Mystique

Mystique (pronounced mi-steek)

(1) A framework of doctrines, ideas, beliefs, or the like, constructed around a person or object, endowing the person or object with enhanced value or profound meaning:

(2) The aura of mystery (real, imagined or confected) or mystical power surrounding a particular occupation or pursuit:

1891: A borrowing by English in the sense of “atmosphere of mystery and veneration”, from the French noun & adjective mystique (a mystic; the act of a mystic; the mystical), from the Latin mysticus, from the Ancient Greek μυστικός (mustikós) (secret, mystic), from μύστης (mústēs) (one who has been initiated).  Mystique is a noun; the noun plural is plural mystiques.

A Dangerous Liaison (2008) by Carole Seymour-Jones (1943-2015).

When Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex (1949)) was published by French feminist and social theorist Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986), it was recognized almost at once as a landmark in feminist thought but it was in the twenty-first century re-evaluated when gender came to be re-defined as a spectrum rather than a binary.  Of particular interest was de Beauvoir’s mapping of existentialist thought on to the matter, asserting that being a woman was a construct, something obviously dependent on being born female but the product of processes integral to a society in which women had been defined as inferior to men, a tradition she traces back centuries.  The Second Sex and Dr Germaine Greer’s (b 1939) The Female Eunuch (1970) remain the two most important texts of late twentieth century feminism.  De Beauvoir is one of those writers who led a life which many choose to entangle with what she wrote but The Second Sex is best read by allowing the words to prevail.  

However, the complexity of The Second Sex, infused as it was with strands of French structuralism, meant that it lacked accessibility unless a reader had some background in certain philosophical traditions and it was American feminist Betty Friedan’s (1921–2006) The Feminine Mystique (1963) which, by sheer weight of numbers, proved the greater influence politically, many claiming still it was the work responsible for the emergence of second wave feminism.  The Feminine Mystique is by comparison a slight work and although not of excessive length, is thematically repetitious and can be deconstructed as a long social media post about one woman’s discontent with her life, something to which she (not without justification) links the structure of the patriarchal society in which she exists.  That made it a compelling polemic for the receptive millions of women who read it as their own biographies and ensured its success but it also lent second-wave feminism (which greatly the book at least influenced) a distinctly white, Western, middle-class flavor which asked many of the right questions but ignored (rather than deliberately excluded) most of what lay beyond that fashionable but narrow cultural vista.

Jane Birkin and the mystique of the Birkin Bag

The bag lady: Jane Birkin (with her usual straw bag) and Serge Gainsbourg (1928-1991) at the premiere of their film Slogan, August 1969.

One well-known example of manufactured mystique is that attached to the Birkin Bag manufactured by the French fashion house Hermès, the origin of which was a chance meeting in 1984 on Paris-London shuttle flight between the English actress Jane Birkin (1946-2023) and Jean-Louis Dumas (1938-2010), then executive chairman Hermès.  Ms Birkin was placing her usual straw bag in the overhead locker when “everything fell out” her belongings scattering over her and Monsieur Dumas.  The inevitable conversation ensued and the pair thrown together by circumstances spent the brief flight designing Ms Birkin’s ideal leather bag for weekend travel, the airline’s sick bags improbably used for the first sketches.  Within months, the Birkin was a Hermès part-number.

Although in her later years Ms Birkin ceased to carry one (it became “just too heavy"), over the last four decades, the Birkin has become a coveted item, much sought by those attracted by its association with pop-culture celebrities and the price-tag which begins somewhere over US$10,000 and can, for a custom unit, extend into six figures.  Although the Birkin range is advertized both in the glossy catalogues and on-line, it’s not a “display item” carried on the shelves of the bricks & mortar stores and it’s long been part of the product’s image that as well as being PoA (price on application), they’re not “for everyone”, Hermès selling them only to someone “suitable”; it’s all part of the mystique.  There has long been speculation about how “real” this mystique may be, the suspicion being that if anyone offers cold hard cash (or its modern equivalent), a store manager would think of their end-of-year bonus and make the sale.  However, in March 2024, two disgruntled (rejected) Birkin customers filed suit in Federal court in California, alleging Hermès was in violation of US antitrust legislation by allowing only those with a “sufficient purchase history” with the company to bag a Birkin.  Essentially, the case hinges on the lure of the right to buy a Birkin being used as an inducement to spend money on shoes, jewellery, scarves and such, the carrot of the bag dangled while the stick is used to force folk to create a “purchase history”.  The suit also noted the company’s sales associates are driving the scheme, thereby gaining benefits for both themselves and Hermès, an important technical point in US antitrust law.

Hermès Birkin 3-en-1: "(1) a canvas clutch topped with the emblematic leather flap, (2) A leather tote with side straps & turnlock and (3) A clutch & tote together recreate the eternal Birkin."  The 3-en-1 is one of many current designs in the range.

Interestingly, it was further alleged the floor staff don’t earn commissions on Birkin bag sales and are instructed to use the handbags only as a device “…to coerce consumers to purchase ancillary products” while only “…those consumers who are deemed worthy of purchasing a Birkin handbag will be shown a Birkin handbag” in a private viewing room.”  Any civilian (ie a non-celebrity or not someone identified as rich) walking into the store and asking to see a Birkin is told they’re “out of stock”.  The lawsuit requested class-action status for thousands of US consumers who bought Hermès goods or were asked to buy them as a prerequisite for buying a Birkin and sought unspecified monetary damages and a court order banning Hermès’s allegedly anti-competitive practices.

A certain, brutish mystique: 1974 Holden Torana L34.

Restrictions on a right to purchase are not unusual.  Ferrari have specified that some of their low-volume models are available only to previous customers and that has sometimes demanded the prior purchase of more than one of the Italian machines.  Whether apocryphal or not, the story is that on more than one occasion, upon being informed of the clause, the buyer would at random pick a Ferrari from the showroom stock and buy it, just to qualify.  Somewhat down the automotive food chain, in 1974 when quietly Holden in Australia introduced their L34 option (a homologation package to ensure certain bits & pieces could be used in racing) for the Torana SL/R 5000, although the thing could be registered for road use, it was specified it could be bought only by holders of a certain level of competition licence issued by CAMS (the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, then the sport's peak regulatory body).  That policy was a pre-emptive strike to ensure there would be no repetition of the moral panic stirred up two years earlier by the tabloid press which claimed the three local manufacturers were selling “160 mph (257 km/h) supercars” to the public, summoning the fear of the usual suspects (males aged 17-25) unleashing these lethal weapons on public roads.  As was often the case in moral panics, the tabloids were being economical with the truth but their campaign spooked the politicians and the manufacturers, the new generation of high-performance machinery swiftly cancelled.  Ironically, when tested, it transpired the L34 package was about durability rather than power or speed and was actually a little slower than a standard SL/R 5000 but the exotic terms & conditions (T&Cs) certainly gained it some mystique.

The Mean Girls (2004) crew on DeviantArt by SBBeauregarde in cosplay mode: Marvel Comics' Mystique.

The Mystique de la Merde 

The word mystique even has a place in what must be one of the darker corners of literary theory.  The term Mystique de la Merde dates from September 1956 when an article by Robert Elliot Fitch (1902-1986) was published in the New Republic.  Fitch was a Congregationalist minister who graduated successively from Yale (1923), the Union Theological Seminary (1926) and Columbia (1929), later becoming a professor of Christian ethics and dean of Berkeley's Pacific School of Religion but he was interested also in literary theory, often as a device by which he could explore the decline in Western society associated with God’s withdrawal from the place.  Fitch’s Mystique de la Merde wasn’t literally “the mystique of shit” but a description of what he detected in literature (and therefore life in general) as “a preoccupation with the seamier, muddier, bloodier aspects of life, as well as, excessively, with sex and money.”  Befitting the decline of civilization, Mystique de la Merde was a deliberately more vulgar version of Nostalgie de la boue (nostalgia for mud), a phrase coined in 1855 by French dramatist Émile Augier (1820–1889) meaning “an attraction for low-life culture, experience, and degradation (in individuals, institutions & culture).”

In his New Republic piece, Fitch started as he intended to continue: "…perhaps we should take note of a brand of piety which may best be characterized as the mystique de la merde. This might be rendered in English as the deification of dirt, or the apotheosis of ordure, or just plain mud mysticism.  At any rate it provides a label for a sectarian cult which appears to have attracted some of the best talent in contemporary literature."  He nominated Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) as a founding father of the cult (he must have been tempted to call him the “high priest”) in whose writing he identified a surfeit of “…fertility, money, blood and iron."  One sex was stirred into that mix (as Hemmingway did), one has, as Fitch noted: all “…the basic ingredients of ultimate reality" as seen by the merde mystics.

Ernest Hemingway in Cuba, 1952.  F Scott Fitzgerald's (1896–1940) wife Zelda (1900–1948) described Hemmingway's novel The Sun Also Rises (1926) as "Bull fighting, bull slinging, and bullshit".  Had she lived, she may have found "Mystique de la Merde" a needless gloss.

Writing in the milieu of the beat generation writers, Fitch observed that in handling what clearly was a literary phenomenon, the critic was at some disadvantage because while writers could function on the “four letter [word] level”, “…the critic must stick to three-syllable words.”  He concluded, presumably not without regret, that: “When we have become honest, we discover that the reigning God is only a devil in disguise" and the real reason for this is that God “…has made us unhappy.”  He cites Mrs Evans in Eugene O'Neill’s (1888–1953) soliloquy heavy Strange Interlude (1928) who affirms that the only good thing is being happy: “I used to be a great one for worrying about what's God and what's devil, but I got richly over it… being punished for no sin but loving much.”  One suspects Fitch might have written a critique of the early twenty-first century with some relish.

Dynasty

Dynasty (pronounced dahy-nuh-stee (US English); din-uh-stee (UK English)

(1) A sequence of rulers from the same family, stock, or group.

(2) The rule of such a sequence.

(3) A series of members of a family who are distinguished for their success in business, wealth creation etc.

(4) In sport, a team or organization which has an extended period of success or dominant performance (technically unrelated to family links or even and great continuity in personnel).

(5) As used specifically in East Asian history, the polity or historical era under the rule of a certain dynasty.

1425-1475: From the Middle English dynastia, from the Middle French dynastie, from the Late Latin dynastia, from the Ancient Greek δυναστεία (dunasteía) (power, dominion, lordship, sovereignty) from dynasthai (have power), of unknown origin.  The adjective dynastic (from 1800) is used when speaking or, relating to or pertaining to a dynasty; dynastical attested since 1730.  A dynast (hereditary ruler) is from the 1630s, from the Late Latin dynastes, from the Greek dynastes (ruler, chief, lord, master).  Synonyms include house & lineage.  Dynasty & dynast are nouns, dynastic & dynastical are adjectives and dynastically is an adverb; the noun plural is dynasties.

The word is widely used of the ruling families of nations associated with royalty (Hapsburg dynasty, Romanov dynasty, Hohenzollern dynasty) and remains the standard term in the historiography of Imperial China (Ming dynasty, Qing dynasty, Song dynasty, Tang dynasty, Yuan dynasty).  In political science it’s a popular use (verging on a slur) to describe the political arrangements concocted when a ruler attempts (sometimes with success) to pass the office (and thus their country) to a descendent (usually the eldest or most demonstrably ruthless son), examples including the Congo, Syria and Cambodia.  Sometimes, polities organized in this manner can give rise to what is known as a subdynasty (which seems never to hyphenated), an idea borrowed from European history when royal families routinely would provide offspring to serve as kings of other states, thereby creating a new dynasty; sometimes this worked well, sometimes not.

In politics, families which some characterize as appearing dynastic can be very sensitive to anything which seems even to hint at the suggestion and the Lee family in Singapore is the standard case study.  Between the rule of Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015; prime minister of Singapore 1959-1990) and that of his son Lee Hsien Loong (b 1952; Prime Minister of Singapore since 2004) there was gap of over a dozen years (which must not be called an interregnum) and of some interest is whether a similar mechanism will be engineered to enable a third generation to assume office, the previous successor designate having been removed from the plan because of “some unsuitability”.  According to commentators, this means Mr Lee has decided to delay his retirement so a “long runway” is provided on which the next prime minister can emerge (Mr Lee presumably thinking of “runway” in the modern sense of the “catwalk” on which models strut their stuff rather than anything to do with aviation).

While Li Hongyi (b 1987; first-born child of Lee Hsien Loong), has disavowed any interest in a political career, there’s still plenty of time and if, in the fullness of time, “drafted” by the ruling PAP (the People’s Action Party which has been in power since independence in 1959), he may feel it his duty to be “be persuaded”.  Li Hongyi however may simply believe his lineage is too great a disadvantage to overcome.  Earlier, Lee Hsien Loong dismissed suggestions his stellar career (becoming at becoming at 32 the youngest brigadier-general in the history of the Singapore military and prime minister at 53) owed anything to family connections, claiming being the prime minister’s son actually hindered him because people were so anxious to avoid accusations of favoritism.  Interestingly, entertainment personality Kylie Jenner (b 1997) made much the point, claiming it was belonging to a famous family which saw her denied some modelling work.  The Lee family though do seem unusually sensitive to suggestions the scions might unduly benefit from the connection, the Financial Times in 2007 even having to apologize for having published not anything libellous (actually easily done in Singapore) but simply a list of Lee family members in high positions in the island nation.  The current derogatory slang is “nepo baby”, a clipping of nepotism baby, a term one is unlikely to read in the Singaporean press.

Kim I, II & III: The Kim Dynasty, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, aka North Korea)

Kim I: Kim Il-sung (1912-1994; The Great Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1948-1994 (left).  Like his descendants, The Dear Leader and The Supreme Leader, The Great Leader enjoyed food.  He’s pictured here at lunch with another foodie, comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) (right).

Kim Il-sung held an array of titles during his decades as the DPRK’s dictator, the proliferation not unusual in communist nations where the ruling party’s structures are maintained alongside the formal titles of state with which a nation maintains relations with the rest of the world.  In office for a notable forty five years he was designated premier (head of government) between 1948-1972 and president 1972-1994.  He was head of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) between 1949- 1994, and in that role was styled as chairman 1949-1966 and general secretary after 1966.  During his forty-five year rule, there were ten US presidents, six South Korean presidents, nine British prime ministers and ten Australian prime ministers.  He tenure in office also spanned the time of the USSR from its apotheosis under Comrade Stalin to its collapse in 1991. 

Being dead however proved no obstacle to The Great Leader extending his presidency, the collective office “Eternal leaders of Juche Korea” (Chuch'ejosŏnŭi yŏngwŏnhan suryŏng) created in 2016 by the insertion of an enabling line in the preamble to the constitution.  What this amendment did was formalise the position of The Great Leader and his late son Comrade Kim Jong Il (The Dear Leader) as the “eternal leaders” of the DPRK.  Juche is the term used to describe the DPRK’s national philosophy, a synthesis of The Great Leader’s interpretation of (1) Korean tradition and (2) Marxist-Leninist theory.

Funeral of The Great Leader, 1994.

It was an interesting move.  Technically, the office of president was constitutionally established only in 1972.  Prior to that, the role of head of state had been purely ceremonial and held by respected party functionaries, all power exercised by The Great Leader in his capacity as premier and general secretary of the WPK.  So tied to the legend of The Great Leader was the office of president that upon his death in 1994, the position was left vacant, The Dear Leader not granted the title.  That nuance of succession for a while absorbed the interest of the DPRK watchers but attempts to invest the move with any significance abated as DPRK business, though in the more straitened circumstances of the post Soviet world, continued as usual.

The constitution was again revised in 1998.  Being a godless communist state, no fine theological points stood in the way of declaring The Great Leader the DPRK’s "Eternal President", the latest addition to the preamble declaring:

Under the leadership of the Workers' Party of Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Korean people will hold the great leader Comrade Kim Il-sung in high esteem as the eternal President of the Republic.

The constitution in its 2012, promulgated after the death of The Dear Leader, again referred to The Great Leader as "eternal President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea" but, in 2016, The Dear Leader, having apparently been dead for a decent duration, another amendment to the preamble changed the administrative nomenclature of executive eternity to "eternal leaders of Juche Korea", the honor now jointly held by the leaders great & dear.  It was another first for the Kims.

Kim II: Kim Jong-il (1941–2011; The Dear Leader of DPRK (North Korea), 1994-2011).  Pictured here admiring a vegetable, The Dear Leader is accompanied by a general.  DPRK generals wear big hats and always carry a notebook in case the closest Kim says something.  They write it down.

As a construct, the DPRK is best thought of a hereditary theocracy.  Although opaque, its dynamics are now better understood but when The Great Leader died in 1994, neither within the country nor beyond was it widely understood how much of the power structure he controlled had passed to The Dear Leader.  Although the economic circumstances of 1994 were hardly propitious, there seems to have been little doubt about the formal succession, The Dear Leader having been anointed for more than a decade.  The DPRK’s media operation, while not in the conventional sense having a middle class to be made “quite prepared”, had the rest of the country to work on and The Dear Leader was gradually eased into photo opportunities with The Great Leader, eventually making even solo appearances, sometimes in the role of Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army to which he’s been appointed in 1991, despite having no military experience, although, given the minimal battlefield exposure of most of the generals, this might have been less of a problem than it appears.

Perhaps now aware of his own mortality, The Great Leader spent some of the time in the years before his death clearing the decks for the succession, purging the military and civilian ranks of any difficult types who might prove obstacles to The Dear Leader’s ascent.  Some apparently died but it may have been a coincidence; constitutionally the DPRK may be a theocracy but its military and political elite are gerontocracies.  The path was smoothed and, the military command settled, in 1992, The Great Leader announced The Dear Leader was in charge of all the DPRK’s internal affairs.  Curiously, shortly after that, the media began using the honorific “Dear Father” instead of “Dear Leader” but for whatever reason, all official communications soon reverted to the original title and there’s never been any explanation.

Despite all the dynastic help, the indications are it took The Dear Leader sometime fully to assert his authority.  Seriously weird it may appear but, the WPK is just another political party and they all have factions and, in the difficult post-Soviet environment of the 1994 succession, it seems there were genuine discussions within the party about how to deal with the economic problems the DPRK faced.  It frankly didn’t go well but while The Dear Leader may not have learned much economic theory, he proved adept at consolidating his power, adopting the Songun (military first) policy of North Korea, granting the military priority in resource allocation and political influence, not out of any concern about foreign invasion but to ensure the loyalty of what was, in effect, a giant police force to protect the Kim dynasty from a revolt of the people.  Secure in office, The Dear Leader did spasmodically attempt economic reforms but the results were not impressive.

Planning the dynasty: The Dear Leader shaking hands with Japanese-born singer Ko Yong-hui (1952-2004; aka Takada Hime) circa 1972.  She became his consort and would later give birth to Kim III (later The Supreme Leader).  Within the DPRK, her name must never be spoken and she's referred to only by honorific forms, the most commonly use of which is: “The Respected Mother who is the Most Faithful and Loyal 'Subject' to the Dear Leader Comrade Supreme Commander”.

By 1997, he was sufficiently entrenched to engineer his appointment to The Great Leader’s old post as General Secretary of the WPK and a year later, a constitutional amendment declared his role as chairman of the National Defence Commission was "the highest post of the state", presumably among those still alive because the same constitutional reform abolished the office of president and proclaimed The Great Leader to be the DPRK’s "Eternal President".  The year after The Dear Leader’s death in 2011, the constitution was amended to declare him Eternal General Secretary of the WPK and Eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission.  In 2016, after a decent period of mourning, the new title "Eternal Leaders of Juche Korea" was created and granted to both the Great Leader & Dear Leader.

US actor Elizabeth Gillies (b 1993) appeared as Fallon Carrington on in the television drama Dynasty (2017–2022), a revival of the 1980s soap opera; it was shown in the US on the CW Television Network (episodes streamed internationally on Netflix the next day).  She appeared (far left) in Ariana Grande's (b 1993) music video Thank U, Next (2019), taking the part of Lindsay Lohan in the segment which was a homage to Mean Girls (2004).  While not technically a doppelganger, the degree of resemblance was sufficient for the concept to work.

The reputation of the DPRK as a hermit state cloaked in secrecy is undeserved because there is an official biography of The Dear Leader and from his birth, he was amazing.  He was born inside a log cabin beneath Korea’s most sacred mountain and in the moment of delivery, a shooting star brought forth a spontaneous change from winter to summer and there appeared in the sky, a double rainbow.  The Dear Leader was not subject to bowel movements, never needing to defecate or urinate although it’s not known if this is a genetic characteristic of the dynasty and therefore enjoyed also by The Supreme Leader.  He had a most discriminating palette so The Dear Leader employed staff to inspect every grain of rice by hand to ensure each piece was of uniform length, plumpness, and color, The Dear Leader eating only perfectly-sized rice.  Although he only ever played one round of golf and that on the country’s notoriously difficult 7,700 yard (7040 m) course at Pyongyang, he took only 34 strokes to complete the 18 holes, a round which included five holes-in-ones.  Experienced golfers have cast doubt on the round of 34 (not commenting on the holes-in-one) but the diet of individually inspected & polished grains of rice was thought "at least plausible".  

Funeral of The Dear Leader, 2011.

The car is a 1975 or 1976 Lincoln Continental, built by Moloney Standard Coach Builders on an extended wheelbase.  Lincoln experts say it's a different car to the similar model used in The Great Leader's funeral, the dynasty said to own several and it's believed they were obtained "through sources in Japan".  Uniquely, the Kin dynasty is the only only family said also to own a brace of Mercedes-Benz 600s (M100; 1963-1981) long-roof Landaulets, only twelve of which were built.  Fittingly, the long-roof variants are known casually as the "presidentials" but the factory never officially used the designation.  

The Kims certainly build personality cults but it’s not only the North Koreans who create retrospective honours to acknowledge the uniqueness of a special individual.  George Washington (1732-1799) will forever be the first President of the United States (POTUS) so that’s fine but he retired from the army as a lieutenant general and later appointments of some to more senior ranks bothered some in the military, concerned his primacy in the hierarchy wasn’t adequately honoured.  The later appointments had been (1) Ulysses S Grant (1822–1885) created General of the Army in 1866, (2) John Pershing (1860–1948) appointed General of the Armies in 1919 and (3) nine of the World War II (1939-1945) generals and admirals who were appointed to the newly formalised five star rank as Generals of the Army and Fleet Admirals respectively.  Where Washington stood in this potpourri of stars and titles wasn’t clear until 1978 when, after years of discussions of the difficulties inherent in solving the problem, in a surprisingly simple act of internal Army administration, Washington posthumously was promoted to General of the Armies of the United States, making him eternally the US military’s most senior officer.

Kim III: Kim Jong-un (b circa 1982; The Supreme Leader (originally The Great Successor) of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011).  The Supreme Leader is pictured here with South Korean foreign minister, Chung Eui-yong (b 1946).

Inheriting the family business at a much younger age than The Dear Leader, The Supreme Leader, didn’t benefit (or suffer) from the long public gestation period his father was provided by The Great Leader.  It was in 2009, about two years before The Dear Leader’s death that the media began reporting the youngest son, was to be the DPRK’s next leader although at that stage, he was referred to as The Brilliant Comrade, the honorific The Great Successor not adopted until after The Dear Leader’s death and it was soon replaced by The Supreme Leader.  For whatever reason, and the speculation and conspiracy theories are many, Kim III more quickly assumed his panoply of offices and titles than his immediate ancestor.  

Announced on state television as The Great Successor, The Supreme Leader was appointed General Secretary of the WPK, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and President of the State Affairs Commission, followed soon afterwards by a promotion to the army’s highest military rank, Marshal of the Korean People's Army, adding to his position as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces (exactly the same constitutional arrangement adopted by Hitler as commander-in-chief of both OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres (High Command of the Army)) and OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces)).  Great minds do think alike.  Confusingly, having already morphed from The Brilliant Comrade to The Great Successor to The Supreme Leader, references also appeared calling him The Dear Respected Leader but thankfully the proliferation seems now to have stopped.  In office, he has pursued 병진 (byungjin (literally "parallel development")), a refinement of The Great Leader’s policy simultaneously to develop both the economy and the military, his particular emphasis in the latter a focus on nuclear weapons and inter-continental delivery systems.  It may be an attempt to avoid the problems inherent in the “Waffen und Butter” (guns and butter) programme pursued by the Nazi regime (despite the international perception) as late as the first three years of World War II (1939-1945).

Although Kim III is no longer referred to as The Great Successor, there have been great successes.  Despite Western propaganda, there are elections in the DPRK and when The Supreme Leader sought a seat in the Supreme People's Assembly, there was a record turnout of voters and he received 100% of the votes cast.  Although it’s hard to determine the veracity of many of the reports, it’s suggested he’s an innovator in matters of military discipline, new methods used by firing squads said to include flame throwers, and anti-aircraft cannons, both said to make quite a mess although it's difficult to know how high is the body count, some reported executed later turning up alive and well.  Worth a mention though is the assassination in 2017 of his exiled half-brother Kim Jong-nam (1971-2017), killed with the nerve agent VX while walking through Kuala Lumpur International Airport, a novel twist on the extra-judicial execution being the use of two aspiring starlets to deliver the VX; they believed they were being filmed as part of a reality TV show. Most celebrated has been the nuclear programme and the increasingly bigger and longer-range missiles paraded from time to time.  Underground nuclear tests being hard to monitor, it remains unclear whether the devices tested are the long de rigueur plutonium weapons or, for the first time since the one-off A-Bomb used in Hiroshima in 1945, made using uranium.  Most recently, state media has announced the complete success in avoiding COVID-19 with no cases reported in the republic so, on any basis of calculation, The Supreme Leader has supervised the most successful COVID-19 strategy on Earth.

The Supreme Leader has also drawn the interest of the pro ana community because of his remarkable weight loss.  Whether his motivation was (1) concerns about his health, being a bit chubby, (2) a wish to look more sexy and attractive to younger women or (3) display some solidarity with his subjects, many of whom were suffering food shortages, his weight-loss regime has been a success, experts estimating, on the basis of photographic evidence, that he has probably shed up to 25-30 kg (65-80 lb).  This is good but has created a problem for the small number of people in the entertainment business who work as as Kim Jong-il impersonators, some of who have sought guidance from the pro ana community.  For security reasons, The Supreme Leader is known also to employ body doubles and it's not known if they're currently being starved or have already been shot and replaced with thinner models.  

After the weight loss he seems in such rude good health that, still not forty, there’s no reason he may not rule perhaps even longer than his grandfather’s forty-five years.  Ever since the demise of the USSR in 1991, analysts have been predicting the imminent demise of the communist regimes in both Pyongyang and Havana but they seem to muddle through, the DPRK of late enjoying new sources of foreign exchange, branching out from industrial-scale drug production and the smuggling of oil and minerals to the new field of cybercrime; even in the niche market of fake news they're said to run a small operation.

Belvedere

Belvedere (pronounced bel-vi-deer or bel-ve-de-re (Italian))

(1) In architecture, a building, or an (often turret-like) feature of a building, designed and situated to look out upon a pleasing scene.

(2) A cigar, shorter and with thinner ends than a corona.

(3) A palace in Vatican City, Rome, now housing an art gallery.

(4) As Fort Belvedere (formerly Shrubs Hill Tower), a country house in Surrey, England, famously the site of the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936.

(5) A widely used name for localities and structures.

Adopted in English in the sense of a “raised turret or open story atop a house” from the Italian belvedere (literally “a fair (ie beautiful) sight”), the construct being bel(lo) (beautiful), from the Latin bellus (beautiful, fair) + vidēre (to see; a view, sight), from the primitive Indo-European root weid- (to see).  The pronunciation is thought to have been influenced by the French form of the word.  The perhaps opportunistic but enduring noun gazebo is said by some to be a facetious formation, the construct being gaz(e) (from the Middle English gasen; akin to the Swedish dialectal gasa and Gothic usgasjan (to terrify) which English gained in the sense of "to stare intently or earnestly") + -ebo (the Latin first person singular future tense suffix, on the model of belvedere.  That’s an attractive etymology but the Oxford English Dictionary dismisses the theory, saying it’s a corruption of a word from the orient, possibly the Arabic قَصَبَة‎ (qaṣaba) (source of the familiar casbah).  Belvedere is a noun; the noun plural is belvederes.

In architecture, the word "tower" is used loosely but technically a tower should rise from ground-level to its conclusion whereas a turret begins part-way up a building, most commonly at a corner.  Historically a turret was something on a small scale (relative to the building on which it sat) and usually little more than ornamental (although for centuries many were part of the defensive system of a fort or castle, both as an observation and fire-point) while a belvedere's sole purpose should be to offer a commanding view of some pleasant vista.

Belvédère du Rayon Vert, Cerbère, France

Closed in 1983, the art deco Belvédère du Rayon Vert is a former hotel in Cerbère, France, built between 1928 and 1932.  What was known as “ocean liner” style was at the time popular in interior decorating but, taking advantage of the shape of the available land, the architect Léon Baille (1828-1932) extended the nautical idea to the whole building which follows the lines of a ship and borrowing further from the decks of ocean liners, a tennis court sat on the roof.  One of the nation’s protected historic monuments, some of the rooms have been restored as apartments and tours are conducted during the holiday season.

The Plymouth Belvedere

The use of the Belvedere name by the Chrysler’s corporation low-priced (and now defunct) Plymouth brand is illustrative of the practice of the US industry in the mid-late twentieth century to create a prestige model which gradually would be moved down the hierarchy as other names were introduced at the top of the range.  The Belvedere nameplate also shifted between market segments, moving from the full-sized to the intermediate platform as Detroit’s offerings began to proliferate as the public (sometimes by economic necessity) began to prefer smaller cars.

1951 Cranbrook (left), 1951 Cranbrook Belvedere (centre) and 1956 Belvedere (right).

Plymouth introduced the Belvedere name in 1951 for the new, two-door hardtop version of Cranbrook line, Plymouth’s first model with the style which would for a quarter-century be a signature of Detroit’s more expensive cars.  In 1954, the name ceased to be an option and the Belvedere supplanted the as Cranbrook as the top-of-the-range model, offered now in all available body-styles (sedans, hardtops, station wagons, and convertibles) in a mix of two and four-door configurations.  The 1951 line looks frumpy now and even then was considered bulbous compared with the more modernist lines coming from the Ford and General Motors (GM) design studios but Chrysler at the time was run by a chief executive who dictated their products had to be able to driven “by a man wearing his hat”.  That view was abandoned for the 1955 models and the refinements which followed the next year were emblematic of the longer-lower-wider dictum which would dominate the industry for a generation.

1957 (left), 1960 (centre) and 1961 (right) Belvederes.

The 1957-1960 Belvederes are among the best remembered from Detroit’s crazy macropterous years, and are related to the final iteration on the 1961 Imperial which featured the tallest fins of the era although it’s the extravagance of the 1959 Cadillac which is most famous.  The 1957 Plymouths, released with the advertising slogan “Suddenly it’s 1960” created a sensation but unfortunately, although immediately popular, the quality control was patchy (like some of the paintwork) and Chrysler's reputation would for years suffer.  The styling lasted until 1961 by which time the craze was over and the big fins looked dated but the replacement was truly bizarre.  Sales suffered but so low is the survival rate of the 1961 Belvederes their very scalloped weirdness has made them a collectable.

1962 (left), 1963 (centre) and 1964 (right) Plymouth Belvederes.

Acting on misunderstood rumors (which some insist was industrial espionage) about what the competition was doing with their full-sized lines, Plymouth "downsized" the Belvedere for 1962, something which in little more than a decade would make sense but it was out of tune with the early 1960s.  That was a shame because the engineering of the cars was solid and many of those who did buy the things expressed satisfaction with the reduced exterior dimensions, noting there was little loss in interior space and those who definitely found an advantage in the lower weight and more agile handling were drivers using Belvederes in competition, the cars successful on both circuits and drag strips.  The styling however was again unfortunate and was soon toned-down; it didn’t become quite as bland as the 1961 Chevrolet (a reaction to the excesses of their 1959-1960 “bat-wings”) which was described as “looking a little like every car ever built” but it was certainly inoffensive.

1966 Belvedere (left), 1969 Hemi Roadrunner (centre-left), 1970 Superbird (centre-right) and 1970 Superbird in NASCAR trim (right)

With the restoration of a full-sized model to the range in 1965, the Belvedere was maintained in the increasingly important intermediate sector (similar in to dimensions to what the full-size cars had been before they became bloated in the mid-late 1950s).  A new trim package called the Satellite was added (a la what the original Belvedere had in 1951 been to the Cranbrook) and, responding to the increased demand for muscle cars, the high-performance GTX was created.  The line was restyled in 1968 using an interpretation of the then popular “coke-bottle” look and it was on this platform that the Roadrunner was built.  The Roadrunner essentially combined a stripped-down, basic Belvedere with the high performance engines and, stripped of any luxury fittings, it was cheaper as well as lighter.  Able to be configured to outperform even the GTX and offered at a price which on any cost/performance analysis was a bargain, it was an immediate hit and the line soon proliferated, Roadrunner convertibles and additional engines soon offered.  The Belvedere's final fling was also its apotheosis, the be-winged Roadrunner Superbird, offered only in the 1970 model-year as a homologation exercise to qualify the aerodynamic improvements for use in competition.  That year however marked the swansong of the Belvedere name, Satellite preferred as it was more in accord with the space age.

Miss Belvedere as now displayed (left), being lowered into her capsule in 1957 (centre) and as exhumed in 2007 (right).

The 1957 Belvedere was used in one of the larger and more unusual time-capsules.  Named Miss Belvedere as part of the city of Tulsa's “Tulsarama” Golden Jubilee Week festivities celebrating Oklahoma's fiftieth year of statehood, the car was on 15 June 1957 sealed in an underground vault to be opened a half-century later.  Intended as a prize to whomever came closest to guessing Tulsa's population in 2007, cognizant of the fears of nuclear war prevalent at the time, the enclosure was built to withstand hydrogen bombs being detonated in the vicinity.  Unfortunately, less attention was given to making things watertight and, when opened in 2007, the Miss Belvedere was found to have spent much of her fifty years wholly or partially submerged, the result muddy and rusty mess.  Some attempts were made to clean the worst of the damage in the hope a restoration might be possible but ultimately it was determined it was beyond salvation and she's now displayed as a dilapidated relic of a troubled yet optimistic age.

McMansions in their natural habitat.

Rightly or wrongly, many object to McMansions (the large, over-styled, essentially mass-produced houses built for the upper middle-class anxious to flaunt their wealth).  This is often an objection to conspicuous consumption and an extravagant use of resources but students of architecture focus on the confused mix of motifs which so often litter the structures with as many architectural clichés from palaces or castles as can be crammed into the space with little regard for scale or any sense of integrity.  On McMansions, it’s not unusual to see a mix of Corinthian columns, towers, turrets, belvederes, French doors, Gothic arches, flag-poles, stained glass, transom windows, balconies and porticos.  Much of the criticism probably is an expression of resentment that people with poor taste are able to afford such things but as a general principle, in architecture an emphasis on proportion and restrained elegance will tend to be more admired.

Fort Belvedere (formerly Shrubs Hill Tower), a country house in Windsor, Surrey, famously the site of the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936 (left) and Belvedere Palace, Vienna (right).

Lindsay Lohan attending V Magazine, Marc Jacobs & Belvedere Vodka event, Hiro Ballroom, New York City, September 2009.

Apotheosis

Apotheosis (pronounced uh-poth-ee-oh-sis (U) or ap-uh-thee-uh-sis (non-U))

(1) The elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god.

(2) An example of an ideal; epitome; quintessence.

(3) The highest achievement of a person or institution.

(4) The highest point in the development of something; a culmination or climax.

(5) A glorified ideal; the realization of the apex or pinnacle (of a concept, construction or belief).

(6) In some Christian writings, a (sometimes blessed) release from earthly life, ascension to heaven; death; a technical synonym for the earthy death which precedes the soul rising to Heaven; the abbreviation in the texts was apoth.

(7) In psychology, the latent entity which mediates between a person's psyche and their thoughts (best known in the example of the id, ego and superego in Freudian psychology.

1570-1580: From the Late Latin apotheōsis (deification (especially of an emperor or royal personage)), from the Ancient Greek ἀποθέωσις (apothéōsis), from the verb ἀποθεόω (apotheóō) (to deify”).  The surface analysis apo- +‎ theo- +‎ -sis may be deconstructed as a factitive verb formed by the intensive prefix ἀπο- (apo-) + θεός (theós) (God) + -σις (-sis) (the suffix which formed nouns of action), the popular form in later Medieval texts being apotheoun (deify, make someone a god) and all forms were related to the primitive Indo-European root dhēs -, forming words for religious concepts which may have been an extension of the root dhe- (to set, put).  The verb apotheosize (exalt to godhood, deify) emerged circa 1760 and begat the inevitable apotheosized & apotheosizing, the extinct earlier (1670s) version being apotheose.  From the Late Latin & Church Latin other European languages picked up the word, the variations including the Catalan apoteosi, the French apothéose, the Galician apoteose, the Italian apoteosi, the Occitan apoteòsi, the Portuguese apoteose and the Spanish apotheosis.  Apotheosis is a noun, apotheosize is a verb and apotheotic is an adjective; the noun plural is apotheoses.

In the Roman Empire, apotheosis was a process whereby a dead ruler was declared divine by his successor.  Usually, the Senate passed a decree in accordance although, even at the time, it was often regarded a tawdry political trick by a new Emperor attempting to identify with a popular predecessor.  Time has not lessened the attraction for politicians and names like Reagan and Churchill are often invoked by those who'd like some of the lustre to reflect on them (although Mr Trump seems happy to mention only the more distant Washington and Lincoln).  Worse still was declaring divine a deceased dill: a work of satire attributed to the Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, circa 4 BC–65 AD) was The Apocolocyntosis (divi) Claudii (literally “The Pumpkinification of the divine Claudius”) which details the death of the Roman emperor Claudius and his judgement before the gods, the list of his crimes and failings so long that he’s cast down to the underworld.  Among scholars of Antiquity, there has been debate about whether Seneca really wrote the piece because among his many essays on politics, morality and philosophy, it’s the solitary satire and it’s thought he may have lent his name to give the piece some intellectual respectability.

Divas: Maria Callas (1923-1977), Chicago, 1955 (left), Lindsay Lohan (b 1986), Los Angeles, 2009 (centre) & Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (b 1981), London, 2018 (right).

An expired emperor's deceased loved ones could also be deified and posthumously, they were awarded the title Divus (or Diva if a women).  Classic Roman religion distinguished between a real god (of which the Romans had many) called deus and mortals defied through apotheosis who were called divus.  The label diva has long been used to describe highly-strung sopranos but in the modern age it’s applied also to pop-singers, reality-TV stars and the odd “difficult duchess”.  In Greek mythology there were mortals who became gods and many cultures embraced the idea, Hinduism by the million and most famously, until 1945 the Emperor was a “living God and the most honorable son of heaven”.  The three great monotheist faiths differ somewhat.  Islam is the clearest in that there is but one God in heaven and his greatest and final prophet was Muhammad (circa 570–632) who spoke through divine guidance but was flesh & blood.  In Judaism there is only one God and he has a special relationship with the Jews because of the covenant with them, the Jews believing (there are a few heretics however) that their Messiah has yet to appear on Earth but that day will come.  Christianity, predictably perhaps, is the most open to interpretation because of the notion of Jesus Christ as both earthy flesh & the second divine being of the Trinity (the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit).  Thus, among Christian sects and cults which have come and gone, there's always been a bit of theological wriggle-room.

The Gullwing’s apotheosis

In the churning world of the collector car market, the ecosystem of the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL (W198) is noted for the benchmarks set in the prices for which they sell.  They were produced as both a coupé (1954-1957) with the memorable gullwing doors and a roadster (1957-1963) and in the context of the multi-million dollar used car business, were actually made in quite substantial numbers, some 1400 Gullwings and 1858 roadsters made.  One quirk of the 300 SL has always been that unusually, it’s the roadster which has always sold for less, such is the allure of those exotic doors.

1963 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster: US$3.7 million.

Unexpectedly, the orthodoxy was almost overturned.  In 2018, a 1963 300 SL Roadster with just 1372 km (852 miles) on the odometer attracted US$3.7 million at auction in France, making it the most expensive roadster ever sold, nudging the record (US$4.2) set in 2012 by a 1955 aluminum Gullwing.  It was well above expectations but even apart from it being barely used, it was an exceptional example because it came with both the factory hardtop and soft-top (still untouched in its original shipping crate) and, as one of the few dozen made in the last year of production, it included the all-aluminum engine and the notable (and overdue) addition of four-wheel disc brakes.  Another thing which would have attracted collectors is that based on the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number), just ten more were built before the line ended.

1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL (Weckerlé Alloy) : US$6.825 million.

However, the record didn’t last long because early in 2022, one of the twenty-nine aluminum-bodied Gullwings sold at auction in the US for US$6.825 million which does sound impressive but in what may be a sign of these troubled times, the bids actually failed to reach the estimates of US$7-8 million.  Long known as the Weckerlé Alloy because it was originally ordered by Joseph Weckerlé, the factory’s agent in Casablanca, the provenance of chassis 5500332 was close to impeccable, the 1955 car retaining its Sonderteile (special parts (NSL)) engine with tweaked fuel-injection and a more aggressive camshaft, gaining fifteen horsepower.  Additionally, it was fitted with the much admired Rudge knock-off wheels, the only deviations of note from the original Leichtmetallausführung (light-alloy design) specification being a replacement (1957) gearbox and glass windows which at sometime had replaced the thinner plexiglass units.  A newly trimmed, fitted-luggage set (something of a fetish in the Gullwing world) was also included.

1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR (Uhlenhaut coupé): US$143 million.

Trumping all these results however was a world-record which not only set the mark for Gullwings but became the most expensive car ever sold.  In June, 2022, at a private auction conducted in the Mercedes-Benz factory museum in Stuttgart, one of the two 1955 300 SLR (W196S “Uhlenhaut”) coupés went under the hammer for US$143 million.  The 300 SLR (W196S) was a sports car, nine of which were built to contest the 1955 World Sportscar Championship.  Essentially the W196 Formula One car with a body and the straight-eight engine enlarged from 2.5 to 3.0 litres (152 to 183 cubic inches), the roadster is most famous for the run in the 1955 Mille Miglia in Italy which was won over a distance of 992 miles (1597 km) with an average speed of almost 100 mph (160 km/h); nothing like that has since been achieved.  There's infamy too attached to the 300 SLR; one being involved in the catastrophic crash and fire at Le Mans in 1955.  The two 300 SLR Gullwings were intended to be run in the 1955 Carrera Panamericana Mexico but were rendered instantly redundant when both the event and the Mercedes-Benz racing programme was cancelled after the Le Mans disaster.  The head of the competition department, Rudolf Uhlenhaut (1906-1989), added an external muffler to one of the coupés, registered it for road use (such things were once possible when the planet was a happier place) and used it for a while as his company car.  It was then the fastest road-car in the world, an English journalist recording a top speed of 183 mph (295 km/h) on a quiet stretch of autobahn but Uhlenhaut paid a price for the only partially effective muffler, needing hearing aids later in life.  So the relationship to the W198 road cars is distant but such is the resemblance the Uhlenhaut coupés have always been thought the Gullwing’s apotheosis.