Image from the GHWB email hack (eye bleach alert)

[TalkingDog]

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/george_bush_the_nude_self_portrait


When he left the White House, 43rd president George Bush took up painting. Yesterday, The Smoking Gun reported that Bush’s sister, Dorothy Bush, and some other family members and friends of his and his father’s, had seen their email accounts compromised. Several things, including hospital photos of George H. W. Bush, were stolen in the breach.

Also among the pilfered items the hacker, who goes by the handle “Guccifer” (nice name!) obtained, was this curious nude self-portrait of the former president in the shower.

[Junkdrawer]

1. Kinda answers the "How can he look at his face in the mirror?" question...

Don't it?

[pinboy3niner]

2. Obliquely?

[Junkdrawer]

3. I tried to catch my eye, but I looked the other way....

-- Ian Anderson, Baker St. Muse

[pinboy3niner]

9. Apt

I think W's eye zigged when it should have zagged.

[Junkdrawer]

10. IMHO, Tull always did have the best lyrics....

Some of the music was great, some not so much. But the lyrics were always heads and shoulders above....

[pinboy3niner]

17. They really missed the boat, though

I don't think they wrote one about having a bathroom obsession.

[patrice]

22. Very! appropriate. nt

[KittyWampus]

6. The head is turned to the right. Body standing under shower isn't looking left into mirror.

And yet mirror is reflecting and image of someone looking at him.

[patrice]

4. creepy!!! I still don't feel sorry for him. nt

[PotatoChip]

11. That was my first thought too.

Well that, and ick!

[patrice]

13. I'm seeing self-pity and alienation and secrecy. Pretty disturbing! nt

[patrice]

16. oh! . . . and petulance too, the turned back. nt

[PotatoChip]

20. Yup. I agree w/all of your observations. (nt)

[patrice]

21. I know I'm risking what is called a metaphorical conceit, but the matrix in the shower wall

suggests confinement and/or the dawning of a perfected nihilism, risked by all who have been stripped by existentialistic deconstruction and lack the personal resources to re-construct anything that is personally meaningful. Sorry, I happened to watch The Deer Hunter again lastnight, so maybe I'm a little too much under that influence, but what's getting me is . . . .

that bit of a visage floating there, and the lost expression on it, with the figure's actual face not only reversed, but also definitely turned away from the face in the mirror.

[PotatoChip]

24. Hmmm, interesting and deep...

So, if that is the case, do you think GW is self-reflective enough to understand (at least on some level) what he is conveying? Or, would it be a purely sub-conscious thing?

...I would guess the latter, unless perhaps he is in possession of one more marble than the one we know about.

[patrice]

25. Emotional knowledge can be quite valid. There are various ways of referring to it.

Sub-conscious is one. Some people talk about Implicit Knowing.

I'm pretty comfortable with the assumption that conscious knowing is not the only thing going on. All of our knowing systems are sooo very old; they would have potentials that predate the ascendance of rationalism. We know this from the fact that in addition to deductive processes, which have a higher probability of validity, there are also inductive processes, which, though the risk of error is higher, they CAN be valid anyway.

[Baitball Blogger]

5. If he had done this with his camera phone he would have been called a

porn dog.

But, since he did it with a paint brush it's called art.

[Blue_Tires]

7. I actually don't think it's bad...

but then again I don't know much about art criticism to begin with...

[surrealAmerican]

8. What a peculiarly inefficient method for sexting.

Also he really needs some instruction in perspective and anatomy.

[Nay]

27. Yep, the anatomy is horrible. Very amateurish. nt

[Tommy_Carcetti]

12. Satire, I'm assuming....nt

[TalkingDog]

14. Nope.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/08/net-us-usa-bush-hacking-idUSBRE9170M420130208

[Tommy_Carcetti]

15. Holy shit.

The dude was nuts.

[JaneyVee]

18. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

[tanyev]

19. I hereby apologize for the several jokes I posted about him doing paint by number kits.

Now I wish that's what I had seen.

[Cleita]

23. Painting nude pictures of himself? I guess we now have proof of his

narcissism. I mean I did a semi nude picture of myself once, looking in the mirror, for my art class, but that was only because I couldn't convince my roommate to pose for me. I painted her face on it anyway. (She never knew.) But really? All you want to paint is yourself?

[The Blue Flower]

26. Like Lady Macbeth trying to wash off the blood

He's standing outside of the cleansing stream and cannot look himself in the eye.