The image is so compelling, so aesthetically prepossessing, so…permeated with fecundity that I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since I’d first seen it. If you can, forget all the media hype over it, the rubbish contrived war of words between a male and a female tennis star, the ‘she bares all to show her ‘baby bump’ (ish, how terribly hip and kewl) junk, and just look at it larger, including as art.
Yes, it’s an Annie Leibovitz creation, and almost perfect, including the rough texture of the background she chose to contrast with the sublime silkiness of the Madonna’s black skin, and her rich tresses waving wild and free. Look at the power in her thighs and hips, formidable! Her bum reminds me of Somali womens’, for me, the most gorgeous women on the planet.
Were you a painter, would you perhaps choose to interpret it in oil? Or a sculptor, chisel it as a lasting fertility symbol? Perhaps to be later…bronzed?
You’ll no doubt remember that in 1991, former soap star Demi Moore was on the cover of VF, and yes, it’s nice, but she looks a bit like a deer stuck in the headlights of a car or something. (The headlines within are almost as intriguing to me.) ;-)
(click for larger)What do you see, feel, sense…as you gaze at Serene Serena Madonna?
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
True HOPE.
True HOPE for…..? got more?
… the child(ren); epitomized again by : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po6Lxqu_GSQ
bless your heart, bruce. but isn’t it odd that sweet honey’s video got taken down? and thank you for reminding me that i’d anchored a ‘We Are’ diary with that brilliant song back in 2013 at (then) my.fdl. and the video is now just a link that goes to ‘sorry, not available’. embarrassing to see that even that few number of years ago…i could actually write some prose. wish i could remember…how it went over, lol.
wonder if a reprise might be in order; or would it be too…humiliating for me?
hard for me to not see vanity fair in it. i do appreciate that Darryl gates is not on the cover though.
okey-dokey. but yes to darrly gates not making the cover. ;-) nor vaclav havel, for that matter. i like it that they chose not to muck up the serena artwork w/ ‘what’s inside’, too.
mr. wd and i were discussing the image, and i reckon that serena may not see it the way i do, either. i really love it and find it….mesmerizing.
oops, wrong 2nd link, though that’s nice too
oh, fukkit. i should have said: forget tennis, her millionaire babby daddy reddit dude, and such. you’re workin’ it too hard for my taste, but i’m tired, dispirited, and crabby at the end of a long, hard day. if i change my mind, once rested in the a.m., i’ll reconsider it all. and no, i didn’t like liszt’s version of symphony no. 9; i just had’nt wanted to harsh yer mellow over it.
and i dislike tennis (thwok, thwok, cervical collar needed soon)…petulant assholes like mcenroe (w/ whom ‘this was serena’s answer to the tennis gender wars’, according to media) as much as ‘golf’, and football. to me…it’s simply what it is: beauty as madonna, that’s all. bas-e-ball been beddy good to me..
i’m sorry. I’ve distracted myself from some pressing probs in my own life by jabbering way too much on the innerwebs.
rest well. and the pic is beauty as Madonna.
as a tho’t exercise, and looking at this piece purely as a provocation, esp. to the white cracker in us all (dudes anyway), what if they’d taken this exact picture except with SW in a “muslim” full face veil (I forget the name for that, and of course it could only be a muslim. who ever heard of a hindu or Xian or Buddhist woman covering herself? crazy talk, I know.) or just a head/hair covering burka, all else as is? anonymize her & watch all the fervid efforts to unveil her, then reveal who it is in a subsequent issue, w/the photo as it currently is.
annie liebovitz, gimme a call. har har.
interesting thought exercise, but do you reckon the photo was just by way of a provocation? guess i really yam out of touch w/ what passes for ‘culture’ by media in this place.
but sure, if her face and hair were covered with a niqab (i discovered that a hair veil w/ scarf is a hijab, burka is the full monte), sure the mystery of unveiling her would be exciting to some, but most especially as: muslim women and modesty, yes?
and i reckon a lotta folks would have objected to the implication that a muslim women posed for the photo, as well. not charlie hebdo, but still. ;-)
no, not solely as provocation. but certainly that’s part of it. showing a nude Michelangelo is a provocation to many in this fascist pop sickle stand.
just thinking of the muslim ban and the new crusades…and this awful anti-immigrant crap.
beauty is erotic. awakens the desire to possess, and the fear of being possessed. the thought of me losing myself in SW’s lovely ostrich eggs (dream on)…well, it creates conflict. I’ve never been with a black woman before. oh lord…what if she laughs!!!! and in the psychic menagerie of the white Amerikan male…jeez. final jeopardy question: what is a 5 letter synonym for threatening? it’s “black.”
speaking of psychic menageries…all my musical selections on theirtube show only two adds: anti-depression meds, and male member enhancement supplements. boy, do they ever got me pegged. pinned & wriggling.