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George Harrison: Hare Krishna Comedy Writer

May 242013

George Harrison and Hare Krishna devotees

In his 1982 interview with Contemporary Vedic Library Series editor Mukunda Goswami, excerpted in the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust publication Chant and Be Happy: The Power of Mantra Meditation (2010, p. 11), George Harrison discusses the Maha Mantra Hare Krishna in terms of television sketch comedy.

Mukunda: Some people say that if everyone on the planet chanted Hare Krishna they wouldn’t be able to keep their minds on what they were doing. In other words, some people ask that if everyone started chanting, wouldn’t the whole world just grind to a halt? They wonder if people would stop working in factories, for example.

George: No. Chanting doesn’t stop you from being creative or productive. It actually helps you concentrate. I think this would make a great sketch for television: imagine all the workers on the Ford assembly line in Detroit, all of them chanting Hare Krishna Hare Krishna while bolting on the wheels. Now that would be wonderful. It might help out the auto industry, and probably there would be more decent cars too.

George Harrison on the Maha-Mantra

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May 242013

The International Hare Krishna Movement (the movement of people achieving transcendental consciousness through the chanting and singing of the “Maha-Mantra” Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare: praise for the Sacred Joy of the Hindu Deity Krishna) is actually a very New York phenomenon, as Srila Prabhupada (the man divinely directed to teach Krishna Consciousness to the West) chose NYC’s Tompkins Square Park as the base to begin his mission. Because of this one man’s dedication to a spiritual vision, the Holy Mantra is established across the globe, attracting innumerable devotees- including George Harrison, of the Beatles. In 1982, Mr. Harrison recorded an interview with Contemporary Vedic Library Series editor Mukunda Goswami, discussing the changes that chanting Hare Krishna had brought to his life; the influence it had on his music; and his relationship with Srila Prabhupada. The interview is excerpted in The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust publication Chant and Be Happy: The Power of Mantra Meditation (2010, p. 1).

Mukunda: What is it about the mantra that brings about this feeling of peace and happiness?

George: The word Hare is the word that calls upon the energy that’s around the Lord [Krishna]. If you say the mantra enough, you build up an identification with [Krishna]. [Krishna's] all happiness, all bliss, and by chanting His names, we connect with Him. So it’s really a process of actually having a realization of God [Krishna], which all becomes clear with the expanded state of consciousness that develops when you chant.

Mukunda: Is it an instantaneous process, or gradual?

George: You don’t get it in five minutes. It’s something that takes time, but it works because it’s a direct process of attaining God [Krishna] and will help us to have pure consciousness and good perception that is above the normal, everyday state of consciousness.

Mukunda: How do you feel after chanting for a long time?

George: In the life I lead, I find that I sometimes have opportunities when I can really get going at it, and the more I do it, I find the harder it is to stop, and I don’t want to lose the feeling it gives me.

For example, once I chanted the Hare Krishna mantra all the way from France to Portugal, nonstop. I drove for about twenty-three hours and chanted all the way. It gets you feeling a bit invincible. The funny thing was that I didn’t even know where I was going. I mean I had brought a map, and I knew basically which way I was aiming, but I couldn’t speak French, Spanish, or Portuguese. But none of that seemed to matter. You know, once you get chanting, then things start to happen transcendentally.

Dragon Night on the PTN

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May 222013

Following the example set by Catland Books, the newest metaphysical store in New York, in conceiving what Unicorn Movie Night might look like once the Pagan Television Network (PTN) is up and running, I began to put together ideas for Dragon Movie Night: dragons being arguably the quintessential mythic Pagan creatures, before even unicorns, centaurs, and mermaids.

Film special effects had to catch up to the mythic possibilities of the dragon, for “Dragon movies” (movies that

Dragonslayer’s Dragon

feature a dragon in some important way) to become pleasingly viable. The producers of 1981′s Dragonslayer took inspiration from Disney’s animated short The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (itself an almost ideally realized Magickal work), augmented with research on St.George and the Dragon. The resulting film is practically a perfect Pagan fantasy adventure, set in the 6th century and featuring a Wizard, his apprentice, visionary prophecies, magic amulets, enchanted spears, and miraculous resurrection (with the brilliant British actor Ralph Richardson in one of his last film roles). The effects work was state-of-the-art for its time, involving a hydraulic model and puppets for the titular dragon; if it looks a little dated now, so does the original King Kong, which nonetheless keeps its mythic power. The creature has the evocative name of Vermithrax Pejorative (putting “vermin” together with “anthrax” is pretty clever; the “pejorative” on the end really sells it), and the movie attains elegiac status in depicting the medieval age “when wizards and dragons were finished.”

CGI-effects replaced animatronic replicas, and so 1996′s Dragonheart followed the same processes used to

Dragonheart’s Dragon

create the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. The inspiration was the idea of a “buddy” film that featured a medieval knight and a dragon (naturally, the last in the world; something about dragon movies is always drawn to the notion of the “last dragon”). In an amusing twist, the knight and the mythic monster con villagers with staged “dragon slayings”; the beast possesses Magickal powers, though, as a piece of his “dragon heart” saves the life of a young prince (who alas, grows up to be a tyrannical king), creating a symbiotic link between the two. Voiced by Sean Connery and modeled upon Chinese dragons, Dragonheart’s ”Draco” has an independent personality in addition to a name (Latin for “dragon,” but chosen in reference to the northern star constellation); in an act of celestial rebirth, Draco becomes a star in the constellation following his death at the movie’s end. A fanciful fantasy, Dragonheart (like Dragonslayer) would make a good first-feature on the Pagan Television Network’s Pagan-Family Dragon-Movie Night.

2002′s Reign of Fire, however, is a much darker film, unique for being set in an apocalyptic future as opposed to the medieval past- an apocalypse wrought by the resurrection of legendary dragons. The movie opens right after the turn-of-the-millennium (remember the turn-of-the-millennium?), when workers on the London Underground (the London subway) awaken a dragon which has been in hibernation after hundreds of years. This unleashes a new scourge of the fearsome creatures which terrified the Middle Ages, plunging the world into another Dark Ages chaos (Reign of Fire is a bit like Mad Max with dragons); Christian Bale has adopted a boy orphaned by the rampaging beasts, and organizes a small community of survivors (a charming sequence shows the adults entertaining the kids with a bedtime drama that is recognized as the confrontation between Luke and Darth Vader at the end of The Empire Strikes Back); Matthew McConaughey shows up as a road-warrior dragon-hunter, and the battle for humanity’s survival is underway. There are questions of logic in the film: can dragons really hibernate for centuries? can a single reawakened dragon really reproduce into a force that can plunge modernity into a bleak dystopia? can a single male dragon really sire an entire dragon population? All of that notwithstanding, it is interesting to see London as a disaster site (as opposed to New York), and shots of a deserted London ruled by dragons are chilling. Reign of Fire may not make a lot of sense if you think about it too much, but is exciting and fun all the same.

Since then, we have seen 2006′s Eragon, a medievalist fantasy about a boy bonding with a pet dragon; the dragons of the Triwizard Tournament in 2005′s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; the animated dragon in 2010′s DreamWorks production How To Train Your Dragon (about a young Viking dragon-slayer-in-training who befriends a dragon instead); and soon, arguably the most famous dragon in the fantasy genre, Smaug in the upcoming movie of The Hobbit. In addition there is the fascinating “docufiction” called Dragon’s World: A Fantasy Made Real (also titled “The Last Dragon”); to say nothing of the first great screen dragon, in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, which also features a wicked enchantress in a horned headdress, a trio of benevolent Faerey Godmothers, and the Faerey-Tale premise of a sleeping princess in a castle surrounded by thorny briars. It is clear that something about the great mythological beasts called dragons intrigues the mind and lends itself to entertainment of a Fantasy or Pagan nature- a trend that will undoubtedly continue, as movie effects improve in sophistication and as people continue to desire fantastical amusement.

Legend

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May 182013

At some point during Legend, I decided that it could be boiled down to: Tom Cruise, Puck, Tinker Bell, and some Dwarves save the Last Unicorn from the Devil. As in The Last Unicorn (the first offering of Unicorn Pagan Movie Night at Catland Books, the newest metaphysical store in New York), Unicorns in Legend are seen as Pagan embodiments of sacredness and holiness: enough so that dark and evil things will wish to possess and destroy them. Tom Cruise appears as a guy named “Jack,” who might as well be surnamed “of the Green”; he takes the place of the Green Man in this film, as a living avatar of the wooded forest and the creatures of the wild.

Iconic Shot From Legend

There is a beautiful princess (of course), and tragedy of an inadvertent kind results when Jack takes the lovely royal to the secret place where unicorns live. Enraptured, she wants to touch the beautiful creatures; however, this innocent gesture unleashes a paralyzing freeze across the land, as well as the malevolence of the Lord of Darkness and his grotesque Goblin minions.

Pagan Princess, Tom Cruise, and a Unicorn; from Legend

Jack (Tom Cruise) and the princess are filled with grief and dismay- initially not realizing the serious consequences of their actions (which however misguided, were undertaken with purity of intent), and are horrified by the dreadful consequences which they could not have foreseen and which they fear they cannot remedy. Director Ridley Scott has an excellent, and epic, visual sense, and creates a breathtakingly beautiful cinematic fable, albeit kind of a mishmash of legendary motifs: the Dwarves remind of Lord of the Rings and Snow White, as do their evil counterparts, the Goblins; the princess becomes Persephone once the Dark Lord decides he wishes to make her his consort; and the Tinker Bell character is both a twinkling will o’the wisp as well as a capricious and unruly Celtic Wild Child. The Puck (while not so named, but easily identified, at least by his signature broom) is eerily effective, played by a wide-eyed kid with a dubbed adult’s voice. This character could be shifted into a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with good results.

Tim Curry as the Lord of Darkness, in Legend

The one drawback to the film for me, was the Lord of Darkness, very well-played by Tim Curry, but undeniably modeled upon the Devil. With a scarlet complexion and gigantic horns (I found myself wondering how much time Mr. Curry must have endured in makeup each morning), Legend’s Lord of Darkness recalls Mephistophiles and Milton, and represents (in context) a sort of hoofed and demonized Pagan Horned God. (Pagans tend to view Horned Divinities as positive and beneficial, as Representatives of Nature and the Life Force.) If you accept the premise that this exceptionally Pagan universe has the Devil in it, wanting to destroy everything, Legend works. Finally, it is interesting that “Legend” applies equally to the film as well as to the beginning of Mr. Cruise’s film career. He seems a little ill-at-ease in the movie’s opening, as a Nature Boy at-one with the forest, and comes into his own later, when the character transforms into the sort of action-adventure hero upon which so much of Mr. Cruise’s subsequent film career has been based. In retrospect, the final shot mythologizes Tom Cruise on the cusp of movie stardom as much as it mythologizes his character, Jack.

Unicorn Night on the PTN

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May 162013

The Last Unicorn

I’m loving the newest NYC metaphysical store Catland, which hosts regular Pagan Movie Nights; their latest offering of The Last Unicorn and Legend (both of which, despite coming out in the ’80s, I had never seen before) gives an example of what the Pagan Television Network might look like, once it’s up and running, as the flicks (representing Unicorn Night on the PTN) would make a Pagan family-friendly double feature. The Last Unicorn is a lovely animated fable that deals with illusions versus reality, and the fact that people often miss or overlook the sacred and the magickal right in front of them. (Several of the folks in attendance described it as the film that rocked their universe when they saw it as nascent Pagan youths during the Reagan administration.) The main character (as one might guess) is a Unicorn who fears that she is the last unicorn. She lives in an enchanted forest, protecting the greenlands with her unicorn magic as the forest protects her. Anxious to discover if there are, in fact, any other unicorns however, she leaves her wooded home and sets off into the wider world- a move surely guaranteed to bring about trials and change, but learning and growth as well.

Old Witch Mommy Fortuna, in The Last Unicorn

She is initially kidnapped into a traveling Midnight Carnival by a greedy old Witch named Mommy Fortuna (voiced by Angela Lansbury, and wearing branch-like horned appendages on her head-wrap, with the customary Evil Witch’s familiar, a sinister raven). Mommy Fortuna’s “thing” is to create enchantments that allow her to pass off mundane animals as legendary ones (the mythological references in the movie are sort of all over the place, ranging from Greek mythology to medieval, to ancient Celtic); an employee of Mommy Fortuna’s, though, is a struggling Wizard who has faith in the powers of his Magick (uncertain as it is), whose powers might be faulty with unintended consequences, but are nonetheless real. (He is able to summon the shades of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and to reveal the enchanted living reality of the forest trees; he is also a Juggler, by the by.)

The Last (Magickal) Unicorn

Along the way, the unicorn is transformed (through a well-intentioned mishap of the Wizard’s spells) into a human, causing her to learn a regret and pain that she had never experienced as a unicorn before. She meets a handsome prince, however, and an aged king who has stolen all the other unicorns in order jealously to possess them as his own. (He summons the Red Bull, a very Tain-like creature, to drive the unicorns into the ocean, where he can enjoy their “shining grace” all to himself; of course, this robs the world of unicorns, something which the old king, in his selfishness, ignores.) A small family is formed through the adversities and adventures; the unicorns are of course liberated; and happiness returns at the end, made all the more sweet despite, and because of, the interludes of grief and disillusion. Throughout, the peculiar mythological power of the Unicorn as a symbol of desire, and sacred spirituality of a very Pagan nature, is the driving force behind this charming film- as it is in the second of Catland’s Unicorn Movie choices: Legend (post to follow).

Big Apple Bikes

culture 1 Response »

May 142013

One of the useful things about city living is the communal use of resources, such as say, transportation. New Yorkers make cooperative use of subways, buses, taxis, and now thanks to Citibank, bicycles, through the new Citibike NYC program. Bike stations have begun to appear throughout Manhattan (soon to be outfitted with bikes, available for either daily or weekly rentals, and chargeable to a credit card). This effectively makes a fleet of bicycles accessible to New Yorkers (which may be returned to any station within the city), and encourages cardiovascular benefit, reduction of fossil fuel emissions, and the tranquil state of mind that comes from bike travel. Kudos to Citibank for this civic friendly enterprise, and the promotion of a cleaner and healthier New York- all goals that the Pagan or Pagan-minded New Yorker can support with appreciation.

Irish Memorial in Manhattan

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May 122013

The Irish Hunger Memorial, side view

The Irish Hunger Memorial, an affirming testament to a terrible period in Irish history, is part of the revitalization project of the Hudson River Park area of lower Manhattan going on since the early 2000s. The memorial is a cultural reminder of the Great Irish Famine, also known as the Potato Famine, when a blight upon the vegetable crop between 1845-1852 caused approximately one million Irish to die of starvation, and another one million to emigrate, reducing Ireland’s population by a quarter. The catastrophe effected a permanent change in Ireland’s political, cultural, and demographic landscape, exposing the nineteenth century cruelty of Irish subjugation by the English; searing itself into Irish folk-memory; and creating a rallying point for the Irish nationalist movement.

Irish Hunger Memorial, top view

The Hunger Memorial is situated on a half-acre site in Lower Manhattan’s Battery Park neighborhood, and is a brilliantly fascinating piece of architecture. It is basically a recreation (in minor) of the Irish landscape rising above street level, and is constructed out of soil, stones, and vegetation brought from Ireland. A Gaelic standing stone and rocks inscribed with the names of the Irish counties complete the impression, as does a reconstructed nineteenth century cottage donated by its owners, shipped across the Atlantic, and reassembled on the site.

Hunger Memorial, Interior

Although the material does not quite say so, the interior passageway leading from the street into the memorial suggests so strongly a Neolithic monument like Newgrange (the Brugh na Boyne) illuminated by sunlight at significant periods, as to make me suspect that it was the inspiration.

In short, the Irish Hunger Memorial has a number of features that make it deeply attractive to a Celtic Pagan as well as to a tourist in New York. As if to cement the impression, the memorial’s dedication plaque is headed by a Triskelion: the famous interlocking, threefold Celtic swirl-design. This distinguishes the memorial as one of a surely limited number of Manhattan sites to be commemorated by a Pagan esoteric symbol. Pagan visitors to the Big Apple are encouraged to check out the Irish Hunger Memorial, both as a memento to a dreadful period in Ireland’s past, and as a living recreation of the Irish Celtic landscape.

Life + Significance

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May 072013

Grant Morrison, the visionary intelligence responsible for revolutionizing the comic book art-form, is described as everything from an “idiot savant loon” to a “forward thinking auteur” in Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods, a documentary about this fascinating and hyper-creative man. The film covers his interest in comic books starting as a kid in Scotland, before following his first published works; the growth of his influence in the comics book field; and the emergence of a relentless and singular ideology which had the effect of changing the world as much as it changed the comic book art form.

He discusses becoming conscious of his image as a comics book creator and cultivating that image, as well as periods of “derangement of the senses” in which he sought out travel and foreign lands; immersion in the dark under-realms of existence; and exploration of mind-altering drugs. The suggestion of a certain brilliant madness starts to emerge in this section: “If I weren’t an artist, I’d probably be institutionalized” is a typical quote.

The mythic relevance that super-heroes hold for Mr. Morrison is a constant throughout the documentary. Early on, someone recalls a conversation with him, discussing Superman in terms of being a “proactive God” who loves every human being unconditionally. Mr. Morrison talks about the “timelessness” of super-heroes, calling them “one of the last great ideas that we have,” and remarking upon his fascination that Superman (who was “having adventures” before Morrison was born) will continue having adventures after Morrison’s death, and upon how reassuring it was is to imagine beings dedicated to stepping into disasters and calamities, and making things right.

As remarkable as it is to reflect upon Mr. Morrison’s discoveries about the importance of self-expression and following one’s visions; making connections with other people’s experiences and ideas; making permeable the “boundary between the real and the possible”; and how bringing one’s ideas into the world will influence other people in ways that seem magical: it is his discussions of magick and magickal experiment that grabbed my attention. The film opens with people talking about Mr. Morrison as a “magical person” who “changed their lives,” and feeling as if they were in the presence of a heroic or divine figure. Early on, Mr. Morrison is talking about his experiences with Chaos Magick and his impression that it produced results in the world. He relays how (at nineteen) he first tried magick “out of a Crowley book,” complete with “ritual banishings and all that stuff.” The results were so immediate and convincing that the young Morrison quickly formed the opinion that “magick was easy: if you ‘do this,’ then things follow,” a sureness of impression that seems never to have left him. He discusses how his belief developed, that magick was about enchanting, and expanding consciousness, and was life-changing, in that it enabled one “to be what one wanted to be.” Interestingly, as he tested it, magick came to appear natural and right to him.

Working with sigils became more and more significant to him, as he found that meditating upon his sigils brought the things that he wanted into his life; eventually, he came to form a belief about being in service to a sort of “hyper Sigil.” He talks about his life in terms of being a mystical process, going into Nature to commune and communicate with the Gods before coming back to work on comic books; having near-”shamanic” experiences with actors dressed as Superman; and finally his conviction that “everything is magick,” and that magick and reality are in fact one and the same.

In understanding a man who is able to change the world by exposing other people to the challenge of his ideas and the impressions of his images, Talking With Gods is a powerful film; in listening to a visionary discuss how magick and the evolution of magickal thinking contributed to this process, this documentary is remarkable. As is put early on in the narrative: Life + Significance = Magick.

Coming Out Pagan

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May 042013

Thursday evening, a small group of New York Pagans (drawing from the New York Gay Men’s Open Circle and NYC ADF Druids) met in a small park between 14th Street and the West Side Highway, to “come out Pagan” in honor of International Pagan Coming Out Day. Actually, it wasn’t so terribly different from what we generally do: find a greenlands corner of the city and conduct ritual, and it was sort of a plan thrown together at the last minute. We all agreed that with so many Pagans in the Big Apple, and such a variety of Pagan organizations, we could have had a larger turnout with more planning and thinking ahead. (Drummers; we decided we definitely needed drummers. Nothing adds to a Pagan event like drumming.) Satisfied nonetheless, we then walked around the Hudson River and had dinner in a nice West Village restaurant. Pagan Coming Out Day, NYC, 2013.

Next events on the NYC Pagan Community calendar: another march as “Pagans for Gay Rights [Rites]” in the NYC Gay Pride Parade, and then Pagan Pride NYC, in September. Blessed be, Pagans.

One Man Macbeth

culture, theater 1 Response »

May 022013

Oh my Gods and Goddesses, is Alan Cumming fantastically good in Macbeth, currently seen on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. In case you haven’t heard, he performs the play as a one-man piece, playing up its dark and troubling nature by presenting it as a patient in a psychiatric ward, incarcerated for some unspecified crime (probably a murder, as his clothes and fingernail scrapings are taken from him as evidence in the beginning). Except for actors who play a nurse and an attendant (appearing in an overhead viewing window like watchful Deities), Mr. Cumming is alone onstage the entire time of the show, performing all the roles himself. Words like bravura and tour-de-force are wrung dry describing his accomplishment; his energy level and physical stamina are amazing, as is the seeming indestructibility of his vocal chords (he manages his performance with but two sips of water, taken onstage, and watching him is a bit like viewing a master-class in diaphragm control). His versatility is impressive, as he clearly delineates each character, making the narrative very easy to follow (something not always accomplished in conventional productions with a full cast). He can be very amusing, sometimes impishly so (a word not generally associated with the “Scottish Play”), and makes literal the expression “stripping himself bare onstage,” at times performing in a tiny pair of undies, at times not even in those, and periodically slipping into a bathtub filled with water (for an actor to make himself both nude and wet is an unusually fearless thing). His delivery of “Tomorrow and tomorrow” (which takes the place held by “To be” in Hamlet) is especially effective.

For Pagans in the audience, the presentation of the Witches will always be Macbeth’s drawing power, and I found that I preferred Mr. Cumming’s interpretation to that of most productions. Three video screens at the top of the stage broadcast in closeup his Witches, splitting his delivery into individualized parts. This is the one performance that I have ever seen that begins the show as I believe Mr. Shakespeare intended; the first couple of scenes are reshuffled so that, fairly early, the “Weird Sisters Charm” of Act I, scene iii, is enacted (it is generally cut from most productions), and Mr. Cumming performs it running in a circle, effectively “winding up” a Charm to begin the show. Interestingly, the “Eye of newt, toe of frog” speech of Act IV, scene i, is cut (eliminating the litany of grotesque ingredients brewed into the Witches’ cauldron) and the famous scene is staged with lights casting three shadows behind Macbeth, presenting the Witches as fascinating enigmas. The Witches come off as unworldly sybils, which is compelling and true to Shakespeare’s intention (I believe); the one element that I could have done without is the revelation of the three prophecies while Mr. Cumming pulls the entrails out of a dead raven. (A bit of logic that sticks out in the mind is, how does a dead raven end up in a psychiatric ward?) All in all, however, the production goes far in shifting interpretation of the Three Witches from demented crazies, to something powerful and prophetic.

The show’s merchandise alone is clever and amusing, and would make fun gifts for Pagan friends; the production’s run has been extended through early July. Anyone who can possibly manage to see this show, I wholeheartedly recommend it.

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