An Icon In a Context

It all had so much meaning when I took the--rather poor--photographs. Any such interpretations are now lost to me, and I'm too lazy to rephotograph. It's my best icon and I'm selling it because I need the money. I price it for quick sale at $3,500.


Oh, a knight in shining armor astride a white steed! Many a young girl's (or boy's) fantasy, but one few realize. And one must be careful not to necessarily trust a man who says his name is George.

(Sometimes object appear and disappear in photographs due to photoshopping.)

My icon has lost its riza--its protective covering, usually made of gold- or silver-plated tin. This does not diminish the value of such an extraordinarily well-painted image.

I have a few extra riza that have lost their paintings but the holes don't line up with the important details in my icon. They are from an important collection of icons, The Lucy Maxym Collection, which sold for rather a great deal of money. They were all I could touch.



This isn't St George in any case. It is St. Eustace. It is marked, Macedonian Monasteries 1860
and I guess that's right.

His legend is absolutely fabulous!

Prior to his conversion to Christianity, he was a Roman general named Placidus, who served the emperor Trajan. While hunting a stag in Tivoli near Rome, Placidus saw a vision of Jesus between the stag's antlers. He was immediately converted, had himself and his family baptized, and changed his name to Eustace (meaning "good fortune" or "fruitful"). A series of calamities followed to test his faith: his wealth was stolen; his servants died of a plague; when the family took a sea voyage, the ship's captain kidnapped Eustace's wife; and as Eustace crossed a river with his two sons, the children were taken away by a wolf and a lion. Like Job, Eustace lamented but did not lose his faith. He was then quickly restored to his former prestige and reunited with his family; but when he demonstrated his new faith by refusing to make a pagan sacrifice, the emperor, Hadrian, condemned Eustace, his wife, and his sons to be roasted to death inside a bronze statue of a bull or an ox, in the year AD 118.

I bring all this up for a very specific reason. The crimes of George Bush et Cabel are so grave and serious that I hope the plutocratic overlords who wish to remain in control in his aftermath, don't think the body politic is going to be satisfied with 20 or so, (I'm thinking in the thousands,)
executions--hangings, firing squads, electric chairs, that sort of thing. To cleanse this outrage, the people will demand DRAMA!


So, I'm recommending that the entire Bush family (I will allow that young Hispanic son of Jeb's to escape this verdict,) be roasted inside a giant bronze elephant. Can't you just hear Barbara Bush chiding Jenna as the temperature rises: "You little slut! You never were any good to the organization!"

I think the new World War II monument on the mall will be a good place to undertake the executions. For Neocon Night ®, I suggest we recreate St. Peter's martyrdom on Vatican Hill under Nero and crucify 500 of them upside down, then dip them in pitch and set them ablaze! The Jews should understand this sort of punishment!

And lest any of the new thought police try and claim this represents advocating violence against the ruling junta, may I state for the record, this is a new religious belief and covered under a different shred of the US Constitution. Call it Brazen!