The Sirens
These are the seductive voices of the night; the Sirens, too, sang that way. It would be doing [the Sirens] an injustice to think that they wanted to seduce; they knew they had claws and sterile wombs, and they lamented this aloud. They could not help it if their laments sounded so beautiful.
– Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes
The Green Dragon
The door opened and what entered the room, fat and succulent, its sides voluptuously swelling, footless, pushing itself along on its entire underside, was the green dragon. Formal salutation. I asked him to come right in. He regretted that he could not do that, as he was too long. This meant that the door had to remain open, which was rather awkward. He smiled, half in embarrassment, half cunningly, and began: “Drawn hither by your longing, I come pushing myself along from afar off, and underneath am now scraped quite sore. But I am glad to do it. Gladly do I come, gladly do I offer myself to you.”
–Franz Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes
Click HERE for Franz Kafka biographical information published by The Kafka Project.
Views from the Edge 
Believe in what?
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The rousing music of the Sirens and the cunning Green Dragon. “God” in the video is the nation itself. It’s like a Billy Graham Crusade without God and without the cross. Everything is a grandiose dream of national idolatry. The belief is in the nation’s manifest destiny as God’s chosen people. Right?
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hmmmm.
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Karin, I’m afraid this post may have been confusing. The purpose in the three pieces – two from Kafka and one from the Convention – was to sandwich tyhe video between The Sirens who sound beautiful but actually have claws and wombs taht cannot deliver what they promise, and the cunning Green Dragon. Hope that helps.
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