It appears that Hollywood celebrity and singer Diamanda Galas has multiple victims.
What she’s accused of is criminal, on multiple levels. If she’s innocent and someone’s doing all this in her name, it would be nice to know that. Otherwise, it would be nice to know where she is so she can be arrested.
{ 39 comments }
Mr. Esmay,
Why don’t you come pick me up if you are asking for my arrest.
Make an arrest warrant today.
Since noone has written here in my defense, I shall do it myself.
What you have published as fact is hearsay. That is not
ethical journalism. If you had done your homework,
you would have gone to google search and looked up
michelle walsh+kalliope amorphous+fraud.
I am afraid you have had your page used by a pro.
I will forgive your naivete but please do understand that
photocopying of facebook commentary is illegal, that publishing
a personal e-mail worldwide is illegal, and that you have unknowingly become part of the problem. If you observe a picture
of a woman wearing a black wig on the pics from my site,
saying thumbs up against celia farber’s uneducated propaganda
against antivirals with duesberg you will see “kalliope
amorphous” herself. If you want to help those who have had
their time wasted by this person, please help me reach AMMA
and joe. They are too afraid to respond to e-mail now.
And please go to my webpages. Think a moment.
Imagine that I require a person of this nature to fulfill
my life.
Diamanda Galas
p.s. I guarantee that within a few minutes you will hear from
this person who has attempted to destroy my life because
doppelgangers routinely do this sort of thing. To defend the
rage i feel for those whose inadequate medical knowledge
catalyzed the denial of my dearest friend who was a patient
of Sonnabend and died because of it, I suggest you research
my work for many years. Do not propagate lies yourself, sir.
If you are Diamanda Galas, please provide contact information where you may be reached, personally, to discuss this so our reporting can be complete and accurate.
I otherwise stand by my reporting, as I believe Ms. Farber stands by hers.
> What you have published as fact is hearsay.
Not under any definition of hearsay with which I am familiar.
> I otherwise stand by my reporting
I examined Dean’s words above and they are careful and balanced.
Yours,
Wince
Now, I have no dog in this fight (as I don’t remotely agree with Farber about HIV, and at the same time I don’t care about Galas’ music* and while I don’t know how much of the text shown was hers, certainly her friends are being giant assholes).
(* Which is kinda odd, since in the broadest sense it’s well-aligned with parts of my tastes, but it’s just never done anything for me, you know?)
I also have no idea whether the poster claiming to be Diamanda Galas above really is or is not who she claims.
But…
photocopying of facebook commentary is illegal, that publishing a personal e-mail worldwide is illegal
Really? Which law might that be, especially for the former? Please to state the specific statute(s).
Ain’t no US law against either, as far as I know. Just as someone you write a physical letter to can republish it for the world to see, they can republish emails you send.
They might be gigantic jerks for doing it, but it is not illegal.
(I also note that there’s no claim that the Facebook screenshots are fabricated or selectively edited, which I’ll take as a tacit admission of their essential accuracy.
That accuracy does not reflect well on the persons involved, even if high emotion can mitigate some judgment on their utterances.
See, if the FB screenshots were faked, that would be good grounds for a lawsuit for defamation or libel.
But reposting accurate ones? Not so much. Truth is, after all, an ironclad defense against a libel or defamation claim in US law.)
> I guarantee that within a few minutes you will hear from
this person who has attempted to destroy my life because
doppelgangers routinely do this sort of thing.
It was a money back guarantee and since the few minutes have expired our $0.00 has been promptly refunded. Now that’s good customer service!
Yours,
Wince
I mostly agree with Sigivald.
I do have a little bit of a dog in this fight, in that I generally support heterodoxy, and Celia is unorthodox. I don’t have any particular feeling about Celia, though.
From the description of events, it appears to me that this Diamanda Galas person has an interest in persecuting (as opposed to arguing against) a heretic. I recognize I’m only getting one side of events.
By my read of what’s available on Diamanda Galas, she should already know the following quote:
I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning.
Know it, understand it, embrace it.
Dean,
I advise you not to get on the phone with a person who by your own account is a criminal, though not yet arrested. Does she strike you as a good candidate for fact-checker for this site?
What she and her fellow haters wrote about me is documented in screen shots you have published here. End of story.
Now, let me help her with some fact checking because she seems confused:
“Mr. Esmay,
Why don’t you come pick me up if you are asking for my arrest.
Make an arrest warrant today.”
Reply: Ms. Galas, Dean Esmay has no authority to arrest another citizen. Those who do, namely NYPD, are actively seeking you for arrest, but apparently you have not been in New York lately. When they subpeonaed FB for the IP address that your criminal death threats against me in August came from, FB told NYPD that the computer in question was in San Diego. (Where your mother lives, and where you were.) This means the arrest process must go back to the FBI, where the investigation began. It will take more time, but in the end, the benefit is we will also be able to nab your buddy “Bovine Spongi,” in London. Please go right ahead and continue to threaten me–it only provides NYPD and FBI with more fodder. Both organizations are working on this, in tandem. You will hope that I am not telling the truth but unfortunately for you, I am.
Internet crime is a matter I take very seriously.
“Since noone has written here in my defense, I shall do it myself.
What you have published as fact is hearsay. That is not ethical journalism. If you had done your homework, you would have gone to google search and looked up michelle walsh+kalliope amorphous+fraud.
I am afraid you have had your page used by a pro.”
Reply:
What’s hearsay? What Kalliope Amorphous, ie Michelle Walsh, has made public, is in fact documentation (that is to say emails, online threads–things that are DOCUMENTED) of your sustained campaign of defamation, harassment, death threats, and vile homophobia against her. It is perfectly clear that Kalliope Amorphous is not her real name, but an artistic name. She has never denied that.
You’re preaching to Dean about “ethical journalism?”
Seriously…Are you joking?
This from a woman who posted gory details of a snuff fantasy, offering to cash in on my murder on pay per view, whose accomplice boasted ticket sales to my funeral, who has threatened NUMEROUS individuals in similar ways online and off, whose homophobic rants against Kalliope who is gay are so obscene that dealing with them would require GLAAD to open a whole new division just to cope with it?
“I will forgive your naivete but please do understand that photocopying of facebook commentary is illegal, that publishing a personal e-mail worldwide is illegal, and that you have unknowingly become part of the problem.”
Dean doesn’t want or need the forgiveness of somebody who has broken the law and exhibited pathological, violent and homobohbic tendencies.
So “photocopying of facebook commentary” is “illegal,” eh, but not overt, specific ultra violent death threats?
How delusional are you?
“If you observe a picture of a woman wearing a black wig on the pics from my site, saying thumbs up against celia farber’s uneducated propaganda against antivirals with duesberg you will see ‘kalliope amorphous’ herself.”
Reply: No kidding. We know this. Kalliope wrote me personally after I published my piece about all this and said she felt nauseated that she had at the time been under your spell, had clicked “like,” and she asked my forgiveness for this offense. I forgave her, and following that, she relayed to me what you had done to HER.
“If you want to help those who have had
their time wasted by this person, please help me reach AMMA and joe. They are too afraid to respond to e-mail now.
And please go to my webpages. Think a moment.
Imagine that I require a person of this nature to fulfill my life.
Diamanda Galas
p.s. I guarantee that within a few minutes you will hear from this person who has attempted to destroy my life because doppelgangers routinely do this sort of thing. To defend the rage i feel for those whose inadequate medical knowledge
catalyzed the denial of my dearest friend who was a patient of Sonnabend and died because of it, I suggest you research my work for many years. Do not propagate lies yourself, sir.”
Reply: Dean does not “propogate lies,” don’t worry.
You try to justify your death threats and violent criminal conduct by pretending you feel that much rage over my supposed anti-anti-retroviral reportage.
You use Michael Callen, who was a good friend of mine, and who as you know died in 1994, from disseminated KS. You have a VERY poor grasp of facts. Callen was an HIV dissident, yes, this is well documented. He did not feel up to his death that there was sufficient evidence for a single virus cause of AIDS, and was a staunch multi-factorialist, drawing on the works of his MD, Joe Sonnabend. Michael, unlike some 300,000 other gay men of his generation, avoided death by high dose AZT, much thanks to Joe. Joe was and is VERY mainstream, uses HAART–but did not prescribe AZT if it could be avoided. HAART was not available when Michael died. I have said in my writings that I think HAART is a rational and occasionally life saving regimen for those who are very sick and about to go over the edge. Probably due to the drugs’ potent anti-fungal properties, as AIDS is chiefly a fungus based cellular catastrophe. My research has led to to support Tony Lance’s Intestinal Dysbiosis model of AIDS causation, which me beloved friend Michael (I’d-had-3,000-people-up-my-ass-by-the-time-I-was-26-and-there-is-ny-mystery-why-I-got-sick) Callen would have been all over were he alive.
Nothing Joe could have done could have saved Michael Callen.
Richard Berkowitz told me Michael was a heavy poppers user, which is the only thing Michael did not tell me. There is in fact no way Michael could have developed disseminated KS were he NOT a poppers user. He was also a brilliant artist, a visionary and unflinching humanitarian and activist, and a loyal and great friend. Don’t use his name to attack me. He is dead. I did not kill hm; Joe did not kill him. I spoke at his memorial service. In his will he left a document reaffirming his staunch support of my work in principle and in execution, declaring it in his estimate the best AIDS journalism “anywhere in the world.” I can post the document here if you don’t believe me. This was written, mind you, just before he died.
He also wanted me to use HIS name when I was attacked, as he promised I would be, by his own community, using words I won’t repeat here.
You also make frequent refrence to your brother, who died of AIDS, many years ago.
It’s my fault and Joe’s that Michael died right? Who killed your brother? You accuse “denialists” even of killing gay men who died BEFORE the HAART battle broke out. You just swing wildly, with no factual underpinning to anything.
I DO think you have an exceptional voice and you have wasted your instrument and gift by going down criminal rabbit holes because you never mastered your rage or self pity. You can climb out. I am more interested in your rehabilitation than in your arrest, which interests me not at all. You could take this opportunity to repent and change. It begins with atonement, self awareness, and commitment to change. It’s up to you. NYPD is presently seeking to arrest you, and following that, you are likely to be faced with multiple lawsuits.
You claim “inadequate medical knowledge” is what triggers your unique and criminal rage? Really? Then why are you advocating for the murder of a journalist who seeks to OPEN UP and BROADEN the debate about causation and treatment and who has fought for this since 1986, when I first met Callen? It was Michael who set me ONTO this path of questioning. Go to a number of rethinkers sites, almost all run by gay men, and if you have the courage, fight THEM, if you’re so right. Go to http://www.questioningaids.com–it is a forum for HIV positive people fighting to survive both with and without the use of the antiretrovirals you claim to be an expert about. I have been interviewing gay men about this syndrome and its causes and treatments since 1986.
Lastly, who the hell are AMMA and Joe?
WELL OF COURSE THIS IS AN HIV DENIERS SITE.
BUT DON’T COUNT ON CELIA TO BRING YOU CRYSTALS
AND LAY THEM ON YOUR DYING BODY. CARL VALENTINO
NEVER GOT THEM.
YOU IDIOT CELIA, YOU ARE TRUSTING A KNOWN
CON ARTIST? SHE IS THE ONE WHO _MADE_ MY AIDS VIDEO.
NOTICE HOW IT IS NOW MISSING? HAHAHHAAHHAHA.
YOU DIDN’T DO YOUR RESEARCH ON MICHELLE WALSH
DID YOU? BUT I KNEW THAT YOU WOULD NOT SINCE YOU
DO NOT DO RESEARCH.
PS CHRISTINA JUST GOT ARRESTED FOR GOING OUT
IN PUBLIC DRUNK. GO GET HER, CELIA.
What a lovely individual.
I don’t think I ever heard of diamonda until today.
Being a music fan, I went straight to her music to see what she is all about.
Blah. I would hardly call her a musician. A poet, maybe. Troubled, for sure.
Other than that, I have no idea what this HIV pissing match is about, and don’t care to learn.
But I support your right to go for it.
If I have made some horrible mistake in believing Celia Farber is a responsible journalist, if this Kallipoe is a nutjob spreading vile lies, or I have mistakenly given people grave misinformation about a horrible plague, I really seriously need to know about it and want people to know the truth. Having lately begun exploring Diamanda Galas’ fascinating body of work and extraordinary vocal abilities, I would hate to have any part in smearing her in any way.
If you are the amazing artist Diamandas and AMMA and Joe are your friends, who are they and how can we help? I know a little bit about computers so maybe I can help find them. If Celia and Kalliope are hurting them I want to know so I can help. Maybe I can even help get them arrested if they’ve committed a crime.
I really would like contact information so I can verify the truth. If Celia and this Kalliope person are not people who can be trusted, they may be crazy and erratic. I just want the truth. If an artist is being smeared, if lies are being spread about her or this disease… I need to know so I can alert people.
Astonishing art, challenging all with its vision. Are we just too afraid to see its brilliance and the truth it holds?
Is it really her?
AMMA refers to a spiritual leader of a cult that Kalliope Amorphous belonged to many years ago. After she departed, she apparently conducted a smear campaign on the internet similar to that which she is conducting against Diamanda. Or, if you believe Kalliope, the cult was dangerous and mind-controlling and her criticisms of it were entirely justified.
Joe I believe is Joe Moreno, who exposed Michelle Walsh/Kalliope’s rather dubious credentials as a critic of AMMA. Apparently she has dabbled in faith healing, palm reading and once even tried to sell a genie-in-a-bottle on Ebay! Or, if you again believe Kalliope, Moreno stalked her in order to punish her for her attacks on AMMA and fabricated these stories in order to destroy her reputation.
I have done my best to remain neutral on this matter, but I was a witness to the FB conversations between these two women (although I did not witness the threats made against Celia Farber, which I do not condone in any way), and they were close friends and kindred spirits. It is a true tragedy that they have lost that friendship and frankly, there something almost Queen Anne/Sarah Churchill like about their current animosity. I suspect they both believe themselves to be in the right, but have been deeply hurt by the others perceived betrayal.
I hope that helps a little in answering your questions Dean and Celia. And if that is Diamanda, I respect your work greatly, but take my advice and cease online posting. Those people who warned you that it would destroy your mystique were right.
You have my IP number,
so I will give it to you again because you need it
in order to search all my files and find out
the truth; it is unnecessary to trick me with false
praise. I accept your judgement and will accept
the consequences. You know your local authorities.
They will pick me up if I have hurt anyone. Read my
speech at CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY to which celia’s new
defender, who sells six thousand dollar walking canes to
invalids added her own footage. Where is any mention of
farber? She is an opportunistic infection of the illness.
None of you care remotely what happens to the black victims
of your lies.
And there is kalliope herself as jaymaster.
trolling in again as someone else.
I am going to do you a favor celia.
When you take me to court do yourself a big favor
and do not use as your premiere liason kalliope amorphous,
who pretended to be Greek and get to know all my greek and greek cypriot colleagues from cana, citing her greek and armenian heritage, only for us to all discover that she discriminates against
“illiterate mexicans” and that” but diamanda, I have never even
slept with a dyke…..I HATE DYKES,”
She was “under the spell of AMMA OF THE CHURCH OF THE HUGGING SAINT AND SEE THE JOB SHE DID ON HER.
please bring someone who does not use 200 url and 200 aliases.
I do not need to help you, but i have nothing to lose and you
have convicted me.
Methamphatamine I suspect. Or maybe good old fashioned speedballing?
Ugh, I would have gladly lived my whole life without being exposed to that garbage. Blech. Do people pay to be assaulted with that “art”?
To each his own.
I gave up trolling years ago.
But it’s kinda nice to know I’ve still got the chops….
Charlie Sheen ain’t got nothin’ on this.
diamanda galas,
jaymaster has been commenting here a long time. He isn’t anyone’s sock puppet.
Yours,
Wince
Yeah, jaymaster ain’t exactly new here – and if that’s sockpuppetry it’s remarkably well-modulated.
I mean, “no idea what this HIV pissing match is about and don’t care to learn” combined with the equivalent of “meh, not my taste” to the music… if that’s all it takes to be a sockpuppet for a Bitter And Lawbreaking Enemy, that’s a low bar indeed.
And the all-caps ranting, that doesn’t help the image, you know? Makes you look out-of-control and possibly like it’s still 1996 for you.
[remainder elided]
Diamanda has proved my point, yet again. For the past five months, like Pavlov’s dog, she repeatedly accuses every critical commentator of being me. She has been obsessing over me for months, bringing up my name non-stop in articles and forums completely unrelated to me. At least once a week amongst my Google alerts, which previously alerted me to only my art publications, there is Diamanda Galas spinning “Kalliope aka Michelle my stalker” etc…..
This, after appx. two months of harassment, threats and defamation. Obviously, there is a much deeper issue here, but it is not my job to understand it. She has driven it to the point where I have had to make all of this public in order to defend myself against her smear campaign.
“Amma and Joe” have absolutely nothing to do with Diamanda and I. This will be clear by reading my site. Many years ago I was stalked by someone who is widely considered an Internet terrorist/stalker. This happened after I wrote some negative commentaries of a spiritual group that I had been a part of. This person then tried to connect me to my ex who sold (I will agree, quite wacky) role playing items on Ebay. This happened because I foolishly lent her my image to use to represent herself. As a conceptual self portrait artist, this obviously means _I_ am the model. That stupid move, along with the fact that we shared a computer at the time, led to all of this. But, Diamanda knew all of this. Surely, she has not lost her memory of us discussing how “funny it was that lending my face out” caused me such a hassle.
Diamanda also should pray that this man does not bother me again as a result of what she has done, because she will hold the legal responsibility of that as well. I am sure all of Diamanda’s “feminist” associations will also be thrilled to hear how another woman, a victim of attacks herself, has exposed another woman to a previous male stalker as part of her revenge obsession. This cowardly-diabolical behavior does not make you interesting, Diamanda. It simply makes you a coward who spends too much time engaging in criminal and anti-social behavior on her computer.
What has occurred here is that Diamanda has decided to glom onto the ONE negative incident on the Internet that falls under my name. I am an artist, and other than those sites from many years ago, all to be found is my artwork, exhibitions, publications, magazines etc. But, Diamanda has spent the past five months posting in every possible forum that I am a “con artist”. How so, Diamanda? My work is right out there for the world to see. I do two things. I am best known for my visual art and I make handmade perfume. If I had time to do anything else, I would work on the other two half-finished projects that I don’t have time to get to. I would not be selling ridiculous items on an online auction site. Wake up.
I am not anyone other the person I was when Diamanda and I were close and she knows it. I look the same, I act the same, and my hair is still long and black (Diamanda decided to nab an unflattering photo of me as a teen, with short bleached blonde hair from the stalkers site and is now trying to play it off as if I actually look like I did as a teen but am pretending to look like me now. Don’t try to figure it out). I am not all of a sudden an internet troll, a stalker, a con artist, a pet psychic, Batman, her mailman, a Russian spy or whatever the hell else she comes up with. So, I gave readings when I was a teenager. I was part of a cult. SO WHAT. That makes me no more a “psychic” and “fan of Amma” today than it makes Diamanda a “prostitute” today. I mean, we can certainly play “let’s resurrect each others early mistakes”….but what’s the point? Seriously.
Why so moral all of a sudden, Diamanda? Surely, you cannot be Mother Theresa and Mommie Dearest at the same time. If I actually were a “con artist”, well then I’d be just the type you roll with, wouldn’t I? And what’s this new tirade about my ethnicity when you know I am of mixed heritage? Your “friends at CANA”? Oh, you mean Nick, of whom you emailed everyone to inform of his lack of male endowment? Don’t try to use other people you have screwed over against me.
Well, if I were a con artist, you certainly made out well didn’t you? I’d say you made out with about 5k. Tell me, what woman accepts a diamond ring, among other things, from her “stalker”? Those things came to you as a result of my art and my work. Unlike you, I have not had to resort to selling underwear on my website. When you said you didn’t deserve those gifts and could not open them for weeks because they “meant you were worth something” and you felt worthless: you were right. You deserve nothing sincere and positive and I think that you have proven this thoroughly.
But surely, an outside observer must wonder what I have done to provoke such a vehement revenge response. Usually such vitriol is thrust upon someone who has betrayed, lied or wronged the other party in some way. “Certainly, Diamanda is not so obsessed with this girl for no reason, creating outlandish revenge strategies just as a hobby?” Truth: She is. Why? HELL. IF. I. KNOW.
Diamanda, I said goodbye, wished you the best and even wrote you after you tried to drag me through the mud to tell you I would never hate you. Further, I said “despite all of this, I would still be there if the world walked away from you and you desperately needed help.” But still, you continued and still continue to this day.
Why do you continue? Because you hate yourself and you project it outward onto everyone else. You hate yourself so viciously that you cannot be content until everyone else hates you too. And if they are forgiving, compassionate people, you will make damn sure you drive them to the point of hating you beyond repair. Further, you’ve allowed yourself to become everything you hated; the persecutor, the tyrant, the misogynist, the hypocrite, the coward, the stalker, the homophobe and the liar. Hatred and anger now consume you entirely, like someone possessed, who spouts bile and filth in every direction. Yet, you have the nerve to speak as a voice for the “infidel”. The persecuted, defamed, tormented, wrongfully accused and terrorized do NOT need the hangman speaking in their name.
I am 32 years old and I am not going to let you attack my reputation because you have become everything you’ve hated just to hate yourself more. That is your overwhelming problem, not mine.
Did you think I would not fight you, when in your own words, “Oh, darling Kalliope. Nobody will fight for me except for you!” Usually the person who fought on your behalf is the last person you want to deliberately keep attempting to sabotage without reason. Usually, a person who has been honest and emotive is the last person you want to try and bring down with lies. But, that would require common sense; a scarce commodity in your head.
Sure, jail and lawsuits are not going to be fun for you. But, the worst part for you is that you will have to stand in front of me and look me in the eyes. And you will have to look into the eyes of another woman whose grisly murder you called for amongst your fans. Yes, I clicked the “like” button on one comment because I did not know what the HELL you were talking about. You are a coward and face to face accountability is the last thing you want, because you have grown far too comfortable behind your computer acting like a virtual tyrant. You were warned by many people to cool it with the computer obsession and this is precisely why. You have no one to speak in defense of your crimes, because you have committed crimes against all those who would have. You now have to befriend your fans, because they are the only ones left in your life that can be manipulated.
Look in the mirror, Diamanda. You should see a stalker, liar, criminal and traitor who loathes her own mind and body. What I saw in you was the “could’ve been” and I confused it with the “could be”. This is your legacy now, because this is what you have chosen. You have decided to trade your talent and your work for a permanent role as a broken-down Judas. The angels throughout your life were legion and you spat in their faces, because you prefer to live “beneath the beneath” as you once told me. You bragged, as if your wickedness was a credential or a prize. Had I known the depths of that statement, I would have left you long before Autumn. My concern now is in holding you responsible for your crimes, lies, defamation, attacks and tyrannical behavior against myself and others who do NOT deserve to be targets of YOUR self-loathing. PERIOD.
~Kalliope
This one is certainly interesting.
I would call it music.
The more research I do into this Diamanda person, the more I think we might be dealing with an imposter.
I’d say 99% of the drag queens in the country could pull off a believable imitation.
I am not interested in comments regarding so-called “HIV denialism” and any further comments referencing that will be rejected or deleted on sight. One comment has been elided; at least one other person tried a lengthy comment on that and the comment was rejected; if that person wishes to try again without any of that garbage, the rest of the comment will be approved.
This is about cyber-bullying and harassment–which is criminal behavior, at both a state and federal level, and there is a question of slander as well. We have seen substantial, verifiable evidence that either Galas or someone pretending to be her is engaged in this behavior and egging others on to commit murder. If the person claiming to be Galas is NOT Galas, then Galas has been horrendously defamed by a person engaging in criminal and civilly-actionable behavior on her behalf.
As for Kalliope: I know nothing of her case, but if there is evidence that she has threatened to hurt anyone the authorities need to know and investigate that as well.
If the person claiming to be Galas here provides contact information, I will contact them and if there is evidence that she is being impersonated or threatened I’d be happy to help her.
I’m writing from the UK. I think you are all missing the point. I don’t care how threatening Diamanda Galás has been towards anyone. I don’t care whether her blogs are legal or illegal. I don’t care about the accuracy of her complaints or of your counter-complaints. What bothers me is that, through your patronising passive aggression manifesting as “rationality”, you commit the biggest crime: that of ingratitude. Let’s talk about litigiousness in terms of intellectual crimes rather than the supposed crime of incendiary language, which, let’s face it, is a hex, rather than a homicide. (Do people in the US assume that all threats are imminent attacks?) You have proven yourselves in contravention of a significant tenet of intellectual law. Diamanda Galás is an extraordinary artist, renowned worldwide. It could be argued – as many have – that she is one of the most significant artists of the past half century. Her work has involved the exposition of disturbing aspects of human nature and the triumph of surviving. Armed with her fearsome intelligence and a collection of personal qualities which make her suitable for the task (lest you be ungracious further and omit to mention the dedicated training of her voice, her piano skills, her performance abilities, her obsessive research, her imagination, her courage, and yes, her rage), for over 40 years, she has generously offered us the gifts of her creativity, so that we might use them as our existential companion. If you expect that there is no cost to her for such beneficence, you are wrong. If you expect that there is no cost to you, you are wrong also. You are paying the price for your myopia. Genius is representing itself directly in front of your nose. It’s time to recognise it. To run under the skirts of the law in the face of such a great artist choosing to b(log_c)astigate you, especially in such a brilliantly witty way, is the waste of an opportunity to inhale the breath of an angel, albeit a dark, dark variety. Instead of belligerently counter-posting, why don’t you just sit back and accept the gift? I have a suggested wording for your next blog. It goes something like this: “Thank you Diamanda. I recognise that I am in the presence of greatness. I retract all my previous postings and withdraw my silly complaint to the NYPD. I will take all you have to give, because when I take from an artist of your calibre, I transcend above the blogosphere into a haze of spectacular enlightenment. May you rain down your droplets of genius into my open wounds. Thusly – I know how you much like that word – I am healed.”
I am speechless in the face of such puissance. Moved beyond words, really. What more can you say?
petertherapist,
If she is that kind of a great artist, then jail time would probably improve her work, as it has many artists.
Yours,
Wince
Pete,
I’m not missing the point at all.
Yes, she’s an artist, and an envelope pushing one. I’ll grant you that.
Whether she is a great artist, a good artist, or a not-so-good artist is a matter of personal taste and opinion. And my opinion should be clear by now.
But, even if she is a unanimously respected, off the charts, phenomenal, ground breaking artist, that does not put her above the laws that apply to all of us.
Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. ~Henry Ward Beecher
Really! Of all the battles to fight with your trusty sword of liberalism! I dare say you guys would be just as vociferous to condemn other illiberal “crimes”, such as lapses in financial probity (especially those from which you may benefit, such as the manipulation of assets and other forms of tax avoidance, and spurious claims for expenses – we know A LOT about that in the UK!); the involvement of our respective governments in the Middle East, the other Americas and anywhere else in the world, where assertion of economic power can be presented as a kind of moral imperative for ideological-political advantage; the condoning of countries such as Turkey as legitimate partners in international forums like the European Union; the sale of weapons and training resources to Libya (to name JUST one), even though it keeps us in employment (thank you so much, Colonel Gaddafi – you look like Gary Glitter [British former pop star, now vilified paedophile] and you’re evil as fuck, but we’ll sell you anything you’ll buy if it means we survive the collapse of our financial institutions); the manipulation, if not complete obfuscation, of human rights in issues relating to the rendition of citizens across national boundaries on suspicion of whatever crime our governments decide has been committed; the destruction of the ecosystem due to over-consumption (how much waste do YOU produce?); racist, homophobic and artphobic structures which perpetuate the idea of a conservative superiority; shopping from regimes that produce cheap goods for comparatively rich westerners at the expense of their own people, or regimes which torture, exploit and warmonger (the list of which is naturally topped by the US and the UK)……I could go on. The point I’m making is that the erudition (?) you exercise to decry Diamanda Galás for hexing a handful of insignificant figures is at best misplaced, and at worst a deliberate – but convenient – deflection. Turn your liberal irritation on the genuine enemies.
you commit the biggest crime: that of ingratitude
It could be argued – as many have – that she is one of the most significant artists of the past half century.
Thanks for making that clear…
Now I understand that her fans are a bunch of psychos.
As far as I’m aware, there’s only one of us on here who is qualified to diagnose psychosis, sir.
My lawyer advises that I should not communicate with you further, as to do so would be considered assisting suicide. You are, after all, an ungrateful artphobe. And THAT, need I remind you, is an intellectual crime…with a terminal penality.
It’s a shame that we can’t continue our intercourse. It was so much fun.
Peter, I too was/am a Galas fan, and the examples of her work presented here do not represent her best (Look for Sevda Zinciri or Saint of the Pit). However, her achievements as an artist do not justify death threats. They just don’t. Nor do they justify her comments about Kalliope, an openly gay woman, which featured frequent references to fish and “vulvanic plague cells”. This is homophobia at its most offensive and nauseating. Hate is not a reward point system. “She’s been gay-friendly for 20 years so she’s earned one or two homophobic outbursts.” It doesn’t work like that and you know it.
Her intelligence doesn’t make her exempt from the law. Her (platonic yet close) relationship with Kalliope was open and obvious to everyone on her FB page, and now Kalliope’s an insane “stalker”. Her threats against Ms Farber are vicious and terrifying to read, and that is illegal. No amount of worship can change that. I hope that proves we’re not all psychos, Dishman. And I’m not Kalliope in case anyone wants to insinuate that. I wish I looked like her!
…I should not communicate with you further, as to do so would be considered assisting suicide. You are, after all, an ungrateful artphobe. And THAT, need I remind you, is an intellectual crime…with a terminal penality.
I do not think I am wrong to construe that as a threat. I hope Dishman is watching himself, but I think it more likely that instead someone else will be accused of being Dishman, even though he’s a regular here just like Jaymaster.
This Galas person appears to be at the center of a cult who views her as some sort of spirtual being with the power to order others’ deaths if they do not properly appreciate her or her art. This is beyond creepy. I am not much of a believer but I do not think I have ever seen anything that looked more Satanic.
I think my points are being underscored. The “hatred”, the “Satanism”, the…oh…dozens of epithets of this kind, you ascribe to Diamanda Galás are your responses to an elaborate construction, a spider’s web, feral AR(T)chitecture. You need to understand the cultural milieu from which the ancient tradition of the “hex” derives. While the hex is usually not for the benefit of its hexee, were I on the receiving end, I would not be running to the NYPD or the FBI. Are you kidding?! It would be an HONOUR to inspire the artistic force erupting from Diamanda’s fingers as she incarnates the hex through the ends of those elemental fingers.
As for the accusation that I might be making death threats… I’d like to offer the wisdom of that well-known French hex: “Honi soit qui mal y pense” (“Evil be to he who thinks it”). I am not threatening anybody with death. I am merely warning that the ultimate destination of a failure to traverse huge intellectual gulfs is death – metaphorically, of course! You may read Camus, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche or Heidegger for elaboration, and you may thank me for my generosity in bringing this matter to your attention. You still have time to save yourselves.
While on the topic of intellectual gulfs, I reiterate that, when you continue to focus your liberal outrage on Diamanda Galás, you are not using your voice to speak up against the siginificant crimes being perpetrated within your community, by your government and by other groups/international governments. I would respect you more if I knew that you were making use of your time to put your neck on the line in defence of those poor bastards around the world who are genuinely in fear for their lives, if, indeed, they still have a life.
A purple prose-spewing, bootlicking sycophant to a psychopath attempts to change the subject. Again. Quelle surprise. Classic cultist behavior.
Your cult leader foolishly dispatched you and is likely so addled on amphetamines and opiates that she can’t see that you’re doing her more harm than good; you just clearly threatened someone and instead of apologizing you’re trying to rationalize and change the subject.
You are an enabler to a drug addict and a sociopath. Her art, whatever its merits, does not in any way justify her criminal harassment and deeply psychotic death threats. If you are a psychiatrist or a psychotherapist–which I doubt–you’re an incompetent one. Your Queen is self-destructing before your eyes, and you’re lashing out at anyone who notices when what you should do is try to get her some help instead.
Instead you watch and rationalize as she acts like every domestic abuser and every stalker sociopath and narcissist who’s ever lived. Hitler was an artist with sweeping vision and incomparable aesthetic sensibility too: what of it?
Does someone actually have to die at this woman’s hands, or as a result of her behavior, before you recognize what you’re aiding and abetting? Or will you call murder just another great artistic expression that we should all be grateful for?
Changing the subject will not change this, any more than changing the subject to Moammar Kadafi in Libya will excuse a child molester. Go and seek help for your cult leader, and stop wasting your time defending the indefensible; you’re doing your idol more harm with every word you write. This is a sick person who obviously needs help, she’s a danger to herself and everyone around her.
You sir need help; do you have any idea how offensive your nom-de-plume is to those of us who’ve actually been the victims of sexual abuse? Or tried to help those who are?
Get help, and get your friend help. I would normally have erased this thread already since it’s so completely deranged, but I’m leaving it in place so people can witness just what’s going on here.
Your friend Diamanda, or someone pretending to be her, is threatening to murder people, and running around grossly slandering people–gay men and women in particular, ironically. She needs to be stopped before she or one of her followers actually acts on it. You should try to help her.
This thread is now closed. We’ve seen enough.
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