hedging and ditching

"He used to do his hedging and ditching at Beckley at night, by torch and candlelight, because he believed daylight should be reserved for making art – he was a painter who didn’t really sell."

Edvard Munch and the Phenomenological Loss of the Soul

Edvard Munch had emotional problems; while he was strolling through the nippy boulevards of Oslo, Norweigan Ladies would approach and say: 

"Oh my, Edvard your penis, it's enormous.”

“Don't worry about that luv.” Edvard would reply, “consider my paintings, they are very emotional”.

“But Edward, your member, it is like a Norwegian pine” the Ladies insisted.

This made Edvard very sad and so he booked himself into an asylum. After his death Edvard's felled pine tree was thrown into a Fjord where it lays on the lake-bed to this day.

His pine cones were donated to the Swedish royal family who use them as badminton balls; when they play badminton with visiting foreign diplomats, Munch's feathered pine cones serve as a conversation piece:

“Did you know that this badminton ball belonged to the painter Edvard Munch? He was very emotional you know".

Jonathan Shockley

'Those who have or seek more power than others do not apply to themselves the same standards they apply to others. Obviously, one cannot say that all authority is evil - particularly non-exploitative, challengeable and accountable authority that allows people to survive or grow. However, hierarchical authority is inextricably connected with the marginalization and dis-empowerment of those without authority, with a lack of control over their actions and destinies, and with a subsequent rationalization of one's place in the pecking order. This, not only arouses instincts which predispose people to cruelty and indifference in the face of the suffering of their fellows, but it interferes with honest communication between people at different levels of power, and turns people into subordinates - following orders from above regardless of their effect on others'.