Jeff Trexler: May 2010 Archives

Clients from Hell - a site where designers relate their worst professional experiences - has posted a revelatory anecdote in which a Christian client explains why Macs are sinful:

You need only look at their logo, an apple with a bite taken from it. Do you not know the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? If I allowed you to create my website on a MAC I would be just like Adam, taking a bite of the forbidden fruit.

Pictured above: an Apple Temptation desktop wallpaper designed by Lawrence Lew, a Dominican friar whose Flickr stream features spiritual art & architecture. Adds Lawrence:

Of course, I need to add as a theological point, that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not an apple. Rather, there is a pun in Latin: 'mala' is an apple, 'malum' is evil. I think this is how the apple became identified with the eating of this fruit, an act of disobedience to the divine will, through which sin entered the world.

This multifaith stained glass window is arguably the iconic image of the Lost finale, if not the whole series. The screenshot is from Jezebel, where Tracie Egan provides a characteristically insightful analysis of the show's Buddhist themes:

a component of Tibetan Buddhism, bardos are the different phases the deceased experience between dying and rebirth. It's a dream-like reality, created by the "awareness" (or a soul) that is freed from the body upon death. Because of the disconnect of the awareness from the physical body, the deceased doesn't immediately realize that he or she is dead. In the different bardo phases, the "awareness" needs guidance—from different deities, or, you know, guides (hello, Desmond)—to attain enlightenment, i.e., realize that they're dead. A karmic mirror (remember all those mirrors?) is held up to the deceased so that s/he can reflect and eventually recognize. Once this happens—and it can happen in any of the bardo phases, depending on how much emotional baggage a person has packed for the afterlife—the deceased achieves Nirvana, and can "move on." Depending on your belief system, this can be heaven, reincarnation, or some kind of simulated reality, like Eloise Hawking for herself and her son.

For more on how Tibetan Buddhism relates to other faiths, check out this new NY Times op-ed by the Dalai Lama himself--who, for all his spiritual insight, still fails to explain the deeper meaning of Lost's polar bear.

A rather nasty whomp on the head has of necessity kept things low key for me the past couple of weeks, but in my ongoing effort to get back to normal I did make it down to Tribeca for a few hours tonight to watch Lost at the showing sponsored by Slate.  A most interesting event on several levels, not least of all for the way it exemplified the social theme pervasive in the show itself.  

(spoilers ahoy)

As for the already notorious last episode of Lost, I could not help but compare it with the recently aired series finale of Ashes to Ashes, the sequel to the classic UK sci-fi drama Life on Mars.  Both Lost and its UK cousins use mysteries connected to time travel to explore notions of purgatory, redemption, fate, freedom, self-awareness and personal meaning. 

Lost appears to differ from the UK series in that it seems to make the physical world--real time before death--the realm of time travel and mysticism, but even that could be a swerve.  It's equally arguable that the silent wreckage montage at the end of Lost is a not so subtle hint that even the main timeline was a collective fiction--everyone died, then came to self-realization through a shared mythic adventure as well as a more mundane form of purgatory.  Think of it as Dante Wii with ascending levels and a side of suburbia. 

Either way, what particulalry stands out for me is the subtle yet significant shift that both Lost and the UK series make in regard to personal meaning.  Theirs is a distinctly social vision of salvation--we not only find meaning in overcoming our faults, believing in God, etc. etc., but in creating a communal reality with others.  

Holographic realities and the social soul are themes that resound throughout human religion, philosophy and art--sure, Egyptians did this through pyramids and Christians, cathedrals, but even though we're pouring our millions into TV and movies at the core it's all the same thing.  The individualistic turn of the past few centuries was a bit of swerve; shows such as Lost and Ashes to Ashes indicate that, as McLuhan predicted, the age of hyper-connectivity is retrieving a more tribal vision of the self. 

Cleanliness and heavenly scents have been integral elements of spiritual identity throughout history. Sacred Suds transforms this history into a personal, ethical & ecumenical experience, offering handmade vegetarian soap designed to reflect the values of gods and goddesses from various religious traditions.

Welcome to Sacred Suds, where you will find handcrafted vegetarian soaps to pamper your body and nurture your soul. Inspired by the Goddesses and Gods of ancient mythology, and created with love and intent in sacred space, Sacred Suds soaps provide a luxurious means of bringing positive energy into your life.

We craft all of our soaps from scratch, carefully choosing ingredients based on their excellent skin-care, aromatherapy, and magical properties.

Everyone's heard of Aphrodite, of course, but a luxury soap based on the Canaanite goddess Asherah--that's truly inspired!

Fashion and national identity is the theme of the latest exhibit at the Met's Costume Institute, and it's also the theme of this provocative op-ed on the regulation of the burqa in France. According to Jean-Francois Cope, banning the burqa is consistent with the fundamental French values of egalite and fraternite--and through this serves liberte--by preserving "the visibility of the face in the public sphere."

Whatever one's personal POV it's a fascinating piece, not least of all for the way it weaves in US First Amendment jurisprudence regarding facially neutral restrictions on religious expression.

  

Inspired in part by Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen, Egyptian motifs swept art deco design back in the 1920s. This Anubis ring by Israel's Arosha Design is a sleek contemporary stylization of Egyptian religious imagery. Available on Etsy, along with a silver version & matching earrings.

True to form, Anubis has had quite an afterlife--not only is he immortalized in jewelry, but fights malware in an international project to analyze unknown binaries and bores children via the widely despised Anubis II for Wii.

This stained glass jewelry, designed and sold by Kraken Mosaics in collaboration with Sand Fibers, was part of the Heavens Above gallery exhibit in the UK.