Thursday, April 8, 2010

Blog # 43: Sublime Sun

Sublime is a punk-rock band from California formed in the late 1980’s. Sublime means supreme, or not excelled. Therefore, the sun is sublime. One can quickly realize the extent of detail within the sublime sun. The large mushroom structure is in place of the sun’s forehead, signifying drugs among the band members. The skeleton is coming down from the magic mushroom because those are “Psilocybin” mushrooms, which is a poison. The skeleton signifies poison within the body by using the magic mushroom. The left side of the cheek also clearly shows skeletal parts within the sun that appears to be related to death. Underneath the forehead mushroom are depressing slanted eyes. The right eye is in the shape of a fish with its own skeleton directly above it. Above the left eye is a dead flower. These two objects signify the poison in the Ocean of California, related to death. On the right cheek is a devil, which obviously means he can kill you or your dreams. Next to the devil is a worm from what it seems to be from a tequila bottle, which if ingested creates psychedelic effects just as a magic mushroom does. If you look extremely close, you can see a small needle which clearly identifies more drug usage. The band was well known for the amounts of heroine usage among the lead singer, Bradley Nowell who unfortunately overdosed on Heroine. To the left, which creates the jaw-line of the sun is a knife. The knife is a silent but deadly weapon popularly used in California crimes. Finally, at the bottom of the sun, which is located on the chin portion, is a small peace sign which signifies there is still peace even though there is a large portion of death and drugs within the sun.

The sublime sun signifies several different derogatory meanings. The symbols within the sun clearly states death and psychedelic drugs. However, one could easily argue the meaning behind the different symbols within the sun’s appearance. The artist of who created the sun, most likely the lead singer of the band sublime, could have wanted the items in the sun because it meant something directly towards him or the entire band. The mushroom could easily signify nature and earth instead of psychedelic drugs. The skeleton could signify human structures instead of death. The dead fish and the dead flower could signify qualities of life instead of death. The knife could signify protection instead of violence. The needle could signify health instead of shooting up drugs. All these symbols could completely mean the opposite of what they are entitled to mean, to give us more thought about what our opinions are supposed to be.

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