Hex, Vex, Spell, Jynx, Satanic Curse, Blood Curse and Demons!

Execration Figurines.

Lance Wallnau is still at it, declaring a veritable storm of witchcraft is swirling about his darling, Trump. He seems to think that all those faithful chanting their incantations, er, prayers are missing the mark though – they forgot about Trump’s family! Oops.

“People are praying for the president, but they’re not necessarily praying for his family,” Wallnau said. “So right now, all those witchcraft curses that did not land on Donald Trump are trying to take out his kids, trying to take out his offspring, trying to attack anything near him.”

Wouldn’t kids and offspring be the same thing?

As evidence of this theory, Wallnau cited an incident in which a friend was once “casting a demon out of somebody” and the demon transferred itself into the family dog, which then jumped out of the car while it was driving down the highway and was killed.

You really need to think your little anecdotes through, Lance. Was this exorcism taking place while people were driving somewhere? Don’t do that shit, it’s endangering others. Let’s pretend your friend got busy with an exorcism, at which he also had his dog with him. The demon gets driven out of whoever, then decides to dive into the dog. Why? Why in the fuckety fuck would a demon bloody bother with that, then wait until they were in a car, so it could commit dogicide? Seems to me this is a bunch of bullshit cooked up to explain to the family why their irresponsibility got their dog killed. Tsk. It’s not nice to lie, Lance.

As such, Wallnau declared that “we take authority over every hex, vex, spell, jinx, satanic curse, blood curse, every demon assigned to destroy the health of the president, to destroy the health of his family, to harass him, to vex him, to cause him to lose sleep.”

“In Jesus name, we veto every curse that has been brought against Donald Trump and his family and his administration,” Wallnau proclaimed, as he repeatedly spoke in tongues.

Oooh, Voces mysticae! I wonder if you know the roots of that, Lance. I think you’re talking to demons, dude.

Wallnau later declared that the prayer that Rodney Howard-Browne led over Trump when several Religious Right pastors visited the White House recently was designed to prevent Trump from having a stroke.

“The devil is trying to get him and his family,” he said. “And I heard Rodney Howard-Browne say when he laid hands on the president, he was worried there was a stroke coming; well, we veto that stroke in Jesus’ name! That is nothing but stress and we’re breaking it off of him right now.”

Um, what if a stroke is Jehovah’s will, Lance? Isn’t there some kind of non-interference with “god’s will” rule?

Via Right Wing Watch.

Tongue Tide!

Purgatory Pie Press, “Volumptuous: Hanging Tower of Babble” (2017) (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic).

Hyperallergic has a write-up on what sounds like a very grand show indeed, Tongue Tides, in Long Island City. I would so love to see this in person.

Are you ready for volumptuous? This hilarious sign by Purgatory Pie Press dangling from Flux Factory’s ceiling, part of “Volumptuous: Hanging Tower of Babble,” a large installation of hanging signage, is a fitting mascot for this playful summer show. Tongue Tide invites us all to play a little more with language, and to ponder other languages besides English. It’s a must-see for writers and wordsmiths and is well worth the trip to Long Island City.

Queens is the most linguistically diverse area on the planet. No other place boasts so many languages in such close proximity, something Rashedul Hasan and Dan Silverman illustrate in “We Are the Queens of New York” (2017), a map piece where dots of different colors represent these many varied languages. It’s really powerful to dwell on just how unique the borough — and New York City as a whole — is from this perspective.

[…]

It’s also good to ponder this map because, with all due to respect to Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker, English does not own a monopoly on wit. Many turns of phrase and poetic expressions in other languages pack a punch, even in translation. Some of the best work in this show plays with other languages to give us glimpses of their clever bons mots.

An intriguing artist book by Magali Duzant, A Light Blue Desire (2017), complies blue bromides from across the globe, and blue postcards featuring some of the selections are available for visitors to take home. Blue, in word and concept, can be stretched in so many semiotic directions. The blues are great, but they cast a sad shadow on the color as a metaphor in today’s English, which is further exacerbated by the minority status of the so-called blue states in the US’s broken political system. But blue is not so sad in other languages. One vivid example is the Polish expression for what we might call daydreaming: to think about blue almonds. It captures the futility of idle fantasy so well.

You can see the map, and much more, and there’s more to read at Hyperallergic.