Jan Goeree:
Frontispiece Design from Corpus Inscriptionum (c. 1707)

Gallery Statement: A weeping Minerva is depicted here near a dilapidated statue of the city of Rome, surrounded by all manner of ancient remains. The drawing is the design for the title page from a collection of Roman inscriptions compiled by J. Gruter and published in 1707. The engraving was used once again in 1726, with a different text, as the frontispiece for a survey of the monuments of ancient Rome.

—-

The Day Inexplicably Turns

Into the new year and still without a killing frost. My Magnolia tree is budding out and will bloom before the end of January unless some winter settles in. I'm now praying for what I so recently dreaded, though the extended rainy season has already answered many prayers. It still unsettles me to acknowledge that we utterly rely upon the rains, which come more or less randomly. Anyone still holding on to the conviction that we must have strong central coordination might have missed this underlying condition. The context within which we exist was not concocted by us, no matter how much we might have tried to reengineer it to do our bidding. Now that we're actively influencing age-old patterns, our world responds, coloring outside expected lines. Summer gardens extend into the following January. Winter might not come this year. Magnolias might bloom twice. Our NextWorld seems only tangentially related to our more familiar ones. It's a wonder I hadn't noticed much earlier. I might not have been paying close enough attention, but I suppose it's our nature to take much for granted. We might be more blessed than we could ever appreciate. As I've watched my world slink toward the dreaded upcoming inauguration, I have been paying closer attention. I suspect the tardy winter will arrive to inconvenience what might have been an early spring, and everything will become jumbled again as if that might constitute a difference. I anticipate everything becoming strange once the new administration begins with their abomination. I savor these final few days before the air turns gray and the day inexplicably turns into a long night.

——

Weekly Writing Summary
This NextWorld Story, Surrealizations, characterizes my NextWorlds as intruding like waves washing over a previously unconsidered beach.

Dorothy Dehner: Landscape for Cynics (1945)
"Merry Christmas might take any of a variety of meanings in any NextWorld."
—
I have largely successfully kept politics out of these stories and these series, but I can no longer hold back this inevitability with this series. We are poised on the precipice of a terrifying NextWorld that the UnSerious will govern. I am letting you know that I intend to continue sounding an alarm. We need to take the UnSerious very seriously.

Cornelis Visscher after Adriaen Brouwer: Hearing [De Fiool Speelder] (c. 1649-58)
"We seem poised to reenter kindergarten, where the bully holds the pulpit."
—
This NextWorld Story, Stupidities, almost qualifies as an impotent rant. I turn the corner back towards potentially useful commentary when I name the devils that haunt history: Stupidities. Don't worry. It's not an extensive list.

Jean Dubrayet*: Minerva bindt de Domheid vast met een touw [Minerva ties the Stupidity with a rope] (c. 1627) Titelpagina voor een boek met tekenvoorbeelden. [Title page for a book with drawing examples] — *"Jean Dubrayet was a printmaker who is known for works such as Minerva Ties the Stupidity with a Rope and Portrait of Ajax." (Google AI experiment) I could find no other biographical information on this artist.
" … the trinkets with which our future was purchased."
—
This NextWorld Story focuses on the Certainlies undermining our ability to improve our lot. Making America Great Again inevitably resolves into making it a whole lot worse than it ever was before. Ask the Systems Thinkers why.

James Gillray: Election Candidates (published May 20, 1807, by Hannah Humphrey) —ABOUT THIS ARTWORK — Despite its jovial hand coloring, James Gillray’s response to the 1807 parliamentary election in the district of Westminster caricatures real candidates with ruthlessness. Here, Gillray implied that the winner, the radical Sir Francis Burdett, had extra help. Burdett becomes the goose atop the pole, supported by a demonic figure with a pitchfork, while the agitated constituency below degenerates into a mob.

" … can't see how this latest experiment in degenerative Democracy can go any way but sideways."
—
This NextWorld Story considers the second of the Stupidities I introduced earlier, Vanities. All is not vanity, but a seemingly increasing portion of society seems to be pursuing it, especially the MAGA crowd, who specialize in misinterpreting every right and freedom for their own betterment, though this doesn't seem to make them any happier.

In the manner of Adriaen van der Werff: Bubble-blowing Girl with a Vanitas Still Life (1680 - 1775)
"He spends his wealth on the equivalent of candy and gum."
—
This NextWorld Story considers the third of the Stupidities I introduced earlier in this writing week: Inanities. More than Certainties and Vanities, Inanities seem particularly vacuous and unsupportable. I find it most disturbing that so many seem so addicted to them.


George Wesley Bellows: Dance at Insane Asylum (1907)
"I'm confident it's coming."
—
I began this writing week just six installments into this NextWorld Series and almost convinced that I'd chosen the wrong theme. Though I always feel that way at first, the latest instance somehow amounts to the worst bout ever encountered. I've never had to back out of a theme selection, and I have not invested much energy trying to determine how I might pull that off. I just felt sunk. But then this writing week bloomed. From the first installment, Surrealizations, I began to see how this series might be insightful for me. I Surrealized that my experience manifests like waves breaking over a rocky shore, each different enough to prove baffling, at least at first and perhaps much later. My confusion then seemed to be evidence of a rather ordinary case of The Normals for me. From there, the stories began exhibiting a pleasing coherence, with UnSerious setting a stage and finally making near-perfect sense. I spent the balance of this writing week proposing and then composing a response to Stupidities, with the Certainlies, Vanities, and Inanities following crisply along. I'll explore Grudge and Stasis in my next writing week. I end this writing week feeling as though I'm making real progress toward coming to terms with my NextWorld. Happy New Year, and thank you for following along!

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #NextWorld, #PureSchmaltz