Me with my daughter, Lili, in Normandie, France.
“One hand…allows the other…”
-Bjork
“Or am I just just another trivial step along the way of your personal Odyssey.” -
Paul Verlaine
Rimbaud-Verlaine, the Film, Canal Plus France.
- I could hear a Piano playing, down the hall. So clear through the hallway. The first moments at the Institute for the Arts. -
This actually changed my life. A place where the artist could be the popular guy who gets all the chicks. More importantly its where I learned the microcosmic societal model akin to yes, in many ways Xavier’s School for the Gifted, and in others, Lord of the Flies.
The program.
An actual school program that I can say did the inverse of Rand’s comprachicos claim about American schools: did in fact do nothing but good for me.
http://www.stormy.org/edcompr.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprachicos
Rather than strangle consciousness, the program: The Institute For the Arts at Falls Church High saved me. Diane, my high school art teacher who became a mentor to me, and invariably also, saved my life.
TIFA saved me, but also harmed me. As everything always does.
At TIFA, I met Duke, and learned charismatic authority. I met Aliza, and fell in love. A man falls in love with his body first, being so close to his senses…So much closer than a woman is, being in a way, more abstract.
“Men emote through sex.” – Jake – Long time friend of mine from Jersey, brilliant man, gay guy, had a crush on me. I led him on. Hah. Never to be repeated mind you.
So, as a man, I have to remind myself that I am actually also an intelligent, compassionate non-neanderthal human being. (At least I speak French now.) When this kind of anxiety hits, I reproach myself. I used to repress it.
Don’t do that.
Anxiety however has been something as of late I, along with some powerful meds 
have gotten sort of a hold over. Anyway, Duke, manipulative mother fucker, man. Ian Kershaw out of ‘Hiter,’ a recent bio I’m reading on him, points out (god, the absolute wisdom of this concept) of Max Weber’s ‘Charismatic Authority’ (if I remember correctly) to be…: (piecing this together here….)
Definition: CHARISMATIC AUTHORITY
- that kind of charisma that “resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual …” -
- (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charismatic_authority) -
Let me redefine it in my own words which have a fairly good track record btw: First, personally found and derived examples:
JFK,
Martin Luther King,
Adolf Hitler,
Duke Beshaw (what became my close personal friend at TIFA along with 3 or four others in my life)
Gandhi (possibly)
George W. Bush (solely aboslutely solely, for the Tea Partier’s and other right wing Idiots, though see ‘W.’ By Oliver Stone, great movie and )
….Oooooopppss! –OUT OF TIME HERE— I will have to define Charismatic Authority tomorrow…
I pledged to my SEO Guru (invariably, it ends up being me) that I would limit the expenditure of my mouth to what the butt will endure… Thank you. See you tomorrow for more of Neal’s personal Odyssey into the Echo Chamber of himself.
This time I think I really will keep up with my Memoirs, I found a great sunny spot (finally a place to write!) or nook where I ponder just about everything. Stay tuned…
***
- Copyright © Neal Cormier 2011 All Rights Reserved -
Neal Cormier is an artist and writer originally from the Washington D.C. area.
- www.NealCormier.com - His concentration is visual art–especially oil painting and graphic novel illustration.
He is also an up and coming fiction writer, of which Vesper Heliotropic is his first full length novel publication with Amazon, Barnes and Nobles (eBooks) and Lulu Inc. (for paperback & hardcover) Neal recently had a showing at National Airport in Arlington, VA (March 11 – June 25 in Terminal A). He also, and even more recently, had a first book signing for Vesper Heliotropic at The Midtown Scholar, a local hipster style bookstore in downtown Harrisburg, PA.
Neal has sold a variety of pieces to clients from around the world. His artwork has been shown in cafés, bars and galleries in New York City, Washington D.C., Paris and Alençon, France.
After high school, Neal attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City and spent four years living in both Brooklyn and Manhattan. He moved to France after this, and spent roughly about the same length of time in the region of Basse-Normandie, northern France. As a result, he speaks French and has a (tall) 9 year old daughter, Lili. He now resides in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania with his fiancé, Kristin.
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- Vesper Heliotropic is a general teen/adult sci-fi ebook, paperback and hardcover, and is a Steampunk(ish) serial novel. The first written publication is OUT NOW VIA LULU.com on PAPERBACK and SPECIAL-JACKETED HARDCOVER, and is available for THE AMAZON KINDLE as well as BARNES AND NOBLES NOOK EBOOKS. VESPER HELIOTROPIC, THE CRYSTAL TURBINES SERIES GRAPHIC NOVEL IS ALSO OUT NOW ON FULL COLOR GLOSSY PAPERBACK! 46 Pages Full Color Interior and Exterior – ONLY $19.99! -
Vesper Heliotropic Book I. CRYSTAL TURBINES by Neal Aaron Cormier is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Vesper Heliotropic Book I. CRYSTAL TURBINES © Copyright 2011 Neal Cormier All Rights Reserved
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