Culturesmith blog 20140116
Attempted Grab Ash Foiled By Freudian Slip
Detective Constable Daniel Candler called theft attempt as "a despicable act".
"Even leaving aside the financial value of the irreplaceable urn, and the historical significance of to whom it related, the fact that someone set out to take an object knowing it contained the last remains of a person defies belief."
I feel a bit horrified, and inclined to make jokes, both of which suggest deeper stuff going on. As usual, I doubt any of this defies belief. Why do people say that?
The urn from 300 BC had been on public display since Freud was cremated at Golders Green in 1939, after his death aged 83. When his widow died in 1951, aged 90, her ashes were added.
The urn – like the famous couch in his consulting room – was a gift from one of his many aristocratic patients. Knowing of Freud's interest in the art of ancient Greece, it was a gift from Princess Marie Bonaparte, great grandniece of Napoleon, who herself became a psychoanalyst, and who helped the Freud family escape from Vienna in 1938 as the Nazi grip tightened.
The graceful, classically draped figures, painted against a glossy black background, celebrate life and depict Dionysus and a maenad (a follower of the god of wine and revelry). It was specially chosen by his family to house his ashes and smashed in an attempted theft on January 14, 2014.
People say that because that exactly describes the sensation. When Evil reveals itself, normal people just can't believe it. They are shocked, aghast, confused, sometimes paralyzed; almost always make excuses or deny it. Believing it shakes even one's roots.
OK, but is a Detective Constable a normal person in this context?