JM Deck of the Week: Cult of Weimar

[Joan Marie]

I'm nearing the end of the Kickstarter for this deck, it ends on Friday the 13th.

I chose that date intentionally. Facing demons is fun sometimes.

I missed Deck of the week last week because I was just swamped with work and caught up in things, just like everyone.

This week I really hope to stay with this and use my deck to try to reach the source of some things, center myself and remember why it is I do things.

Anyone who has ever done a Kickstarter knows this but for those who haven't, it's a weird roller coaster of emotions, not all of them very healthy. I have learned more about myself doing Kickstarters than I am willing to admit in public. But it's been so worth the ride, every time.

I will come back later today and do my first draw for the week.

[Joan Marie]

Monday

2 of Coins

First I want to start by saying I'm exhausted. All the chaos of last week combined with these final days of a Kickstarter just have me wanting to run away into the woods.

I don't know why I take so..whatever, I don't know the word. This time instead of the standard 30 days, I only ran this campaign 21 days and now I wish it had ended last Friday after 2 weeks. I really think that any future Kickstarters I do will run 2 weeks. That's it.

I used to run a nightclub and once I booked this band that was really so bad they were funny. They didn't even know the words to the songs they were covering. They did the Black sabbath song "Iron Man" and I swear to god, this is how the lead singer sang it:

I am IRON MAN
nananana na na na na

To this day, I laugh every time I hear that song.

The band that came on stage after them dedicated their first song to them. The song was called, "Prolonged Agony"

Why am I thinking of that? because that's what this final week of Kickstarter feels like, prolonged agony.

Anyway, I will be drawing from my original edition Cult of Weimar deck, but the picture I post is from the new edition. I fixed a lot of little errors and improved the framing (that white part does not show on the actual cards) and a few other things. (also the packaging. and guidebook are vastly improved)

So this card really does fit my mood. I'm not sure which of the 2 characters I relate to the most.
The gist of this card is about tap-dancing your way to a solution to something, toward a conclusion. There is an air of not knowing exactly how to proceed.

But, I put on the best face I can and on with the show!!

(p.s. I'm not trying to break anyone's heart here. I'm just ready to be done and wish I was. Only a few more days!)

[Joan Marie]

Tuesday

6 of Coins

I'm fond of this card.

It reminds me of the 1 to 1 nature of most human interaction, the interdependence we all share.
It's really mind-boggling when you think of it.

[Joan Marie]

It's eleven eleven.

And I drew:

King of Cups!

I am currently in the process of writing the companion book for this deck. This is by coincidence, the last card I finished writing about last night before I called it a day.

Image-wise, this is one of my favourites from the deck. It's just so dramatic and weird.

I once went to an art exhibit of the work of Meret Oppenheim and there was tunic she made that had a table setting for 7 attached to the front. This reminds me of that for some reason.

Like this contrast between being an artist and the heady connotations of that but the grinding reality (not grounding, more like grinding) of daily life and its decidedly unglamorous expectations for us.

I just went and got the book I bought from that exhibition. here is a pic of that tunic:

I love how in both of these cases the artist has embraced the banal and turned it into whimsy into a treat. Turning frustration into entertainment.
That's sort of the whole vibe behind the Cult of Weimar Tarot. Learning to live in this crazy world with a sense of style and joy.

[dodalisque]

I don't know why I take so..whatever, I don't know the word.

Umbrage? It's a good word anyway, whether it's close to what you mean or not. Take exception to? Take against? Take odds at? Be at odds with? Great to see the Weimar Tarot in operation, JM.

[dodalisque]

I love how in both of these cases the artist has embraced the banal and turned it into whimsy into a treat.

What the tunic and the Weimar King of Cups also have in common is the notion of sharing. The King is carrying spoons around in his hat for people to share what's in his head, and the tunic is a travelling invitation to party - which kind of fits in with your willingness to share your thoughts about art and the Weimar Republic - which Wiki tells me was founded on Nov. 9 1918. Nov 9 was the day you posted your first card this week. Bit of a coincidence, or a sneaky trick by your subconscious, or maybe was it deliberate? Also, tables with solid food on them are always horizontal surfaces, but the table on the tunic is vertical, so it is inviting people to a spiritual feast.

[Joan Marie]

the Weimar Republic - which Wiki tells me was founded on Nov. 9 1918. Nov 9 was the day you posted your first card this week.

Ha! I should have known that but I didn't. It was a total coincidence.

Nov. 9th is a big day in Germany.
It's the Anniversary of Kristallnacht.
It's the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The Beer Hall Putsch (Hitler's failed coup d'etat)
It's my boyfriend's mom's birthday.

I made her a linzer torte. I'm no good at the classic lattice top for a linzer, so I just went rogue:

My Linzer Torte, Nov. 9 2020

[dodalisque]

Nov. 9th is a big day in Germany.
It's the Anniversary of Kristallnacht.
It's the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The Beer Hall Putsch (Hitler's failed coup d'etat)

It was also the day that Mike Pompeo, one of Trump's henchmen, recently announced that he anticipated "there will be a smooth transition to Donald Trump's second term as President." Yikes, this nutcase really looks like he's going for it, slipping into full-on dictator mode. Bad news for us in Canada if a civil war breaks out down south.

[Joan Marie]

Thursday

I almost forgot to do this.
I just drew:

10 of Coins

I love this card.
This thing you see was real. It was a response to the growing popularity of chorus lines. It was called the "Dancing Machine." There is one real dancer in the front and another in back.
Chorus lines were really big in New York, London and Paris in the late 1920s. And they tried to bring them to the stages of Berlin. Many saw it as an attempt to subvert the Cabaret culture which was no so much into such mechanical performances and uniform looking performers.

Chorus lines were a reflection of the growing appreciation for mass production and assembly lines, replicability and military discipline. The individual was not only subsumed into the collective, she was dissected into her body parts, into useful attributes. Not unlike an assembly line worker.

This 1926 cartoon shows the Tiller Girls (a popular chorus line dance group) being produced by henry Ford.

This card is a warning against conformity, against the commodification of people and reducing art to standardised functions. Of following someone else's lead, not thinking for yourself.
In Berlin they still liked things rough around the edges.

[Joan Marie]

Friday! The last day of my Kickstarter for the Cult of Weimar Tarot.

And I drew:

The World

The enchanting Margo Lion, standing on an antique globe next to some books from the 20s.
The background is from a photo I took in Verdun France. That is some authentic WWI barbed wire, near a still existing trench.

Verdun still carries, 100 years later, many scars upon the land from the horrible battle fought there. The nature, which was decimated, has returned but the trenches and corrugated tin and barbed wire are laced throughout. The landscape is still thoroughly cratered from the nearly 3 million shells dropped in this relatively small area.

WWI was really the backdrop to what became the Weimar era in Germany. More than a backdrop really. And that's why I put it behind this beautiful woman entertaining from the stage, not in any hope of people forgetting the recent horrors, but to somehow help them get through at least another day, knowing that all of us are in this together. Everything is important. Every effort is important. Every joy and every tear matters.

The human spirit survives and the world turns.

Happy Friday!

[JudyK]

WWI was really the backdrop to what became the Weimar era in Germany. More than a backdrop really. And that's why I put it behind this beautiful woman entertaining from the stage, not in any hope of people forgetting the recent horrors, but to somehow help them get through at least another day, knowing that all of us are in this together. Everything is important. Every effort is important. Every joy and every tear matters.

The human spirit survives and the world turns.

Beautiful! And congratulations on your successful campaign.

[dodalisque]

The human spirit survives and the world turns.

Congrats, JM. Drawing The World for your final card seems like a very auspicious omen. Celebrating the survival of beauty in a dangerous world. The card makes me think of that delicate porcelain figurine of a shepherdess and her swain that miraculously survives all the bombing and destruction in Ingemar Bergman's "Shame". The same figurine re-appears in one of his later movies too. It's about the closest he ever got to a symbol of hope for the survival of the human spirit.