Saturday, June 28, 2014

Obsession: Why won't you love me? (video)

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly; LanaDelRey.com
“I have strong relationships with icons,” Lana Del Rey says (Kurt Iswarienko/nytimes.com)
(RV)  Lana Del Rey, "Pretty When You Cry" from the recently released CD now Billboard's No. 1 "Ultraviolence" 


Lana Del Rey is fantastic and making a splash from coast to coast. She was recently featured on NPR and the pro-propaganda American "paper of record," The New York Times.

Finding Her Future Looking in the Past
Jon Pareles, (nytimes.com, June 12/15, 2014)
Lana Del Rey is diving deeper into retro sophistication.
 
LOS ANGELES - In October, before starting an international theater tour, the songwriter Lana Del Rey consulted a clairvoyant. She was instructed to write down four questions in advance and sleep on them. The first question on the list, Ms Del Rey said in an interview in May at her house her, was "Am I meant for this world?" It's probably not the kind of question most multimillion-selling pop singers would ask themselves with their careers clearly ascendant... More

I'm mostly harmless.
Whether she's taking a jab at Lady Gaga in "I *ucked My Way Up to the Top," causing a dance sensation with "Summertime Sadness," singing the glories of the "West Coast," appearing at Coachella 2014, play at the pre-wedding party for Kim Kardashian and Kanye West in Versailles, releasing "Ultraviolence," or showing Charli XCX and Amethyst "Iggy" Azalea how it's done, she is on fire.
 
In an interview with Grazia magazine, she explains: 

Lana Del Rey and Lady Gaga (rapgenius.com)
“It’s about a singer [speculated to be Lady Gaga] who first sneered about my allegedly not authentic style but later she stole and copied it. And now she’s acting like I am the art project and she the true super artist. My God and people actually believe her, she’s successful! I shouldn’t continue ranting; it doesn’t get anywhere.” She hasn’t officially named the artist, but speculation is strong that it is about Lady "Fame Monster" Gaga and the record executive in "So Legit" (RapGenius.com). 
The best thing about her is how vulnerable she sounds, like a hopeless love addict on Angelina Jolie/Disney's "Maleficent" theme "Once Upon a Dream," with an ironic fierceness that proves she is not just a waif or songstress like Hope Sandoval or the 90's generation of Lilith Fair acts. This is yin with a little yang. Jon Pareles explains that "doubt, regrets, obsessive longing and self-destructive impulses are often at the core of Ms. Del Rey's songs and videos. 'I wait for you, baby, that's all I do/You don't come through, babe, you never do,: she sing in 'Pretty When You Cry.'"

The downcast superstar Lana Del Rey (artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com, June 27, 2014)
Sensual and emotional obsessions are like burning at the stake (Lana Del Rey/West Coast)
  
At home with Elvis portrait (NYT)
[Verse 1] All the pretty stars shine for you, my love/ Am I that girl that you dream of?/ All those little times you said that I'm your girl/ You make me feel like your whole world/ [Chorus] I'll wait for you, babe/ That's all I do, babe/ Don't come through, babe, you never do/ Because I'm pretty when I cry... [Verse 2] All those special times I spent with you, my love/ They don't mean sh*t compared to all your drugs/ But I don't really mind, I've got much more than that/ Like my memories, I don't need that/  [Chorus]/...Don't say you need me when/ You leave and you leave again/ I'm stronger than all my men/ Except for you/ Don't say you need me if/ You leave last, you're leaving/ I can't do it, I can't do it/ But you do it well/  [Outro] I'm pretty when I cry.

SUTRA: Seven Obsessions
Dhr. Seven and Crystal Quintero (trans.), Wisdom Quarterly (Anusaya Sutras 1 and 2 from the Anguttara Nikaya, "Numerical Discourses," Book of the Sevens, AN 7.11/AN 7.12)
Theravada novices attend to the Buddha in Burma (Oscar Tarneberg/otarneberg/flickr)
  
(AN 7.11) "Meditators, there are seven obsessions [anusayas, "underlying or latent tendencies," literally, "to lie down with," but according to Ven. Thanissaro, in actual usage, the related verb (anuseti) means to be obsessed with something, for one's thoughts to return and "lie down with it" over and over again]. What are the seven? ["They are]
"These are the seven obsessions."

(AN 7.12) "Meditators, with the abandoning and destruction of these seven obsessions, the supreme life is fulfilled. What are the seven? [Listed above.]

"With the abandoning and destruction of these seven obsessions, the supreme life is fulfilled.
 
"When, for a meditator, the obsession of sensual passion has been abandoned, its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump [that will not regrow once topped off], deprived of the supportive conditions of development, not destined for rearising.

I am so obsessed and so unenlightened.
"When for a meditator the obsession of resentment... the obsession of views... the obsession of uncertainty... the obsession of conceit... the obsession of passion for continued becoming... the obsession of ignorance has been abandoned, its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the supportive conditions of development, not destined for rearising.

Handcuffs
Bondage then death by cop
"This is called one who has cut through craving, has turned away from the fetter (bond), and by rightly breaking through conceit has put an end to suffering and disappointment." 

2 die in Los Angeles County sheriff's custody A woman being held at the sheriff's station in Valencia died at about 12:30 pm Saturday, but other details have not been released.

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