of Troy of the paps, is I think the key to the interest of the seven hundred million. Is such a person truly lucky? Or truly touched by God? Or the most successful social climber of the century? What do they do with the moral authority conferred upon them by the happiness and good will of the seven hundred million who bless the fairy tale?
Is the best thing a King has done in the last couple of hundred years to step in where his pussy-whipped brother abdicated -- I mean, seriously, nobody but the King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India would give it all up -- India! -- for Wallis Simpson -- struggle with some success to overcome a serious stutter, make speeches, be photographed in the rubble during the Blitz, and have your wife, who did not stutter, announce, during same, that her children would not be evacuated to Canada: 'The children won't go without me. I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave' ? When George VI died, Churchill sent a wreath which simply said, For valor. That may be enough, the simple valor which sustained the stuttering king and his children against Hitler and which kept the first Elizabeth unmarried.
>London during the Blitz: The Queen Mum contemplates the abyss as George VI eyes the skies.
I am thinking about the connection between pageantry, spectacle, a royal wedding, and a metaphor for eternity in which, by dressing up and marrying at Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's, Kate and William join the cloud of witness -- as by giving Kate Diana's sapphire William is well aware -- of history, as if in joining the parade of a wedding they are also literally transubstantiating themselves into the parade of eternity -- by enacting the same rituals and routes and sacraments, Kate and William join eternity and also invoke the spirits to join the parade. He said giving her his mother's ring was his way of inviting Diana to be part of the fun and the excitement. It's one of the first things I've ever heard him say about Diana; that what might be the most significant act of his life should invoke the 20th century's most mediated woman, who is also just this boy's mother, who really loved him, unlike Charles' mother, brings us back to investing with huge moral portent the utterings of the very, very un/lucky.
The locust sound of the cameras on this announcement vid, and William's clear sense of the mediated danger his mother did not survive is what strikes me now.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2010/nov/17/prince-william-monarchy-video
Next up, the thing about aristocrats and princes is that they just have to Be. Like freaks, as the photographer Diane Arbus noted, aristocrats have already met their challenge in life. What they, as simple men with free will chose to do with this Being, is, I think, what brings the attention of the seven hundred million: You who have everything, what is it you want? Authenticity, or your crabbed version of freedom, via the Parker Bowles? Charles' whinging and petulance are proverbial, as is the "frightening intensity" with which he informed his staff, and, I believe, the Queen's, that "Mrs. Parker Bowles is non-negotiable."* To use the moral authority of our own projected hope, Prince Charming himself, to secure the Parker Bowles -- the Queen rightly called her "used-looking" -- diminishes us all, in the moral universe, where we live. I can't get over the feeling that her bathrobe smells like bacon, and that is the mess of pottage he was ready to sell his birthright for. Non-negotiable.
The rest of us have to manifest our destinies. Coming up, scenes from Sir Oswald Mosley's enchanted childhood (he was like the 6th baronet of an idyllic estate) and from Between the Acts, by V. Woolf. Watch this space.
______________________________
*For an authoritative account of the bad relations between Elizabeth an Charles, how the Diana and Camilla situations seemed to threaten the monarchy, and how it was handled neither by Charles nor Elzabeth but by her private secretary, Robert Fellowes, who was also Diana's brother-in-law, see this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3294538/The-real-Elizabeth-II.html
The mystery of why it was felt that it threatened the monarchy not to have a flag at half mast over Buckingham Palace during the time between Diana's death and funeral when an enormous public outpouring of grief took place, and the tabs demanded that the Queen lower the flag, is not elucidated. But the courtiers felt the monarchy was in danger and persuaded her to do the flag thing. I'll never understand. Meeting Camilla was also a big deal; I should have thought she -- a recent poll asking whether or not Camilla should be crowned Queen has 86 per cent of those polled saying no -- was the greater threat to the monarchy.
