Friday, February 12, 2010

Death Of A Titan

World famous fashion designer Alexander McQueen is dead, and although there has been no official statement as of yet, he apparently committed suicide by hanging himself in his London flat. At first glance, it is difficult to believe, as this was a man who over the last few years had established himself as a titan of the fashion industry.

The fact that he killed himself is not what is so remarkable. People of wealth and renown are as susceptible to deep dark periods of depression as the rest of us. His mother had just recently died, and his former patron and discoverer had herself committed suicide three years previously. Like they say, it's lonely at the top, and maybe the man just felt like he had no one or nothing left to live for. Grief and despair will put that kind of head trip on you, particularly if you are suffering from some form of clinical depression, which is still a greatly misunderstood but very real illness.

Still, his chosen method of self-execution is jaw dropping for a man of his stature. This is admittedly my own opinion, but the way in which a person kills himself tells a lot about him, or her as the case may be.

People who die by way of ingestion or injection of drugs, perhaps in combination with alcohol, or who die by cutting their wrists, are basically longing for a kind of peace they feel will never come their way.

Those who jump from a large edifice or engage in some other form of suicide are obviously, to me, wanting to make a statement. They perhaps have an exaggerated flair for the dramatic, as do those who simply put a gun to their head, though in that later case they are desirous of a quick and relatively painless solution to whatever problem vexes them.

But hanging? That is some intense self-loathing at work. This is a person who feels he has brought all his problems on himself, and is so burdened with guilt and despair over the idea, solving the problems are irrelevant. Such a person probably feels they do not deserve anything better than a macabre end.

Assuming this is really how Alexander McQueen died, and that he was not murdered, or the victim of some form of auto-erotic asphyxiation sex game gone horribly wrong, what could possibly have driven him to this point?

Perhaps it is not for us to say, but his death has taken the industry by total surprise. This would seem to suggest that if he had any such problems or hang-ups, he did a pretty good job of keeping it to himself. On the other hand, this was a man who had a client list that included such notables as Lady Gaga, Matthew Lambert, Beyonce Knowles, and other high-list members of the entertainment world who are so self-obsessed, they wouldn't have noticed if McQueen was bleeding out of his eyes so long as he didn't bleed on them.

He was a visionary, as seen in the following photos from the March 2010 issue of Vogue Magazine which envisioned a potential fashion of the future, from the website Million Looks and featuring model Freja Beha Erichsen.









Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, but it looks to me like the world lost an artist. Artists share their gift with the world, and in some cases, that is all they are able to give of themselves. Perhaps McQueen, following the death of his mother and feeling all alone in the world, felt he had nothing left to offer and nothing left to achieve. That can be a hard, bitter pill to swallow in its own right.

23 comments:

Shadowhawk said...

Pay no attention to Patrick Kelly, he pretends to be an important blogger,but really he supports pedophilia, war, and the corporate take over of our country. He pretends to be Pagan but yet he espouses values that are traitorous to any truely modern pagan ideal. You are better off looking for another blog to read.

beakerkin said...

Designers come and go and are forgotten. They do not endure in the scope of time.

SecondComingOfBast said...

Beak-

I guess that's true generally, outside of their very limited circle, but I guess in some cases their designs might last, even if their names do not. On the other hand, most of their designs probably don't last, certainly not without modification or adaptation.

It's not the same kind of art as a sculpture, painting, or architecture, which lasts forever unless destroyed, it's more a kind of performance art, though even more ephemeral than acting, which at least now can be immortalized on film.

I was thinking you might have something of an interest in this story, since you used to work in the fashion industry, or at least the garment industry.

I was mainly curious about his death by suicide, and why such a well-known, successful, and widely respected (in his field at least) individual such as him would end his life. Suicide by hanging is especially profound.

Come to think of it, you being Jewish, I guess you are aware that death by hanging was considered in the Old Testament something of a curse, if I am not mistaken. Any form of suicide has got to be an act of desperation and despair, but to hang yourself would, I would think, require a remarkable degree of self-loathing.

Anyway, I just thought it was an interesting subject for a blog post. You know, seeing as how I am such an important blogger and all.

beakerkin said...

Pagan

Designers tend to be very high maintenance types with a very grandiose ego. Few of them really deal with setbacks well.

In that world Prozac, Cocaine and Ecstasy are very common. The job really never stops as even after hours it is one party after the next.

It is a pathetic shallow wasted life from my perspective. I can't
say I met very many full time designers who were well adjusted.

You have a full time useless critic. Yours just is not as talented as the Duck who had been debating me for seven years.

Frank Partisan said...

I don't think designers come and go. Fashion changes every season.

Chanel, Calvin Klein, Yves St. Laurent and others, are fixtures.

Pagan: You have little to go on to speculate.

OT: Going back to Spartacist. Little is known about him. What remains has Roman biases for the most part. The point is there is no information to speculate, if he wanted another state. Too much time spent just surviving.

If he would have beaten Rome, we might have been spared the Dark Ages.

SecondComingOfBast said...

Beak-

That's a good point about the never-ending party lifestyle and the drugs. People that perpetually engage in that kind of behavior can't be thinking clearly, so it probably was a contributing factor. Some of these people you see who are always surrounded by an entourage, always in the public eye, existing from runway to party after party, etc., are probably some of the loneliest people on the face of the planet. The ones who seem the most functional probably spend lavish sums of money for their own private therapists.

I always wondered why the Duck never bothered to start his own blog. He does have a talent for writing, and a sense of humor.

Criticism is one thing, pure abject stupidity is something else again.

SecondComingOfBast said...

Ren-

I think Beak might be inferring the long-term. Designers are artists, but their art seldom if ever becomes immortal, the art form is too transitory. Then again, so is the art of cooking gourmet food, which is another form of interpretive performance art.

In the case of fashion, the artist will be remembered, but the work by it's nature cannot remain, though it resurfaces in cycles, usually with adaptations.

By the way, there's nothing wrong with engaging in speculation, as long as you make it clear that's what you are doing.

SecondComingOfBast said...

I will probably do a post about Spartacus at some point. Of course, he never seriously intended to overthrow the Roman Republic, at least I don't think he did. Doubtless he would have liked to do so, but he would have to have been insane to think there was ever the remotest chance of that happening.

He lasted as long as he did and achieved his initial successes due to a general lack of cohesiveness in dealing with the threat. They tried to face him head on, with no real strategy for victory, mainly because they didn't take him seriously enough at first. His initial successes elicited a steamroller effect, at which point the Romans had to take him seriously and act accordingly.

Once Marcus Crassus joined forces with Pompey and Julius Caesar, his goose was cooked. This affair was a major contributing factor to the formation of the First Triumvirate (Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar) which heralded the fall of the Roman Republic and the eventual institution of the office of Emperor, which was formerly a relatively minor military designation (Imperator), which came to eventually, under Augustus, comprise authority over almost all aspects of Roman life, including even the Senate, which became a rubber stamp under the new system.

Yet, if all this had not come about, it probably would have heralded in the Dark Ages even more quickly than it happened. Had Spartacus been successful, it would have been even worse.

That is not a judgment call as to the rightness of his cause. I think he wanted his followers to go to some island like Sardinia or someplace and set up a new homeland. They did not have the capacity to form a state. They probably would have existed by piracy and agriculture. They would have eventually been taken down in any event.

Anonymous said...

from the Jowett summary of Plato's "Gorgias"

'What is the art of Rhetoric?' says Polus. Not an art at all, replies Socrates, but a thing which in your book you affirm to have created art. Polus asks, 'What thing?' and Socrates answers, An experience or routine of making a sort of delight or gratification. 'But is not rhetoric a fine thing?' I have not yet told you what rhetoric is. Will you ask me another question—What is cookery? 'What is cookery?' An experience or routine of making a sort of delight or gratification. Then they are the same, or rather fall under the same class, and rhetoric has still to be distinguished from cookery. 'What is rhetoric?' asks Polus once more. A part of a not very creditable whole, which may be termed flattery, is the reply. 'But what part?' A shadow of a part of politics. This, as might be expected, is wholly unintelligible, both to Gorgias and Polus; and, in order to explain his meaning to them, Socrates draws a distinction between shadows or appearances and realities; e.g. there is real health of body or soul, and the appearance of them; real arts and sciences, and the simulations of them. Now the soul and body have two arts waiting upon them, first the art of politics, which attends on the soul, having a legislative part and a judicial part; and another art attending on the body, which has no generic name, but may also be described as having two divisions, one of which is medicine and the other gymnastic. Corresponding with these four arts or sciences there are four shams or simulations of them, mere experiences, as they may be termed, because they give no reason of their own existence. The art of dressing up is the sham or simulation of gymnastic, the art of cookery, of medicine; rhetoric is the simulation of justice, and sophistic of legislation. They may be summed up in an arithmetical formula:—

Attiring: gymnastic:: cookery: medicine:: sophistic: legislation.

And,

Cookery: medicine:: rhetoric: the art of justice.

And this is the true scheme of them, but when measured only by the gratification which they procure, they become jumbled together and return to their aboriginal chaos. Socrates apologizes for the length of his speech, which was necessary to the explanation of the subject, and begs Polus not unnecessarily to retaliate on him.

'Do you mean to say that the rhetoricians are esteemed flatterers?' They are not esteemed at all. 'Why, have they not great power, and can they not do whatever they desire?' They have no power, and they only do what they think best, and never what they desire; for they never attain the true object of desire, which is the good....

Anonymous said...

He probably had a tire around his waste that he was ashamed of and tired of attiring...

*Just being mean*

Anonymous said...

erratum - "waist"

...although in this case... ;-)

Shadowhawk said...

TRUTH hurts hmm Pat, like i said, self important blogger wannabe,Outside of this Blog, what do you have,you comment on other right wing blogs.So tell me when will we see you on Fox News, will we ever see you speak at a tea bagger event.I really want to know. You talk shit about me, but you dont fucking know me. but i know you and your ilk. So keep yukking it up little man.Your time is coming.. Believe that.

Anonymous said...

Fan mail from a flounder, PT? I'm jealous!

SecondComingOfBast said...

Shadowhawk-

That's what I intend to do, you fucking little fascist faggot. Yeah, I comment on right wing blogs, on socialist blogs, on entertainment blogs, on legal blogs, and what do you do? You troll and harass women on the internet. Fuck you. Fuck with me all you want you fascist brown shirt motherfucker. I'm not afraid of you or your empty threats.

So you want to blow my brains out huh? Take your best shot, motherfucker, because the minute I catch you anywhere near me your fucking throats going to be cut from ear to ear. Got it? Furthermore, the minute you ever try anything with me, not only are you going to leave this fucking world, your whole fucking retarded, inbred family will be next.

You actually think you can intimidate me and keep me from expressing my beliefs. What a fucking joke. Assholes like you are a perfect example of why I can never support the fucking Democratic Party ever again. Who the fuck do you think you are, you fucking little phony Druid wannabe? Motherfuckers like you would be at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean if I had my fucking way about it.

I'll vote for who I want to vote for and I'll support who I want to support, and I will do so on this blog, you cocksucker. You might as well get used to that fact, because you god damn sure ain't going to change it, and from here on out, you dense, stupid piece of shit, anything you have to say, if I don't like it, is going to be summarily deleted, and if you say too motherfucking much I will report you to the authorities for harassment.

This is your first and last warning, you uneducated, ignorant freak.

SecondComingOfBast said...

FJ-

Thanks for the posts. I guess when you look at it, the art of fashion is somewhat of a "sham", or simulation of the art of taking care of the body (gymnastics, medicine, etc.) if I read it right.

By the way, do you see now why I say conservatives should stop this insane insistence that Democrats not abort their numbers down to manageable levels, and for that matter, preferably out of existence?

Shadowhawk said...

Report me bitch boy. And right yea you are so educated. And you think that you will cut my throat..Dream some more. You are full of shit. And once again you fail to see that facism is a Republican construct. But thats who you are a pathetic WEAK fucking Republican sympathizer.. And if you want to bring this into the REAL WORLD let me know you punk ass fuck

beakerkin said...

Pagan

On my blog we used to have a cyber criminal. This cyber criminal was a good friend of Renegade Eye's. He would threaten non communist blogs and spam them.

We invented a feature called the troll abortion taken from the forgotten Limbaugh caller abortions.

We only used it on criminal types who invaded privacy.

Shadowhawk you are an unwanted commenter on this site, As an unwanted commenter you are being aborted.

The comments were deleted and it spread to other blogs. People were asking to be troll aborted and it lost its edge.

Shadowhawk

Criminal threats and invasion of privacy are rude and can get you locked up. Why don't you start your own blog and promote your own point of view.

As on most subjects Ren is ignorant. Fashion does not endure time and in a generation the names you cite will be replaced by new ones.

I am working on a new line called LL Beamish for real Americans. Our
symbol is the sacred Beamish Gasmask.

SecondComingOfBast said...

Shadowhawk-

I am and will continue to support conservative, federalist leaning causes, and those candidates for political office who promote them, and I will do so on this blog. There is not one god damn thing you can ever say or do about that. I should let your crazy fascist rants stay up here, as you are the best advertisement to convince people to vote Republican I have ever seen in my life. You go around making empty threats, expressing the desire to blow people's brains out, and you think you are a voice for democracy, and the Democratic Party, and well, come to think of it you are. Carry on with your crazy shit for a while. I have two options, you have none. Number one, I can block you from coming here from the website where I know you come from, or I can block you from coming here through Blogger. It doesn't make no never mind to me, it's just a question of whether I want to go the extra mile it would take to cause you to be banned from the website you come here from. I just don't think you're worth that much trouble, but I might do it anyway just for grins.

As far as meeting you someplace to carry this out in public, believe me, you don't want to do that, because I don't believe in fighting fair when it comes to harassment. I would quite simply just lie in wait for you and kill your stupid ass. I don't know which would be more fun, watching you moan in agony after I put a bullet in your gut and watch you die slowly, or cutting you up and scattering your worthless carcass across three states. Believe me, mister, you don't know me.

A wise person would back off from such inclinations as you have expressed, but then again, we are not dealing here with a wise person, we are dealing with you-a retard. The only thing I can't figure out is why you hate Sarah Palin so much, seeing as how she loves little retarded boys so much. She even gave birth to one of your kind. You should look at her as a mother figure if anything.

SecondComingOfBast said...

Beak-

LL Beamish actually doesn't sound like a half bad idea. With your experience and contacts in the garment industry, you could probably pull it off under more positive economic circumstances. The gas mask would be a rip-roaring good symbol.

Shadowhawk is an all too typical liberal Democrat. He used to have his own blog, and take it from me, it was execrable. The last thing he posted, before I removed him from my blogroll, was a nonsensical post about how we should adopt socialism because it worked so well in Europe. I shit you not.

beakerkin said...

Obviously this individual is a dimwit. Europe is dying as people became self absorbed. The socialist ethic of huge safety nets worked if people had lots of kids.

SecondComingOfBast said...

HaHa that he's a dimwit should have been obvious well before I told you that, it should be apparent from the quality of his posts here you're dealing with a dim bulb, to put it in excessively charitable terms.

I don't think their socialist economy works even with large population, it "works" if you want to call it working, because we have propped them up for the last sixty plus years. Let them pay for their own defense and see how it works out.

Ironically, they are becoming more federalist than we are, though they still have miles to go before they approach our level in almost any given area. They have a lower rate of crime and pollution, otherwise they are at a severe disadvantage.

They are basically a population of people who have been bought off with social spending programs and in return have given up any hope of any kind of individual rights and independence. Their level of freedom of speech is a system of pick and choose by the elites and their rights to self-defense is none existent on any kind of real level. The level of public discourse is ruled by a pc ethic that is stifling to the point it would be unbearable to most of us here. Their medical system is a bad joke according to people who are in a position to know it best. The only private insurance available is unaffordable to any but the most wealthy of elites in many cases, and at best to the upper middle classes, who are taxed to the gills from my understanding of the matter.

That their industries are subsidized to some extent is probably the main reason they are competitive to the extent they are. Withdraw our support and this too would pass.

I think we should concentrate on building our Eastern European alliances, though we shouldn't have a large military presence there either. Just enough of a presence and agreement to establish a convenient corridor to the Persian Gulf, where we will unfortunately be required for some time to come.

beakerkin said...

Pagan

Do not be so certain their crime rates are lower.

In reality Communism is a religious faith. It is not based on science or rational thought. It fails miserably in every application and all we get is excuses.

SecondComingOfBast said...

Beak-

"In reality Communism is a religious faith. It is not based on science or rational thought. It fails miserably in every application and all we get is excuses."

I think they do that shit on purpose. They are trying to create an entirely new cultural mindset, replete with its own history and traditions. In order to do that with any degree of long-term success, they have to eradicate any last vestige of the cultural mores, values, and traditions that have been instilled through multiple successive generations.

They are aiming for a society in which they control the education of youth and the entirety of the culture, from top to bottom. They assume that over time, once their agenda and ideals are all that are left, they can go about creating the ideal world they dream about.

Of course, the quickest and easiest route to that entails mass starvation, gulags, and executions, along with an all-pervading aura of loyalty through fear to the state apparatus.

I guess that after maybe three or four generations, or more, have passed on, they can take what's left and start in earnest building their ideal society, their worker's paradise, and all that bullshit, without any fears of any nasty outbreaks of things like independence of spirit, the desire to own property, the desire to profit from ones own drive and achievements as much as possible, liberty, freedom of the individual, etc.

I don't think Europe is at that stage, and maybe never will be. I think that's a different situation, but on the other hand, you never can tell what's down the road, given the right set of circumstances and depending on who takes the helm.

But yeah, I think it's reasonable to believe that Europe's crime rate is lower than ours, I think it would be impossible to hide it otherwise. They can have their low crime rate and cleaner environment, the trade off ain't worth it.