Theft of the American Crown Jewels…

April 10, 2023May 14, 2023 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

These are America’s Crown Jewels.

1. Cambodian Crown Jewels, British Art Dealer 2. Koh-i-Noor Diamond, Imperial State Crown of UK 3. Benin Bronzes, British Museum 4. Elgin Marbles, British Museum

Like the Cambodian Crown Jewels, the Kohinoor, the Benin Bronzes and the Elgin Marbles, the rapacious barbarians of the island kingdom must have them. If it is of value then it is theirs for the taking as it has been for 1.5 millennia, most especially so for the last century with regards American awards and the last half millennium through enslavement of African peoples, the spoils of Apartheid at the dehumanising expense of South Africa’s millennia aged original inhabitants. Justifying that rape and pillage has occurred with a reanimation of Brahminism.

When Will Smith walked onstage at the 94th Academy Awards and slapped Chris Rock; he kicked opened the doors for a sea-change; however, at the time, no one could quite perceive the event for the golden opportunity it actually is. Within days of the shocking event, the violent Black man who to that point had the squeakiest image in Hollywood, at least for a Black man, was dealt with. The Academy board of governors decided to ban Will Smith from appearing at the Oscars for ten years.

Back in the autumn of 1983, Merlin and I were holding up in actor, Joe Morton’s Upper West Side one-bedroom apartment that looked south. It was there that we took vows and became committed to each other until one of us passed… we kept those vows. Joe was off in England filming a television series whilst I nursed an injury caused when in a nasty car crash. We looked at a lot of film from Joe’s library, one of which was Black Orpheus. One evening, Merlin cooked a chicken paprikash and had two other couples over, both Black. There was talk about the Oscars earlier that year and how exciting it was that Louis Gossett Jr. had one best-supporting actor Oscar for An Officer And A Gentleman, which was a landmark first. After dinner and more great sex, we returned to the discussion about the Oscars that year and Hollywood politics. I had failed to see anything exciting about winning a best-supporting actor rather than best actor Oscar. Merlin in his charming way made an analogy after he declared that not in our lifetimes would a Black woman ever win best actress Oscar; Merlin was also just brutality pragmatic and honest that way.

Hollywood, Merlin stating the obvious, was a business of make-believe where one staged the desired outcome. In that sense, Merlin shared it was the greatest propaganda tool. It is a world where reality is made in the image of what those in control, would want it to be; in such a reality, Blacks could never be seen to be triumphant. Merlin then touched on the 1936 Olympics in Berlin where Jesse Owens won four gold medals before the debased terror, Adolf Hitler, thereby shattering his belief and propaganda of a master race that’s superior and always the winner. That event, said Merlin, was a real time event which could not be manipulated to achieve the desired outcome as Hitler would have it. Then, said Merlin, Hollywood and its awards are the antithesis of real time events like the Olympics. In the world of Hollywood, even if nominated, Blacks simply were never going to be allowed to win Oscars, just being nominated was good enough and a show of Hollywood elitists’ largesse. Hollywood said Merlin is a Jewish town, after all, and thus Blacks could never be expected to win Oscars, unlike winning Grammys or even Tonys. Besides, said Merlin, Hollywood elites were obsessed with making it in London society and were in bed with royals and getting to play in the truly big leagues. At the time, that angle escaped me; however, he had made the reference to Ben Kinsley winning best actor Oscar that year for his phenomenal performance in Gandhi which Merlin and I had seen the autumn prior at the Ziegfeld Cinema on West 54th Street at midnight, which I then thought the height of sophistication.

The following afternoon, Shawn Kerwin dropped by whilst we listened to the marathon live matinée broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera Centennial Gala. Shawn had designed the golden rolodex which was on display at Lincoln Center and dropped by as she would soon be designing a play back in Toronto that Merlin would be directing. The concert was mind-blowing; we made more love, napped into evening, made more love and then had dinner in the neighbourhood, came home and talked long into the night after he finished devouring another book. As was customary in those nightly discussions, we revisited the talk of the Oscars. Merlin apologised if he sounded pessimistic but he assured me that not during our lifetimes would a Black woman win best actress Oscar. Alas, that proved true for him and just about true for me; truth be told, if 9/11 had not occurred, Halle Berry would not have won best actress Oscar at the 2002 Oscars.

Along with Will Smith slapping Chris Rock – as well he damn well ought to have, based on the latter’s hideous Netflix special of March 2023 – the unfolding drama of the Sussexes has made total sense of Merlin’s predictions of four decades earlier. I have come to see how Hollywood keeps Black actresses at bay by favouring Britons and other White non-Americans. This is not just a disservice to American cinema but it is also illegal activity. I came to see how in Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s lynching at the hands of the Prince & Princess of Wales in concert with the Courtesan Queen cast greater insights to what causes the embargo on Black actresses winning a best actress Oscar. William is president of BAFTA which has its only foreign branch in Hollywood, which it dubiously called BAFTA North America – it has nothing to do with Canada and everything to exclusively do with Hollywood.

So why after their wedding and their first royal tour to Canada did William and Catherine, now Prince & Princess of Wales, travel to Los Angeles? As the newly minted president of BAFTA he had to be feted in Hollywood where he was expected to continue the tradition of British film artists, being disproportionately represented and winning at an American awards. They had to continue a relationship begun by Prince Philip in 1959 as first President of BAFTA. As a fledging awards, BAFTA desperately needed the cachet that the Oscars afford; old world Hollywood glamour, worldwide brand recognition and star power that remains unsurpassed.

From Prince Philip 1959 to 1965, the baton was passed on Prince Louis Battenberg (Earl Louis Mountbatten 1966 to 1972, Princess Anne, Princess Royal 1973 to 2001. Next up was Lord Richard Attenborough 2002 to 2010; the current BAFTA president, Prince William, Prince of Wales from 2010 to present.

So with the current BAFTA president, we get Tom Hanks sitting in the royal box at a Aston Villa game and we all know that this football team has been BAFTA president, William’s favourite team since childhood. The day after, Tom’s wife, Rita Wilson, attended the 2023 BAFTA Awards where its President, which is customary, rowed with his hawkish wife, Catherine, Princess of Wales. Another example of influence peddling, Mr. Hanks is a multiple Oscar winner, two-time Oscar winner Michael Douglas and his Welsh wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones live in an apartment at St. James’s Palace. Again, Oscar winners are favoured and you can bet that these American Oscar winners have been afforded honorary membership in members clubs like Annabel’s as part of the influence peddling as the BAFTA president hobnobs with Hollywood movers and shakers, in a bid to secure work and Oscar nominations for Britons working in Hollywood.

Well, if the angry Black male, Will Smith, is going to be censored for disrupting the Oscar telecast then Tom Hanks and the Douglas Zeta-Joneses should lose their Oscar vote for clearly engaging in influence peddling with the president of BAFTA. The Windsors are notorious for engaging in sketchy business deals, what with the now King Charles III, taking bags of cash from Saudi members of the Bin Laden family. There would also be nothing to stop William and his predecessors from engaging in accommodating Hollywood A listers for the sake of securing nominations for Britons at what is an American awards, the Oscars; of course, in keeping with all that elbow rubbing offered by royals, the Tonys, Grammys and Emmys will gladly favour British talent. It is not America’s responsibility to provide work for British actors and industry professionals. With a populations five times as large as the UK’s, there is clearly a dearth of talent out there, such that America never needs to go courting or employing Britons over Americans. And that it is all about influence peddling and getting to hobnob with royals, where do you see Americans favouring Canadian talent, which relative to UK’s is considerable with a population twice as large as Canada’s should see more Canadian actors being nominated and winning Oscars all this time.

1. The Great Ziegfeld Luise Rainer, 1936 2. The Good Earth Luise Rainer, 1937 3. Gone With The Wind Vivien Leigh, 1939 4. Suspicion Joan Fontaine, 1941 5. Mrs. Miniver Greer Garson, 1942 6. To Each His Own Olivia de Havilland, 1946 7. The Heiress Olivia de Havilland, 1949 8. A Streetcar Named Desire Vivien Leigh, 1951 9. Butterfield 8 Elizabeth Taylor, 1960 10. Mary Poppins Julie Andrews, 1964

Just look at this, 20 best actress Oscars afforded British actresses for an American award.

11. Darling Julie Christie, 1965 12. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Elizabeth Taylor, 1966 13. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Maggie Smith, 1969 14. Women in Love Glenda Jackson, 1970 15. A Touch of Class Glenda Jackson, 1973 16. Driving Miss Daisy Jessica Tandy, 1989 17. Howards End Emma Thompson, 1992 18. The Queen Helen Mirren, 2006 19. The Reader Kate Winslet, 2008 20. The Favourite Olivia Colman, 2018

Naturally, with the House of Windsor involved, acquiring Oscars is infinitely easier accomplished than trying to spirit the great pyramids of Giza to London, which if it were possible, there’d likely be one at the expanded forecourt of the British Museum, one on The Regent’s Park and the other in Hyde Park. Obviously, Princess Anne’s tenure as BAFTA president likely saw her innate disdain for Yanks and general arrogance rule, which resulted in little return on investment. The same was true when Louis Mountbatten was BAFTA president. Of course, with Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg on Epstein’s flight manifests and Roman Polanski being too ‘special’ to prosecute, Old Dickie was in his element in Hollywood. Let’s face it, the IRA had nothing to do with Mountbatten’s explosive demise, born 25.6.1900 Year of the Rat, as ever numbers never lie. 7.4.5 = 7. Two 7s and a 5 alluding to sexual scandal; one or more 7s especially if one is placed in the fourth position, will indicate assassination of a public figure. In Mountbatten’s case, the poor villagers were sick of their sons being preyed on by a known paedophile and that was that.

1. Amorous Prince David, Prince of Wales & Earl Mountbatten in India. 2. David & Louis frolicking in Hawaii. 3. David & Louis playing. 4. Prince Charles, Prince of Wales & Earl Mountbatten. 5. Charles & Mountbatten. 6. Prince Charles, Prince of Wales & Jimmy Savile. 7. Gary Glitter. 8. Jimmy Savile & Gary Glitter. 9. Steven Spielberg & BAFTA President, Richard Attenborough. 10. Steven Spielberg & Harvey Weinstein. 11. Jeffrey Epstein, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, Woody Allen, Bill Clinton & Donald Trump. 12. Prince Andrew & Jeffrey Epstein. 13. Jeffrey Epstein & Donald Trump. 14. Prince Charles & Equerry Jonathan Thompson. 14 Prince Charles & Valet Michael Fawcett.

Prince Louis of Battenberg aka Earl Louis Mountbatten was human and it would certainly not have been the first time that persons associated with the House of Windsor, have had a preference for minor meat or favoured paedophiles. Sexual predators who are deemed untouchable for being of royal, Queer or Jewish persuasion rule a town called Hollywood and you can bet your bottom dollar that there is no room in their worldview for Black actresses being worthy enough for best actress Oscars. I’ll always remember going to an Upper West Side dinner party in winter 1983 whilst Merlin was in Toronto, working on Fraggle Rock with Jim Henson and talk of Hollywood came up. I was with a dancer who was transitioning to the world of fashion and design and successfully at that. Before then, he had lived for a couple of years with a famous actor in Hollywood; he hated having a sugar daddy so returned to New York. Aaron, who was great fun, died too young of AIDS but I’ll always remember his assessment of Hollywood: the world’s most exclusive escort service successfully masquerading as an entertainment business. “It is nothing more than Mecca if you are a sexual predator.” Two others at that dinner party wholeheartedly agreed with Aaron’s perception. Aaron had the thickest cock I have yet in all my years seen; thankfully, he happened to have been the most aggressive bottom yet encountered.

Indeed, what Merlin implied by not in our lifetimes, would there be a Black best actress Oscar winner, is that the Oscar is the penultimate icon of White female exclusivity and superiority. It is the most racist iconography in American culture. It is also tied to the UK Royal family in a display of American inferiority complex after having fought a war to be rid of Britons and their monarchy. Especially sobering is the fact that the very President of BAFTA, Prince William, Prince of Wales has been outed in his brother, Prince Harry’s phenomenal royal memoir, SPARE, as being the leader of the racially predatory campaign of harassment, mental, emotional and likely physical abuse, all of which was glaringly accomplished with the tacit collusion of the Fleet Street abattoirs and persons like Princess Michael of Kent who happens to be the mother of the Prince’s known closest royal friend, Lord Frederick Windsor.

Meghan, an American actress has been treated like absolute filth, yet no one in Hollywood has spoken up in her defence. Meghan’s articulateness and impeccable social skills are seen as reasons enough to resent the ‘Yank’. Moreover, Meghan is that most unacceptable of propositions not just to the British royal family but to the very core of its collective consciousness, Meghan is Black and descended of slaves of which no nation profited more mightily from the enslavement of displaced Black Africans than the British and its royal family. Of course, Hollywood does not care to get involved because the only sanctioned troubled history that is celebrated by the Academy, is the pain, struggle of Jews in Europe which resulted in the Holocaust. For that reason, it is almost an existential threat to the Academy and Hollywood’s sense of self and entitlement to ever have to acknowledge Black American history in America cinema. Indeed, Hollywood has never even done more than exploit the indigenous American population’s rape and pillage of culture and genocide of a people, because as with Black Americans, it would prove more worthy of American cinematic focus for obvious historic reasons than sectarian European history.

Anything and anyone who remotely threatens Hollywood’s sense of self and its agendum of focussing almost exclusively on the Holocaust with respect to what is deemed disturbing history and worthy of being focussed on and highlighted, is simply cancelled. Good god, look at Tom Cruise in what clearly is sectarian bias, no matter how much of a box office champ and how compelling his acting chops have been, an Oscar continues to elude him. Apart from his blockbuster actions films, all of them, what I love about Tom Cruise is how exquisitely he captures young soul angst with his acting. From Rain Man (1988), to Jerry Maguire (1996) or the exquisitely cinematic, Eyes Wide Shut (1999) the man’s a brilliant actor and no one but a young soul would so daringly do his own stunts in film after film after action film. All this deliberate denial because he is a Scientologist; just imagine if Jews were being so targeted and overlooked by the Academy but there it is in bold, unmistakable reality.

Similarly, James Cameron, a Canadian, is simply not great enough of be imbued with genius such that his towering greatness must be celebrated. In 2009, that society that serves as a paragon of racialised superior consciousness (Britain) and arrogantly so, did not award a single BAFTA to James Cameron’s 1997 film, Titanic though receiving 10 nominations. In America that year with 14 nominations, Titanic was awarded 11 Oscars. As far as Britons are concerned, it is not a British film, therefore they do not care and their grudge and disdain for ‘Yanks’ is all the more reason why Titanic was shut out of the BAFTAs. How is this even possible when there was a direct involvement with Britain with this very real and ground-breaking film? The Titanic did set sail from Britain for America; Britons were lost at sea when the Titanic sank.

Not wanting to seem like an afterthought and god forbid a third-tier awards, on taking over as BAFTA president, Richard Attenborough had the awards moved up to February, post Oscars April or May, thereby preceding the Oscars. This afforded the BAFTAs cachet as they were seen as a forerunner of how the Oscar winners would be determined. In a bid to maintain relevance and continue its role of influence peddling in an American industry, BAFTA has set up a wing in Beverly Hills and had the balls to call it the North American wing; leave Canada out of your influence peddling racket, the objective is to influence the Oscar nominations and winners. Of course, in turn Oscar winners find themselves being afforded the exclusivity of the royal treatment as with Tom Hanks at the Aston Villa game on the eve of the 2023 BAFTAs and Oscar winners Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones being allowed to live in an apartment at St. James’s Palace. So that no one should go getting ideas, she is a Briton and he, of course, is Jewish Hollywood royalty and it certainly would not be extended beyond such persons. Certainly, not when the current BAFTA president and his wife and known anti-Black racists.

Thanks to Britons’ gross sense of entitlement and flagrant superiority complex, they do not care what the world thinks. Their awards criteria and their members decide who is deserving of winning a British award and you can bet it won’t be a damn Yank. From Beyoncé being snubbed at the Grammys in favour of Harry Styles then having the Brit Awards favour Harry Styles over anyone else. This fruity little drip regardless how flagrantly he swishes his AMS (arse-munching ‘stache) and cross-dresses, above all else, he is a White male and he will not be ridiculed by radio DJs the world over. I’ll always remember my proud First Nations brief lover whilst at a pow wow in Merritt, B.C. saying, “Gay people are first and always White people… people like you and me do not count at the end of the day.” Sage words indeed. Look at this silly photo of the flagrant little industry-used manwhore, I am reminded of the swell little, ridiculously hysterical French-Canadian actor friend of Merlin’s. From the moment we met, it was evident that it was merely a matter of time before we would be carrying on like gibbons en chaleur. A friend of his had approached Merlin and asked if I would step in for him whilst he covered elsewhere for someone whose lover was severely ill and dying of AIDS. It was supposed to have lasted all of two, at the most, six weeks.

Standing in for a friend of Merlin’s, dressing on Cats at the Elgin Theatre, was a memorable experience because Jean-François and I would be sharing the same floor backstage as the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical printed money like it was going out of style. Post intermission, JF and I would have the most fun. As all theatre folk are predominantly sage souls, which he was, he was entertainingly witty and given to reciting dialogue from a range of Bette Davis films. Mostly, Lauri whose wife also did wigs and makeup was fun to be around as JF and I carried on. One Wednesday, after matinée performance, JF and I returned to the theatre off the Victoria Street tech entrance. We had just rushed down from the top of the street where it dead ends into Ryerson Polytechnic Institute, which now goes by whatever name du jour. As we returned, we were laughing hysterically which Lauri with a sly wink declared, he could well imagine what trouble we’d been up to. Truth be told, we were detained by aggressive security as JF, Toronto Dance Theatre dancer René Highway who was a lover of Merlin’s who preceded me by at least two others, actor Denis Simpson of TV’s Polka Dot Door were caught in a stall together being riotously salacious. Little did I know that as I banged on the side of the stall, “Oh fuck yeah, put your fucking tongue right there!” there was a security guard in the stall next door spying on us. His radio went off, giving away the plot and to prevent my raucous laughter, Denis began aggressively kissing me. The damage was done though, because before we could scramble out of there, the security guard’s colleague had come to join him as he braced himself against the door in an attempt to have us detained. In no mood to be messed with, I grabbed JF’s half finished Styrofoam cup of coffee and tossed it over the stall door onto the killjoy guard. Though we tried to bolt, his backup had locked us inside. Denis copped hauteur and feigning outrage, demanded to be let out at once as he had nothing to do with any of this. The cheek! Tall, imposingly debonair, just like that Denis abandoned us with René, who never said more than two words at any given time, slithering out with Denis. Merlin said of René, you have a great fuck then afterwards, there’s nothing there; simply no signs of intellect. You can bet your bottom dollar, I howled at his assessment. After too much silly cop-playing nonsense, JF and I were released and told to never set foot on the campus again… as fucking if.

Stage left alcove with Lauri close by, JF fell to his knees, doing a deadpan Bette Davis impersonation from Jezebel, “Arvin. Arvin, I’m on my knees… I’m pleading to you…” All the while he kept looking from my crotch to my face his eyes large and yearning whilst suggestively licking his lips; Lauri’s laughter in the corner almost drowned out the caterwauling coming from onstage. Next, it was my turn to be witty, removing the band that gathered my recently permed hair, my Bette Davis rebuttal came from Cabin in the Cotton as I giggled and replied, “Well, of course, I’d love to hogtie and fuck you silly but I just permed my hair… bye now.” Turning, I made towards Lauri in the alcove whose laughter was continuous and just then, JF put his hand in my hair, making it an unruly mess. With that, he took off rushing to the back and through the door onto Victoria Street with me giving spirited chase. As it was the mid-1980s the street was a darkened affair with the foreboding sight of St. Michael’s Hospital across on the east side of the street. Facing north on the west side on the street, JF squatted on the kerb and began offering his arse whilst I grabbed his hips and soon we both dissolved in laughter, working off the stress from being earlier held hostage by aggressive security up the street.

Of course, today Victoria Street is no longer a deserted affair after dark. Last year, Massey Hall at the southwest corner of Shuter and Victoria streets reopened after 190$m renovations. Of course, it is just in time for the 70th anniversary of the most phenomenal live Jazz concert recording with the famous ‘Salt Peanuts’ performance. To Massey Hall’s rear and half a block down Victoria Street is the back of the Elgin Theatre. The 60-storey Massy Tower condominiums sit on the east side of Yonge Street and two doors north of the Elgin Theatre’s marquee between Queen Street East to the south and Shuter to the north. Jean-François was devastatingly funny and vulgarly laughed at everyone and everything; he was as intimidating as he was diminutive. He favoured me as ours was a physical relationship that was purely fraternal and nothing more than robust, healthy sexual play.

A couple of years after Merlin’s passing, I was then habituated in the Beaches, one of Toronto’s more glorious neighbourhoods which, like Moore Park, is lorded over by the tallest oaks, and bordered to the south by the boardwalk, beach and Lake Ontario beyond, which proves a putrid malodorous cocktail in springtime. The Beaches’ high street is Queen Street East with its noisy 501 streetcars; I then lived just beyond the end of the Queen streetcar loop at Neville Park on the south side of Queen. To the north the Upper Beaches was the tonier part of the neighbourhood with the most commanding views of the city and lake beyond or below. I really loved living there. About that time, in 1991, I received a call with news of Jean-François. I had last seen JF a couple of months earlier as he came by and visited but we didn’t have sex; Merlin was dead of AIDS, which meant that I had unredeemably become perished fruit. Years earlier when we had just moved to Cabbagetown’s 20 Amelia Street, JF dropped by unannounced whilst we visited with chef Gary Martin who was a source of playful raucous man-loving. Having heard about me JF came calling, whilst we visited in the back garden, Merlin cock-sucking a joint, Gary sharing on it, JF lit up a cigarette and offered it as he tried charming me; grabbing his hand at the wrist, I elegantly moved the cigarette away and coolly stated fact, “Sorry, I never suck on anything less than nine and a half inches… ever.” Jean-François tossed his head back and roared and declared that he was besotted. Gary cooked yet another sublime dinner and after, Merlin continued enjoying a joint whilst onlooking at me ploughing Gary who always had to have the large mirror in the hall on the floor to look at himself being ploughed right; Jean-François leapt in and kept his faced hungrily buried between my pumping buttocks.

Luckily, in a big city, you can nicely experience a new incarnation which has positively nothing to do with your previous existence. Soon enough, lovers aplenty were de rigueur and I began exploring my true metier, the world of S&M. For Jean-François, in a bid not to become HIV-infected, he began going after barely legal youth, freshly arrived in the big city and on the make, whom he enticed with his snazzy motorcycle. So it was as JF brought home a couple of straight boys to his lovely apartment above a drugstore along Eglinton Avenue West just west of Upper Forest Hill, his couple of tricks stole his sporty motorcycle after murdering him, cutting off his cock and sticking it into the gash of his slit throat. There unsurprisingly was blood everywhere and my response on hearing the news of JF’s demise, was to have done as he would have, “Well thank god those fucking forensic guys carry a tweezer in their toolbox…” a quip at JF’s tiny, boyish cock. The laughter the friend and I roared, was a fitting tribute to JF and also the only way to have responded to such shocking news of such a violent passing… Jean-François honestly would have appreciated the humour of the situation.

So there was the BAFTA President, Prince William, Prince of Wales with his combustible wife kitted out in her ‘fist-me-now’ black opera gloves, onlooking as Cate Blanchett won best actress BAFTA for TAR, a film which frankly is much ado about fuck-all. It is about her iconic whiteness – her blondness and blue-eyed superiority which is what the Oscars are about; however, when it comes to best actress the BAFTAs afforded the royal seal of approval. Thus Michelle Yeoh sat there at Royal Festival Hall and watched Cate win best actress BAFTA and that was that. Britons do not give a damn; besides, they are royals and all that, never mind that that blasted uncouth boor will break protocol more frequently than a duck shitting, lui même Madame Plotte-Visage, the Courtesan Queen – more of that later.

1. Kerry Condon 2. Dolly De Leon 3. Carey Mulligan 4. Angela Bassett 5. Hong Chau 6. Jamie Lee Curtis

So the BAFTAs decide that this is a good enough field for best supporting actress BAFTAs 2023. Of course, Kerry Condon is not a Yank and is close to being British for being Irish and that’s that. In this pre-Oscars awards, both Angela Bassett and Jamie Lee Curtis were passed over.

1. Cate Blanchett. 2. Viola Davis 3. Michelle Yeoh 4. Danielle Deadwyler 5. Emma Thompson 6. Ana de Armas

With the Oscars, Cate Blanchett who had been favoured was defeated by Michelle Yeoh. Of course, though much was made of Angela Bassett being a sore loser to Jamie Lee Curtis for the best supporting actress Oscar, Jamie Lee won it for two reasons, she is second generation member of a Hollywood acting dynasty; more importantly, she is Jewish and in Hollywood that trumps everything else. With Michelle Yeoh’s historic win, no one dare levelled accusations that it was mere tokenism or some woke agendum.

1. Ana de Armas 2. Andrea Riseborough 3. Cate Blanchett 4. Michelle Williams 5. Michelle Yeoh

For that matter, there was no talk anywhere of Cate Blanchett having been cheated out of her rightful best actress Oscar award. Naturally, the argument is that Black actresses are just not good enough or worthy enough to be cinematically lauded. Of course, Angela Bassett, Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler, in the case of the latter two, they portrayed not just strong Black women but they were also historical figures. This for Hollywood is wholly unacceptable; American history simply cannot expand to cinematically include African Americans. What’s more, avoiding American history at all costs is preferable, this explains why a film like Everything, Everywhere All At Once fared so well at the Oscars, it had positively nothing to do with American history and did not in any way threaten what Hollywood deems the only history worthy of being cinematically celebrated by the Oscars. As the saying goes, in Hollywood – the land of make believe, Shoah business is the only American history worth celebrating… cartographers be damned. And unlike the unpredictability of Jesse Owens’ performance before Hitler in 1936, Hollywood does not real-time events. Hollywood as 1968’s best actress Oscar tie validated, is about manipulating reality to serve its need and one’s heroic place within the culture: better than, special, innately entitled.

Broadway Actor, Audra McDonald

Though Hollywood would like to keep Black actresses oppressed and give the impression that they are not capable of commanding the screen and thus not deserving of Oscars for best actress, that is all challenged by the fact that Audra McDonald, is the most decorated leading actress on Broadway in its history with 6 Tony awards. Naturally, if Audra were an actress in Hollywood, she would never have been considered for any Oscar nomination above supporting actress. Hell, even Viola Davis won best supporting actress Oscar for a role which was always a lead on Broadway and won a Tony award in that category for the play adapted to film, Fences.

Halle Berry Best Actress Oscar Acceptance Speech 74th Academy Awards, 2002

Just look at how Briton, Helen Mirren looks on at Halle Berry during her best actress Oscar acceptance speech in 2002. She was clearly displeased and thought that the award ought not to have gone to some Black upstart, who was making some ridiculous ‘race’ speech or other. There, too, was that blasted little garden gnome whom we know is a favoured inner circle member at the court of the ugly-no-blasted-motherfuck Courtesan Queen, who has time and again made no effort to hide her disinterest in the otiose Persons of Colour the world over.

Maori Dancers Performing Haka at Commonwealth Service, Westminster Abbey, 2023

Just look at the way she walked past the barefooted Maori celebrants outside Westminster Abbey at the Commonwealth Day Service, 2023. It was heart-warming to see the Duchess of Edinburgh bump her left shoulder into HM King Charles III’s right shoulder and humour him as he clearly needed to be pulled away from the displeasure, he no doubt would have been experiencing for being born in the Year of the Rat and disrespected by that blasted Couchon, who has been unrelentingly wrecking the House of Windsor for near half a century. The damage ‘Ugly Duchess’ continues doing to HLM Queen Elizabeth II’s 70-year legacy, is incalculable.

Perception Is All.

The video above is of French colonials in the then French colony of Vietnam. That was in 1900, not 1900 years ago or 19,000 years ago. In less than 6 generations tribal perceptions change little. This is how the White tribe perceives non-Whites with varying degrees of scorn and animus. What most Whites have had to do is aggressively adapt such that this primal perception of their place in the scheme of things, is deeply guarded, camouflaged and made to seem irrelevant. Of course, the power of the gun assures them that this sense of self and place in the scheme of things are little challenged.

Indeed, the House of Windsor has been possessed of this entrenched sense of self and place, in its most recent incarnation, since the reign of Queen Victoria. The two White females tossing grain and coins at the ‘natives’ in Vietnam, were contemporaries of Queen Victoria’s, whose misogynoir was emulated and upheld by Queen Mary who groomed both Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mother and HLM Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Elizabeth II Sharing Racist Anecdote

One should not be surprised at the Queen’s 1969 documentary in which she tells a racist joke, to which Charles heartily laughed. Charles’s heir, rather than son, Peggalicious & Fisted is an avowed anti-Black racist; of course, so too is the Courtesan Queen, who has made no bones about giving no fucks about the otiose little non-White peoples.

Royal Tour 2019: St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Vincent, Grenada, St. Lucia & Barbados

The four minute mark of the above video and on their arrival in St. Vincent, Camilla carries her trusty parapluie and to make sure that she doesn’t have to shake any of the ‘natives’ hands, she carries a handbag in the free hand. This woman is a right piece of work and a true heir of the French colonials tossing grain and coins at the Vietnamese.

Just look at her! Couchon…

The infamous open ridicule of Inuit throat singers, causing Governor-General Johnston to look at her as though she were a lunatic from Mars will not soon be forgotten.

Just Look at the Old Kook; Always Looking As Though She Just Fell Off Her Broom

Her most recent I’ve-no-fucks-left-to-give moment: 2023 Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey. She just walked past the irrelevant persons of colour and of course compensatorilly clutched her hat as though it were Dorothy’s cabin about to take off; as if she’s not always got a broom to hand.

1. Norma Shearer 1930 2. Luise Rainer 1936 & 1937 3. Judy Holliday 1950 4. Simone Signoret 1959 5. Elizabeth Taylor 1960 & 1966 6. Barbra Streisand 1968 7. Marlee Matlin 1986 8. Helen Hunt 1997 9. Gwyneth Paltrow 10. Natalie Portman

There is much that you can glean from the line up of the best actress Oscar winners above. They are an insight into where power lies in Hollywood and one should never be mistaken about that. This power block is whom, much like the two French colonials in 1900 decide what pittance Blacks in American cinema receive. Of course, had 9/11 never occurred, there would have been no need for Halle Berry to have won best actress Oscar in 2002. This was hastily done as there was great fear that if terrorism were to become de rigueur, a guaranteed weekly affair across America, one would need to lay low and not provoke wrath from the American public at large. Of course, by the 76th Oscars two years later, there was no such threat and it has been back to the norm of Black actresses chances of winning best actress Oscar decidedly negligible.

How Like French Colonials in Vietnam, One Tosses A Best Supporting Actress to A Black Actress Now and Again

That Hollywood does not have two fucks to give what it looks like, was validated when in 1968, it was speciously alleged that there was a tie and just as with Gwyneth’s Cinderella Oscar, so too was Barbra Streisand awarded an Oscar because one can and did. Obviously, it is not a question of Black actresses not having acting chops, deserving of best actress Oscar, just as with the French colonials of 1900 Vietnam, Hollywood’s elite have long decided that Black actresses are not deserving of any such accolade; goddamn it, they are just not people enough. Goodness, that would make them more than maids, whores, junkies and dumbasses.

Hollywood as throughout human history, is just another society with its various strata and the one stratum that gets you lifetime membership at LouLou’s, Annabel’s and Maison Estelle is the one that sees you awarded best actress. In the case of best actor Oscar that’ll get you membership at Mark’s, Harry’s and Oswald’s. Alas, Black women need not dream; as Meghan has validated, Black actresses are the one group of actresses who are most undesirable whether for senior royal status or Hollywood’s ruling elite. Don’t ever fool yourself into thinking that Hollywood’s elite are a liberal bunch; they are the most vile, racist, royal sycophants on the planet – this is why Oscar winners Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas live in an apartment at St. James’s Palace. They have wanted in, have gotten in and it’ll all culminate with Prince George marrying a nice Jewish girl – actress or otherwise. It will happen; in the meantime, they – royals and Hollywood elites – have seen to it that Meghan’s Cinderella moment could be undone and how handsomely they toiled and won. It’s a perfect business arrangement, Hollywood wants the exclusivity of royal sanction and access and for the royals and their shitty, third tier BAFTA awards, Brits get Oscars in return for preferred Hollywood elites sitting in the royal box at an Aston Villa game, living at St. James’s Palace and everything else in between, including all the minor meat they favour.

Hell, what’s all that to Harry and Meghan; they’ve got each other and are growing richer in spades with every venture they explore. Meanwhile, when the Pegged & Fisted Bourbon bastard finally gets a divorce, the inarticulate Edward Gorey silent era ingenue will draw on her coalminer pedigree and go full Jerry Springer on the House of Windsor. No Sir, Catherine will not go quietly and doe-eyed like her mother-in-law, Diana, Princess of Wales did. She will fight dirty and shake up the pantomime in ways that not even Hollywood could fathom.

Whether Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards, Oscar Awards or Tony Awards (EGOTs), American awards are about celebrating American culture with the able contribution of American actors and artisans being cited. Clearly, as demonstrated by repeated instances mentioned herein this blog, there is a clear-cut case of influence peddling on the part of the Presidents of BAFTA past and present, resulting in examples cited be it Michael Douglas & Catherine Zeta-Jones Oscar winners living in an apartment at St. James’s Palace to fellow Oscar winner Tom Hanks, being afforded VIP access to Aston Villa matches. If indeed Armenian-Americans were the most powerful group in Hollywood, American Cinema, then there would doubtless be greater inclusivity and all American actresses being celebrated for their work. Indeed, all aspects of American culture would be celebrated in such a paradigm. As is obvious from Viola Davis winning a best supporting actress Oscar for a role which is a leading role, clearly there is a validated case of discrimination and double-standards at play.

Warriors of the High Country

Oil on Canvas

24 x 20

American cinema has to reflect American culture in all its pandimensionality and this is not the case. From the number of British and Jewish actresses who have won best actress Oscars relative to Black and Hispanic/Latina American, there is a definite case for legally challenging the discriminatory practices of the status quo. When is there going to be a film about the human drama that unfolded as a result of the terror attacks on 9/11? When are there going to be historically accurate films, telling the story of Indigenous Americans sacrifices and genocide. Heroic films from varying perspectives have yet to be made that dealt with the human costs of the American civil war. It is incumbent on the actors unions and others in the industry to challenge this discriminatory practice by way of legal action, ACLU, class action lawsuits, hearings in congress and legal action going all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The exclusion of Viola Davis or Danielle Deadwyler at the 95th Oscars is a clear example when they were passed over in favour of a British actress, Andrea Riseborough who appeared in a utterly dismissible film and performance about which no one knew a damn thing. Two Black actresses were passed over at the Oscar nominations for very strong roles where at the BAFTAs they were celebrated by being nominated.

If any practice is an insult to intellect, demonstrates influence peddling and proves a clear-cut case of discrimination based on race and or gender then there is no dearth of lawyers in America, who cannot take on an American actors union class action suit to address and correct so glaring an ugly case of racism in America, to say nothing of that decades long practice being an injustice. Hollywood elites do not fill movie theatres, nor for that matter do Britons seeing American films lead to blockbuster box office results… Americans do! Unlike the Festival International du Film Cannes and Toronto International Film Festival, the Academy Awards, despite tacking on international to the name, is not an international film festival. Furthermore, the Academy Awards are an American film awards and not obliged to be featuring and awarding prizes to Britons as the awards have become. If you want an Oscar then damn well choose to reincarnate an American. Period. Just as if you want to be elected American President, the onus is on you to choose to reincarnate an American born citizen. The House of Windsor has no right to be wielding influence on the Oscars or any other aspect of American society; a damn war was fought and won about being bullied and over-lorded by Britons and their royals. If this is not challenged in due course, the problem of Black actresses being passed over in favour will endure for the foreseeable decades of this century and well into the next. Of course, if Blacks protest this, Hollywood’s elites in collusion with the British royals will simply see to it that all many of non-Black non-Whites will suddenly be favoured and awarded Oscars.

Brits Are Not Played Off At An American Awards, Or Are the Academy Awards Exclusively An American Awards?

Darling, the rules are very clear; if you don’t like Black people, fuck you!

Samara Joy live in NYC [full concert] | Trinity Church Wall Street | Nov 8, 2022

Samara Joy – Vocals

Ben Paterson – Piano

Felix Moseholm – Bass

Evan Sherman – Drums

At long last, a griot of the highest order has incarnated among us; long live Black high art, Jazz!

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As ever, life is like a flying dream; if you look down, you’re fucked. Enjoy the ride and fear no one!

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Rudolf Nureyev & Lee Radziwill

February 17, 2019November 13, 2022 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

These next dreams occurred on my birthday; yes, I am leonine to the core. It was my first birthday whilst living in Vancouver, British Columbia. At the time, I was returned to the city after having been off with Frederick Hinneault^†, my two-spirit lover du jour who introduced me to the wonderful, spiritually evolved world of powwows and more.

I met Frederick as a result of the dream on summer solstice, 1994, some weeks earlier. That dream, of course, is shared herein on March 3, 2013. It was an uplifting dream and one which fittingly introduced me to Frederick.

More than that, of the six dreams the one of interest is of an astral plane encounter with dancer, Rudolf Nureyev at his Louvre apartments. This, of course, was dreamt after his passing.

The dreams were dreamt with focussed abandon on Tuesday – same day of the week as at my birth – August 2, 1994. At the time, the Moon was transiting Gemini and correspondingly my first house.

Joop happens to be my oldest friend and the only friend/lover with whom I have never had a fight or falling out which is no small feat when it comes to my thoroughly engaged passion mode which can be intensely overwhelming – what with this being my third life at seventh level mature and the fact that I am a combustible mix of warrior and priest indefatigable zeal… sixth position in third cadence, third greater cadence of entity six and cadre one of greater cadre 7, pod 414… of course, being a sceptic means that I will very callously – thanks in part to my Venus-Uranus conjunction – tell you to go fuck yourself in two nanoseconds – used to be with a cool and cutting look in my 20s; now, I just do so with inordinate impatience or charmed vituperativeness depending on my moody artisan prerogative.

Obviously, I am reposting these dreams now as a tribute to Lee Radziwill-Ross who recently passed. Hers was, at least from afar, a truly aristocratic, iconic American life.

*At midnight, I took to the pyramid where I meditated for quite some time or at least had intended to. The phone rang at quarter past as Joop van der Pelster^† called to wish me happy birthday.

We shared a really lovely moment of great intimacy. I would then decline returning to the pyramid. Instead, I took to the bed and continued meditating.

Lying on my back, with lids closed, I felt after some time rather opened up and expansive. Then my inner vision became focussed and things began unfolding; so, here then is what I experienced.

Again, for the record, I had not done any drugs prior to this experience as I do not do drugs. Period.

I saw a large container coming, through the air, towards me. Turning around, it shifted and then opened up to reveal a large tunnel that was yellow-red hot-looking.

Contained in the rust-coloured container, it was a flame of light. The only way that I can describe the container’s unfoldment is by drawing an analogy to the protective lens panels on the Hubble space telescope opening up to focus on a point in space.

There was something inside the container which had a round aperture. Growing cautious, I had thought that it was possibly a snake.

However, I then felt myself being quieted into being less hasty to project. My voice to self, during this interval, was almost like Merlin’s at those times – when he would say or do exactly the same thing and encourage me to be open to potentials.

Thoughts of the container being there to suck away my life-force were, of course, premature. There was no way to get around the fact that this large container had a magnetic quality to it; it was almost, if you will, a giant vacuum.

I did not have a sense that it was sending me light energies. Instead of protesting anything, I decided to bleed all the bile within into the container. The container really did look like a gaping hole.

The mouth kept on shifting; yet, on the inside of the container’s mouth, the light was brilliantly red. Then I saw some stray wafer thin waves of energy leaving my body.

As though made of solidified carbon dioxide, they slowly radiated outwards. They left my aura and headed into the same opened up container. I was pleased to see it and, as it were, decided to go with the flow.

I then focussed on letting all spent energies, which were not of the highest nature, be allowed to become disengaged with my corporeal being and waste away – truly spent.

I thought of all the bile that has collected in my body, from so many clung-to painful life experiences. Mostly, this had to do with neutralising the shrapnel that had been psychically projected onto me for being here, in this archly hostile place – this racist black hole work environment here in phenomenally beautiful Vancouver.

I wanted all my fears of ill health and lack of certainty to be dissolved; I wanted it discarded into this large container. This was great meditative and healing work.

The presence – the force of the container was massive. It was as if a black hole had warped space and bled its way through to being close to Sol. Thus, it allowed for this energetic work to take place.

This experience endured, for quite some time, without me once falling asleep… unusually enough. When it was done, I managed to crack my back and got as many vertebrae realigned as when being adjusted by my chiropractor.

This was effortless and really productive. So relaxed was I that I had even been able to crack my neck. I felt truly yogic, relaxed and all expansive. After having manipulated my vertebrae, I returned to meditation and did some deep-breathing exercises.

When my inner vision resumed, everything was completely different. Now I was instantaneously flooded with a deluge of intense white light. A container had approach and, on opening up, produced the flood of white light.

This light was so intense, its beauty so uplifting, as to make it almost too sacred as to have been experienced whilst incarnate. Nonetheless, there you have it, we are here to spiritually get the most out of our journey.

The light was such a glorious experience, its touch a longed for aqueous, silken movement. Being able to experience this light was so very healing and uplifting as well. I was really rather impressed by it all such that I simply further let go and fell into sleep. END.

In this the first dream, I was on the veranda of a very tropical house. It also seemed to have been connected to a back alley. There was a van coming down the road which was to my left.

As it sneaked along, I suddenly didn’t have a very good feeling about this van and its occupants. The main entrance to the house was to my right. The road, on which the van progressed, was a back road.

With the backs of the houses visible as they faced out to the main road beyond, there were larger roads close by. Though I had no idea who was in the van, I had stealthily ducked out of view at the last moment.

A little while later, in the opposite direction from left to right, a car came by bearing Vanessa Banks-Abella^†. There and then she was thrilled to see me and excitedly called out,

“Boy what are you doing up there? What are you still doing up at this time of night?”

I told her that I was reading over my notes as I tried properly recording my dreams. Surprised, she claimed disbelief at my still being focussed on recording the dreamtime’s experiences.

“Well wha ah goin stop fa?”

She then asked me to make sure that those kids – hers and others, stayed in the house. I could see her plainly because the car was a convertible. She then had to be off for an engagement.

I suppose that the house would have been hers. I then went around making sure that all the locks on the doors operated properly. In one instance, one had to push a latch to further secure it from the inside.

When the latch was in place, there was no way to open that particular door. I had been concerned that the latch was in place once the children were all indoors.

The door had been opened and I didn’t want any of them to get outside then not be able to get back in. So, for starters, I rounded them all up and made sure that they were inside and left things at that.

Here, too, there were lots of video games both on the veranda, and scattered about the living room. A very cluttered and noisy affair – Vanessa Banks-Abella and William Abella do have three boys, plus their peers, who were over to hang out.

I enjoyed listening to them noisily.

I had an encounter with Isha da Braga, in this the second dream, in which I asked what she had been discussing with Marc-André Viaux. I wanted to know if he had told her what my HIV status was.

Obviously uncomfortable, by being very evasive, she brushed off the line of questioning. She said that it would be more appropriate for me to directly speak to him than go through her.

She simply did not care to get involved. It was obvious though that she didn’t want to have to get involved. Too, it was obvious from her neurotic unsteady eye movements that she knew more than she was letting on to.

For my sake, I simply did not want to become HIV infected. I was in my darkened apartment, here in Vancouver, whilst speaking to Isha da Braga on the phone.

I could see her clearly in her Toronto condo as though we were face-to-face. She could see me too and, for that reason, was avoiding eye contact. A very lucid psychic connection this was.

This, the third dream, was set outdoors at night time. I noticed that there was a barre in the middle of the street. As they drove past, persons slowed down to observe.

I was near the back of the barre and felt really strong. Not only was my technique good but my breathing was really relaxed and expansive. I was quite so well grounded.

We had to do the tendus in plié. Maria de Cortez, the Mestiza, was taking the class as well. The female instructor told us what to do. Then she let the left side of her face rub against my right jeaned thigh.

The right foot was pointed in tendu to fifth position in front. At the time, I was in plié. She did this out of admiration of me. I was flattered though concerned that my jeans which were soiled could possibly be a tad malodorous.

She could not have cared less as she wanted to pay me homage. We then did the battements tendus which incorporated a flick that was reminiscent of a coupé. Four times this was done, en croix, then repeated to the other side.

Naturally, when we had turned around to do the exercises at the barre, I had end up being at the front of the line. There were port de bras that accompanied this very rapidly executed tendu exercise.

Maria de Cortez had the port de bras down pat; I really admired her grace and focus. She and I were the only ones who were confident in our movements.

On the sous-sous to turn around, I then did a passé which I held indefinitely before closing, in plié, in fifth position at the end. My turn out was rather elastic and supple.

Here, I was wearing a pair of red legwarmers. When doing the tendus en avant, my arms were up in fifth whilst I looked under the arm. In second position the head was inclined up and outwards.

En arrière, if the arm was kept in second position, one looked below the arm with head inclined forward and down. Furthermore, there was the option of holding the arm in second position arabesque.

During the exercise, the instructor walked past and touched my arm when in fifth position. My port de bras was perfect. My alignment and posture were perfect.

I felt completely on my supporting leg and properly aligned. I felt rather elongated and princely. However, the nature of the discipline was such that she felt it incumbent on her to come by and break me down to size.

It was a way of pushing you to always strive for greater mastery of the technique. Too, it was a way of her saying that I should not have been so advanced yet.

There was a sense, on a personal level, that she almost resented my refinement. I could not have cared less; I was too connected to spirit and the light within to have become thrown by her intervention.

She took her leave of me as her tactics were to moot effect.

An encounter, in this the fourth dream, I would have with a woman who was rather like, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. She was an aristocrat and was quite concerned in nature about being loyal.

She had been the only one to have stayed with Rudolf Nureyev, until the very end, as he suffered from AIDS. This woman, whoever she was, had been the one to have gotten him to stop being in denial of his illness.

She managed to have gotten him to stop drinking, to excess, as he suffered a breakdown of his character. He turned into a literal vagabond about his very opulent, finely decorated Paris apartment.

Perseveringly, she had succeeded in getting him to rein things in. Too, in preparation of his death, she was instrumental in getting him to focus in on his spirituality.

At the time, she was trying to get him sequestered into a place where I was following up on her efforts. I saw Rudolf Nureyev and he did so look as though he were suffering from AIDS dementia.

Though he was standing up at the time, he really didn’t seem strong enough to be doing anything so taxing. There was no way to get around that this man was gravely ill.

His face was ashen, gaunt and his sagging skin left his eyes really large possessed-looking orbs. He wore a narrow-rimmed little hat, from that era in this century, when men customarily wore hats; his hat was not a broad-rimmed affair.

The doyenne went up these stairs, in a very lavish opulent building, that was so very empire and distinctively Parisienne. The stairs inside the foyer led up to a large museum where there was an art exhibit.

The paintings here were rather large. I helped her carry him up the stairs. In a bid to not attract attention, she had turned her back as if looking at a piece of art; it was a tiny drawing.

She did not want the public to notice her; she just wanted to be inspired as a way of recharging her batteries. Rudolf Nureyev was there but by himself.

We had struggled up the stairs, both of us on either side of him, supporting him just ahead of his elbows as his arms were bent at the elbows. I was across the way from them and being silently observant of them both.

There was a path that one could take diagonally to another wing. We had silently managed to slip the birdlike yet regal Rudolf Nureyev into the next wing; there, the space was smaller than the previous salon.

The floors here were of a rough marble that made for a noisy gallery as shoes marched across them. It was though a wonderful light-entrapping interior where the colours were pale and soothing.

Thus the walls enlivened whatever natural light made its way so far indoors. There was no direct natural light here, however, the soft tones of the walls left the place light rather than subdued.

The museum’s salon was rather beautifully laid out. As we walked down to another man, I noticed an African man who was clearly an exchange student.

He had some equipment; he was an arts student of some sort. The gear that he carried was a measuring instrument of some type. It seemed to be a surveyor’s gear or a mini telescope of some sort.

The aristocratic woman was deeply concerned about this. She thought that for using the instrument that he would be able to recognise Rudolf Nureyev who was fairly well-disguised.

She seemed too to be concerned that he might just recognise her which she did not want. She did though seem to be, the more time that I spent near her, to be Lee Radziwill-Ross and not her sister, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

There were times when she seemed to be Elizabeth Taylor. However, this woman was a born aristocrat and was dark-eyed. She also spoke fluent French which I don’t think that Elizabeth Taylor does.

Besides, I don’t think that Elizabeth Taylor was that close to Rudolf Nureyev. This person was an aristocratic arts enthusiast, who was also a patron of the ballet, which sounds more like the Auchincloss sisters, Jacqueline and Caroline (Lee) rather than Elizabeth Taylor.

Besides, these two were so close towards the end because it turned out that they had a soul connection. Not only did they have several past lives together but it would seem that they shared a close connection that bespoke being cadre mates.

She was in his life to spiritually help him. She wanted him to become focussed such that he would pass with some degree of dignity and be able to move on. This was something that one did for being of the same spiritual tribe or, in this case, cadre.

Finally, the African student, a tall East African Nubian, with richly dark skin did not recognise either of them. He was a deeply introspective Scholar soul who just didn’t focus beyond the object of study which presently happened to have had nothing to do with them.

Both Rudolf Nureyev and his aristocratic confidante were rather pleased that the African had not recognised them and tried to interact with them. I was rather observant of everything whilst with them.

Though I helped out, I was never intrusive and remained at times as though not a part of their party. She had needed me to come in, from time to time, and be of assistance but then I had become nonexistent as this was how she was accustomed to relating to help.

For both of them, being in this place was like a way of staying grounded and inspired. What’s more, this museum was connected to where Rudolf Nureyev lived.

This happened to be the case, in the waking state, as Rudolf Nureyev did have apartments which were a part of the Palais du Louvre – the majority of which houses the Musée du Louvre.

This was supposed to be his last visit to the museum. He had been actually cutting through it whilst en route to his apartments. This was a section of the Louvre where there were lots of prints and architectural drawings.

These salons, however, were not normally opened to the general public it would seem. Members of the diplomatic corps, the very wealthy the world over, could be invited to view these exceptionally rare prints.

It would seem that some of them were Leonardo da Vinci prints. The collection was considerably vaster than the prints that are on display in that wing that is close to the River Seine.

This wing of the museum did feel like it was closer to the Rue de Rivoli. Including Rudolf Nureyev’s, this would also be the wing of the Palais du Louvre where the exclusive apartments are.

I was hoping, in this the fifth dream, to get directions to some place that I had never been to before. There was a woman on the phone telling me where to meet her.

She said that she would be at a kiosk by way of the A1, at the Bay department store. This was here in Vancouver. I was then over on West Georgia Street, on the south side, east of Seymour Street.

Yet, I never saw her anywhere so soon became concerned. I could not quite figure out, why she would want to meet at the Bay. It did though contain the Granville Street Skytrain stop – the city centre’s major hub.

Then I thought that it was by the entrance to the Skytrain; she had said that the kiosk was close to the ‘A’ doors. She had said that she actually worked at the Bay department store so could meet me there.

I thought that, perhaps, it was at the doors by the Granville Street Skytrain entrance. There was, it turned out, no kiosk there nor had I seen her at the Seymour Street entrance. So I returned and went across Georgia to ask further directions.

Later, when she did point it out to me, I saw that it was at the northwest corner of Seymour and West Georgia Streets. Here, things were set up differently to the waking state. There was an overhang.

The side of the building, where the display stood, was cutaway and here in the dreamtime painted blue. Large television screens and other television studio paraphernalia were present.

They were interactive and gave directions to the public. The woman, who had been on the phone whom I was supposed to have met, I then saw across the street on the north side of West Georgia Street.

There was an island in the middle of West Georgia Street reminiscent of Toronto’s University Avenue. I walked along the island going westerly and towards Granville Street.

I saw three Black women with long braided extensions who looked rather well turned out. On seeing them, surprised to see Blacks here in Vancouver, I grew self-conscious.

As compared to being in Toronto, it was such a rare occurrence seeing Blacks locally. Seeing me, they totally scuffed at the eccentric, outré look of me. I could not have cared less about their fake-arsed weave-headed self-loathing idiocy.

One of them had blonde streaks in her hair. Though not High-Yellow they were light-complected and clearly of mixed parentage, perhaps, a generation removed.

All three were of mixed familial heritage in the past, with Whites, and were possibly related. They were very cliquish that way that young women can be.

I did notice in the blue schemata, over by the overgrowth next to the Scotia Tower, there was an opening where there was more blue. This opening up which created a break in the Scotia Tower complex does not exist in the waking state.

A guy was there who was genuinely, archly even, eccentric. This man immediately reminded me of Daryll Newcombe^†. On his head he wore a tiny blue and white umbrella.

A striped affair with slats in it, it looked much like a propeller which he could use to take off à la Mary Poppins. Terribly eccentric, he was and just the sort of thing that one could expect of Daryll Newcombe.

I kept on moving along the island, going westwards, on the wider-than-in-the-waking-state West Georgia Street.

Eventually, in this the sixth dream, I came to the end of the land. I looked out to sea past two jetties that were quite built up. I was high up from the water and with me was a Black man; he was young.

I rather liked his energies. One of the jetties doubled as a wharf in this deep-water harbour. Though it seemed fairly tropical here, I was certain that it was not St. Kitts.

Standing to the rear of my Black companion, there was a wall to my left. Though not grey out, it was also not bright and sunny either. The land went out to the left more and formed a peninsula.

I had a pair of binoculars which I used to try and find the second jetty. I was trying to find the large ship; it was a navy vessel rather than a tourist cruise liner. The ship was rather large.

However, I couldn’t find the bloody thing to be able to have surveilled the deck of the ship. All that I could find was the steely grey of the cold-looking sea. Never did I get to find the vessel with the binoculars.

Soon enough, I was otherwise engaged as a jetliner came into view. It flew from right to left whilst headed for an airport. There were times when this place did feel as if some part of Basseterre, St. Kitts.

This was definitely a Tri-Star L1011 aircraft. Wide-bodied with some red in the schemata worked into the tail and the third engine – which sits atop the back of the fuselage and beneath the tail.

Coming in to land, the plane cut quite a majestic line. The plane travelled unusually slowly which caused me some concern. My companion, though, assured me that he was just making its final approach for the airport. This didn’t seem to be the case to me; for this reason, I asked him when then was it going to deploy its landing gear.

The craft at that point was dangerously close to the ground. It did eventually initiate the deployment of the landing gear. Moving away the binoculars, it did seem to my eyes that the flaps had not opened sufficiently to enable the wheels to drop.

Replacing the binoculars confirmed my suspicions. Still following its progress through the binoculars, the plane then began turning to the left. It was seemingly a standard manoeuvre at that point in all approaching flights to the nearby airport to our rear.

To compensate for having dipped too much, the right wing sharply tipped – in a bid to prevent it from curving too close to the sea. With that, the plane went into a sudden nose dive and landed on the shore of a black volcanic beach.

Skidding in the sand, the plane travelled some distance breaking against the wet sand. The waves were gently crashing ashore; it was not at all a rough sea. I drew my companion’s attention to the fact that the tide began suddenly changing.

This I pointed out was good as it allowed the plane not to move into the water. The craft was veering off towards the right, rather than left, wing. My companion, however, was not the least bit concerned about the plane’s supposed crash landing.

Meanwhile, no one seemed to be the least bit scared. Too, no one was screaming at the unscheduled landing. At one point, the plane’s nose fell downwards and kicked up lots of sand as it dug in whilst barrelling its way along the beach.

It was a muddy consistency as the sand was still fairly wet; it eventually covered the entire plane in a wet sheen of black sand. Ultimately, after having made a sharp left turn facing towards the land, the crashed craft came to a stop.

The rear end of the fuselage was being partially covered by the sea. Still, the tides receded some more and at which point a group of us began rushing down from the cliff to the shore below. We were keen to investigate the crash.

Not knowing what next would happen, I hung back as I feared the worst case scenario of the plane possibly exploding in a massive fireball. A little bit to the rear, and right of the plane the ocean floor dropped off, suddenly.

Beyond that, the ocean had receded to beyond 100 yards. Stranger still, from beyond the receded cover of the ocean up to the plateau came a procession of persons.

There was no mistaking the fact that they came from the ocean. The look of these people was decidedly Oriental. Clearly, they were rushing to the aircraft to try and help pry the bodies or passengers from the crash.

They were there to help out in this emergency situation but there was no getting around the fact that they lived in the ocean. Though wet, they seemed not the least bit affected by the wetness or the cool temperatures of the water.

From my vantage point, high up on the beach, I saw that the aircraft had opened up an emergency exit shoot. Instantaneously, all these bodies came popping out of the craft. This was a horrific sight. Truly it was.

Everyone in the airplane was doused and appeared as if made from rubber. Also, one feature that they all had was that their eyes had popped.

Their mouths were wide-open in the same horrific arrested scream as in the Edvard Munch canvas, The Scream. Clearly, their deaths had been horrific and their final expressions were frozen in death.

Too, from their mouths poured what appeared to be the small intestines, brain matter or lung tissue. They had vomited a great deal. Obviously, from this, one could deduce that the airplane’s cabin had suddenly depressurised.

I got the sense at that point, at which I saw it coming down to land, the entire group – passengers and crew – had already died whilst at greater altitudes. The plane was simply flying itself in on autopilot.

The landing gear failing to deploy was another indicator that the entire crew had died before they had gotten so close to landing the craft. The bodies were all squashed, and atop one another, as though they had been banged around at high altitudes, during the flight.

It was all very sad. Then I noticed a stout woman trying to shove her way free of the craft but the listless bodies proved a formidable obstacle. Eventually, I noticed that there were others who wanted to make their way free of the crashed airline.

These survivors were in a state of shock, not surprisingly, and screaming their heads off. As a matter of fact, they seemed on the verge of savagery in a bid to shake free of the bloated exploded, rubbery-looking bodies that were piled everywhere and obstructed their escape.

One stout woman appeared to be in the process of being birthed by the clamor of dead rubbery bodies piled thick, pouring through the mouth of the escape hatch.

The look of the piled up bodies was tantamount to toothpaste being forcefully squeezed from a tube. Once halfway out of this macabre birthing canal, the woman then turned around.

What seemed like a bid on her part to free her body, from the tangle of listless bloated limbs, proved a bid on her part to pull others free who were struggling to make it out after her.

This was quite the grotesque spectacle. By this time, some of the people began making it onto the beach rooftop from which I had safely been on looking. For fear that the airplane may yet explode in a sudden fireball, I was still cautious about getting any closer.

The rooftop was not especially large. A Black woman came out sometime after the stout woman. She looked completely dazed, and just out of it, as though she were still on the astral plane whilst her body clambered and struggled of sheer instinct.

Truly exhausted, she – like all the others – was covered in a white substance that looked much like rice or stringy pasta. This was a very lucid experience. As much as I wanted to turn away, I simply couldn’t. It was way too garish.

As much as I wanted to turn away from this horrific sight, I was magnetised to its surreal unfoldment. Truly horrific was the experience vicariously. Eventually, the Black woman made it from the aircraft and then came up onto the rooftop with the rest of the crash survivors.

Laying there on her side, as though she were looking for the solace of the womb’s protection, her legs were drawn up foetally. Clearly, she was in retreat. Too, she was experiencing a great deal of abdominal pains.

I had a glass of ginger ale or some such soda. Kneeling down before the Black woman, she rolled over onto her back and rocked herself back and forth whilst writhing with pain.

Pandora da Braga was also here, incidentally, as an observer. She seemed fairly numbed by all the devastation here. In any event, the Black woman wore a brown floral printed dress that was soaked.

The smell of gastro-intestinal acids was rife and stifled the briny sting of the ocean. A sour smell it was. Holding the Black female survivor by the right hand, I bled my very life-force into her and soothed her spirit with the quiet whisper of cooing reassurances.

I told her that it was all up to her that if she wanted to she could definitely survive the ordeal. Too, I let her know that she was merely in a state of shock. As we were all right there for her, there was no need for her to panic anymore.

Important too, I thought, to seek out someone who was Black to comfort her. After all, over the course of her life, the stresses of all-pervasive racism are so Real that her tolerance threshold was already considerably diminished.

She needed not to have been abandoned. I knew how important it was for her to feel not to be passed over, as is socially customary, in this hour of need. There weren’t, anyway, White survivors up on the rooftop.

I felt that it was important to stay there and give my support, rather than run off, lending my energies to the others who were exclusively White.

However, there was one woman in all of this who was beginning to go hysterical; her child was being administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Ridiculously, this idiotic Black woman began screaming at the man to stop kissing her child. How dare he put his mouth on her child’s? This was all a part of her denial – the state of shock into which she had been catapulted with the high altitude incident that had led to the crash.

She had had to be restrained. I gave the glass of ginger ale to the other Black woman and then went over, with Pandora da Braga, to pacify the mother. The mother wore a brownish-red floral-printed dress.

As the others worked frantically, in a bid to resuscitate her, the child was very limp. Then she went stark raving mad, all bug-eyed, saying to whomever off in the indeterminate distance,

“I know it, you know. Ah goin’ sue dey ass! As soon as Donna Summer announced that we were going to crash, that’s de firss ting ah say. ‘Ah goin’ sue dey ass!’”

Similarly dark-skinned, this woman so much reminded me of Dian Mason. She was, in both senses of the word, truly hysterical. Then she added, licking her lips frantically, and looking so distinctively West Indian,

“Boy, yu wait! If ah live, ah goin’ sue dey f-ing mudderscunt…”

This woman proved the point of one of the most hysterical dream experiences in ages. Offering up some reassurance, I told her that she had to calm down and not get herself too agitated.

I told her that she simply had to focus on calming her nerves. If the child were to survive then she needed to focus instead on the child and not her issues, to which she answered,

“Boy, hush yu damn ass!”

She went wild with rage at my suggestions. Then she turned on Pandora da Braga and made threats of her whilst insisting that it was Pandora’s fault why all of this had happened.

According to her, it had been Pandora da Braga’s idea that she take the bloody flight. Threatening to beat her up, she pounced towards an unflinching Pandora da Braga. And she was a tall woman too, much like Jan Hartley.

With that I leapt in between her and Pandora da Braga, squaring off with her, meeting her eyeball for eyeball as I hissed at her,

“Watch your fucking mudderscunt!”

I was deadly ferocious; my intensity was more than she could withstand. This diffused and centered her energies; she was the first to flinch then stand back.

There was positively no way that anyone was going to attack Pandora da Braga once I was around or alive. The tension diffused, I watched her back as she walked away to go look after her daughter.

There was then a woman, down off the rooftop, to the left of where we stood. Looking down at her intently, she was a somehow familiar Black woman.

It was as though I was supposed to have known who she was. Perhaps, I had encountered her years earlier in a dream. Perhaps, she was from another time… another life.

At the time, everyone was laying blame at Donna Summer’s door. Apparently, the chartered flight had been organised by Donna Summer. The entertainer was headlining at a resort which was a partly owned business venture of hers.

The discussion was about who exactly was karmically responsible for the crash and the number of persons who had lost their lives as a result. The woman down below was there to keep score of everything: who had been lucky enough to survive, who had not.

Also, she sought to learn the severities of the injuries sustained by the survivors. Her record keeping was also on the order of keeping akashic score of who owed who karma in this multidimensional group dilemma of sorts.

She was rather officious and adroit.

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Dreams are the poetic expression of the soul.

Tag: #MaryPoppins

Theft of the American Crown Jewels…

Rudolf Nureyev & Lee Radziwill