There Is No Art In This White House


By Elayne Griffin Baker

There’s no literature or poetry in the White House. No music. No Kennedy Center award celebrations. There are no pets in this White House. No loyal man’s best friend. No Socks the family cat. No kids’ science fairs. No times when this president takes off his blue suit-red tie uniform and becomes human, except when he puts on his white shirt-khaki pants uniform and hides from Americans to play golf. There are no images of the first family enjoying themselves together in a moment of relaxation. No Obamas on the beach in Hawaii moments, or Bushes fishing in Kennebunkport, no Reagans on horseback, no Kennedys playing touch football on the Cape.

I was thinking the other day of the summer when George H couldn’t catch a fish and all the grandkids made signs and counted the fish-less days. And somehow, even if you didn’t even like GHB, you got caught up in the joy of a family that loved each other and had fun. Where did that country go? Where did all of the fun and joy and expressions of love and happiness go?

We used to be a country that did the ice bucket challenge and raised millions for charity. We used to have a president that calmed and soothed the nation instead dividing it. And a First Lady that planted a garden instead of ripping one out. We are rudderless and joyless. We have lost the cultural aspects of society that make America great. We have lost our mojo, our fun, our happiness. The cheering on of others. Gone. The shared experiences of humanity that makes it all worth it. Gone. The challenges AND the triumphs that we shared and celebrated. The unique can-do spirit Americans have always been known for. Gone. We have lost so much in so short a time.

Vote Democratic all the way down the ballot on November 3rd.

I imagine not much, because he isn't making any outlandish claims. He is doing, by his own claim, "exhibition shooting" meaning trick shooting. He's doing some very precise skill trickshots and doing them extremely well. He's not claiming to have rediscovered some long lost art, or that his shooting is the One True Way(tm).

In particular you'll notice that he is shooting at targets thrown more or less straight up at a reasonably close distance, presumably of his choosing. Between an amazing innate ability and presumably tons of practice, he can pull off amazing shots. However he's not claiming he can do it from horseback, or that ancient archers did this shit all the time.

He claims to be a top notch exhibition shooter that can hit virtually anything you throw, and indeed he is and can.

Not sure if I gave the wrong impression with my post; I wasn't suggesting that Archery on horseback was a bizarre thing to do, I was suggesting that it's bizarre to say a technique that's demonstrably robust to movement wouldn't work on a horse.

I have much more experience than the average person. Lars seems to invent and conjecture as much historical evidence as some other posters here, but what he does is very impressive. You could accurately classify it as trick shooting, but since archery is now a sport instead of a practical thing...it's all pretty gray.

What's neat is that Lars' technique works significantly better than current common practices...albeit in what are currently uncommon situations, such as riding horseback or running & shooting. There are 2 things that makes these kinds of situations difficult:

1) Keeping the arrow resting against the side of the bow and the handle. If you've ever shot before, most beginning shooters will have their arrow accidentally drop to the ground many times before they fire a successful shot. Even for someone who is more than a novice, a strong breeze can easily knock your arrow away from this notch. Shooting while on horseback or running is a whole new level of difficult.

2) Firing rapidly. Firing off many arrows in succession is a difficult thing, seriously. Despite Anna Maltese's dismissal of Lars' demonstration on why firing on the 'wrong' side of the bow is faster, it truly does remove many of the steps, and speeds up the entire process. In modern archery, Right handed people fire the arrow on the left side of the bow, and left handed people fire the arrow on the Right side of the bow. Reasons for this could be conjectured, but from personal experience, learning how to shoot the arrow from the wrong side of the bow is almost like learning archery all over again...it feels weird. From watching related videos, the way Lars holds many arrows in his hand, making sure to rotate each arrow into the appropriate knocked position each time, is a significant achievement that Anna did not touch on.

What's particularly impressive is that Lars has achieved improvements in both categories simultaneously by firing from the wrong side of the bow. To my knowledge, modern trick shooting is the typical shooting style simply with impressive feats of accuracy, or at best being able to throw an object into the air and hit it with one arrow. In comparison, Lars changed the way he shoots his arrows, and has been able to significantly upgrade the art because of it (throwing an object in the air and hitting it with 3 arrows before reaching the ground). In my opinion, this is beyond regular trick shooting, and warrants a reinvestigation on why modern archery is the way it is.

But... but I already enrolled in his 12 week course "horseback archery on foot." And what do I do about this LARS tattoo? I just don't think my friends will ever take me seriously again after I invested so much in Lars.

Goddamn you, Lars, you fucking piece of shit I hope you choke on piss and DIE. My whole goddamn life is a whore-mongering lie, imagined as the solipsistic plunge of a physically and mentally inferior charlatan in a shitty and superficial world, but which is more likely the dying thoughts of a misshapen and misfiring synapse in a soup of decaying matter once thought alive.

This was really good! It's pretty obvious now that most or all the history was invented by Lars, instead of studied. However, there are a few points that she didn't touch on or completely dismissed.

She makes a quite unsubstantiated claim that ancient people cannot measure time, and dismisses the entire speed advantage of the technique Lars is using. I would have liked to see how she would have addressed the account on the native american chief's abilities at speedshooting, where Lars pulled (invented?) an account that the chief could shoot 10 arrows into the air before the first one hit the ground, and Lars managed to break that record. Despite that a great deal of historical drawings are indeed poor at describing technique (just look at how many drawings depict the horse's gallop incorrectly), this is a metric that is easily recorded. Unless another modern archer has managed to come close to shooting 10 arrows into the air before the first hits the ground, the chief's technique has indeed been lost, and has potentially been revived through Lars.

Additionally, she mocked Lars a bit, calling out, 'where's his horse?', as if his technique wouldn't work on a horse. But, she then showed videos of people rapidly firing at targets while riding on horseback. Again, Lars' technique has a tremendous speed advantage, and he makes it obvious many times over that this firing technique can be performed during acrobatic stunts. If archery truly is about 'what works', this would work better.

Finally, she did a great job at pointing out how Lars was shooting with relatively little force compared to full draw on heavy bows. Indeed, where Lars shows he can pierce chainmail, he was shooting substantially slower, likely to pull back more weight. However, against unarmored or lightly armored opponents, it may not be necessary to pull back 80+ pounds. Instead of trying to invalidate his entire technique by saying he wouldn't be able to pierce full platemail without extremely high force, it would be more accurate to say that the tremendous speed comes at the price of lower force per arrow.

While Anna Maltese brought up many great points about historical fabrication and showed that Lars is overly sensationalizing his technique, she is committing the opposite sin by entirely dismissing the technique's advantages.

This is obviously a very great skill and at the same time it has its faults. It's also obvious to anyone with common sense that he IS a "trick" shooter. I mean almost every demonstration in the video IS a "trick" shot of some kind. Would any of these things come in handy in war... Certainly, many of those "tricks" would put him at an extreme advantage--especially if he could do this extremely well on horseback (and you must be a GOOD horseback rider, motorcycles don't count--a horse is a whole different story; especially if you plan to do some of the *feats* I'll mention below, while in combat). He would be even better if he had mastery over the shorter bow(s) he uses in this and also a longbow for long targets and heavily armored enemies.

As for him penetrating chainmail, that is a good question and I do believe he could quite possibly end up penetrating the chainmail in some situations while (possibly still getting through the chainmail) being stopped in others (he shows being able to penetrate mail with an under armor of some type, but we don't get a lot of details about that situation to be honest). It depends on how his bow is made, the string it has, the type of arrow he is using (or the tip, to be honest), and his draw strength (along with this is range). On the chainmail side it depends on what type of chainmail the enemy is using and then whether they have an under armor of some kind--and again, range.

The problem in this video--except for a few shots--is that he does shoot very close in many of the cases; within 30-20 feet. In a close combat experience--which wasn't necessarily unusual for archers in the past (especially as I mentioned mounted ones--of course you'd be nuts to not be mounted at these ranges--or at the least be a swordsman as well...which was even more rare) he would terrorize opponents... Unless they are wearing plate or other heavy types of armors, then he is in a bit of trouble. But if he really does have great accuracy, then even many of these armors types wouldn't necessarily help you--and could eventually lead to your own death.

I say we give this some time and see if Lars gives us more answers (like "records", competition, types of bows and arrows, chainmail used, etc...).

^I noticed in this other video (below) of a different shooter using one of Lars' 'tricks', similar speed and accuracy is achieved by using the method of holding the arrows in the bow hand, and could be sped up by more than double the shooting speed if the method of notching the arrow on the outside were used. This other video shows how useful speed is in 'battle', and shows just how much only one of Lars' tricks speeds up the shooting speed without diminishing accuracy.
I admit, it is odd that Lars is not recognized as the fastest arrow shooter by Guinness, but not definitive. Some people just don't care about recognition or Guinness. I'm now on the fence, but still leaning towards it being 'real'.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Rapid-Fire-Bow-Shooting-From-Horseback-Mongol-Hun-Style

Rapid Fire Bow Shooting From Horseback-Mongol/Hun Style has been added as a related post - related requested by newtboy.

That night in Toronto with its checkerboard floors
riding on horseback and keeping order restored

I went horseback riding once at a small ranch alongside the Athabasca River during a visit to Alberta back in 2005. As we passed along the trail I looked down the steep cliff to the river below, it was blue, so blue, like it was dyed that way. When I asked our guide about it, she explained that the River was already this polluted because of the papermills upstreatm This was still in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, far closer to that source of the River than the mouth at Lake Athabasca, considered to be the twentieth largest lake in the world. The cool Rocky Mountain waters had not yet reached the Oilsands projects, but were already undrinkable.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^rychan:
I want to like these movies but... so cheesy. That batman voice is ridiculous.

The voice is a bit much and somewhat comical, but do you think they chose that because it was the best way for him to hide his voice from others who knew him as Bruce Wayne? That's always what bothered me about Superman, that he could put on a pair of glasses and transform from the epitome of the human physique to the mild-mannered Clark Kent.
To me, the Dark Knight was the best of any of the previous Batman movies. Any of them.


Agreed. But if someone ever adapts Frank Miller's dystopian vision of the DC universe, I will die happy. Superman as a government controlled weapon versus an aging freedom fighting Batman on horseback? Yes, please.

>> ^NaMeCaF:

I also never understood why Gridiron is called "football". They carry and throw the ball with their hands!


It's called football because it's played on foot, not on horseback. Damn aristocracy, always belittling our peasant games. We should call it freedomball. And see what the queen mother thinks of that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football#Etymology

This was back when I was in Finland, started when I was 10, and had to quit around 18 after my dad died. I have never tried riding western style Would be awesome to try it, though.

I did some dressage, but show jumping was my passion. I wasn't successful at the national level, but in local shows I kicked some butt!

In reply to this comment by chicchorea:
I have never gotten to see them live.

I also rode when I was young, almost everyday till almost twenty. I too miss it. Thought I'd do all my life...Surprise.

Did you ride Western or English or both?

In reply to this comment by mintbbb:
These horses are truly amazing. I was lucky enough to see a show when they were touring the US several years ago

I used to do horseback riding when I was younger. I miss those times..

I have never gotten to see them live.

I also rode when I was young, almost everyday till almost twenty. I too miss it. Thought I'd do all my life...Surprise.

Did you ride Western or English or both?

In reply to this comment by mintbbb:
These horses are truly amazing. I was lucky enough to see a show when they were touring the US several years ago

I used to do horseback riding when I was younger. I miss those times..