Thursday, March 28, 2024

Bewitched




Is the next rank up from gerontocrat, a thanatocrat?
f This may all sound like an episode of that 60s TV show Bewitched. However, weegees, seances and the occult-- it’s still possible to look into the world of non-sentient non-corporeal beings. The Germans have a compound word Vergangsheitbewatagung roughly "the burden of the past"-- which deals with such generationism. In other words your repository of grandfatherly aspiration will in turn be passed down to your grand kids. So don’t fret writers, all those inquiries which begin “I was wondering about the status of my submission “ You questions will outlive you.

read Joan Baum's NPR review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy

and listen to "Borderline" by Madonna and The Liebestod"


Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Minutes of the Congress of Associationists

Natura Marta by Giorgio Morandi (1958)

The centennial meeting began with a digression from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Wipes in movies belong on  windshields. L. Wittgenstein's proposition #1 from his Tractatus,The world is that which is the case. Cheers from audience bank. Chair uses his gavel to call the meeting to order. Godard appropriated the title of his 1969 film from Rousseau 's Emile or the Joy of learning--Le  Gai Savoir. "Object Relations" is not the title of the famous nude by Corbet. Shuddup! A Clear and Present Danger is not the movie at the Angelika. It's the decision in Schenck v. U.S. Caden Cotard is dying of "life." The actor who played him died because he killed himself. The Objectivists won the ping pong match. Ayn Rand shrugged. OxBridge debating society: "Do Eating and Talking Fulfill the Need to Masticate?"

Listen to Joan Baum's review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy on NPR

and read Mark Segal on Hallie Cohen's "Mi Ricordo: Roman Watercolors" show in The East Hampton Star

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Privacy

Pussy Riot in Austin (photo: Jno. Skinner)

What was formerly the province of intimacy has been politicized. Expressing oneself sexually is tantamount to showing up at a demonstration. Did you bring your cis gender placard to the rally? Art has become political. Remember the storm of controversy about the depiction of Emmett Till by a white artist Dana Schutz or the cancellation of the Philip Guston retrospective due to Klansmen paintings? What's even more bedeviling is the politicizing of the political. There are no more micro positions. Oh for the days of the secret ballot! You're either for or against. Don't try to express an opinion on the Columbia University campus! You'll be detained for simply having one. Did anyone learn anything in the light of the mattress protest in which the accused and the accuser ended up switching places? BTW New York State has "affirmative consent" laws. Don't go to bed with anyone unless you've put your "position" in writing! 

read Mark Segal on Hallie Cohen, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "Papa Don't Preach" by Madonna

Monday, March 25, 2024

I'm Scared of Laird


Who remembers Melvin R. Laird, secretary of defense under Nixon? He coined the term "Vietnamization"--which meant the South Vietnamese should take care of their own dirty laundry. Laird rhymes with "scared" and his name can produce outbursts of doggerel. I'm scared I'm scared. I'm scared of Melvin R. Laird. The sensibiliy of a Laird is more than 360 degrees from that of your average West Side Jewish intellectual of the 60s, even those who'd adopted the neocon sensibilities of William Phlliips of The Partisan Review or famously Norman Podhoretz of Commentary. Remember Woody Allen's famous quip from Annie Hall about Commentary and Dissent merging to form {dysentery} BTW, you might want to ask why Caravaggio hasn't been #MeTooed, when you realize there's no one left to make culture heroes of otherwise minor intellectuals. Podhoretz, if you are still alive to remember, famously tore into Portnoy's Complaint in the pages of Commentary.  Remember Midge Decter? If you nod in the affirmative, you're lying, but back to Laird. While other Hoofers were planning the bombing of a government facility on the campus of the state's top institution of higher learning, proud Wisconsinites like Laird, alumnae of Joseph McCarthy's support team, were caught in snowdrifts of Papers while strutting the halls of the Pentagon. Daniel Ellsworth would turn out to be blameworthy.

read "Francis Levy's Divine Comedy" in Exquisite Corpse

listen to "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash

Friday, March 22, 2024

Car Wash

 


It's morbid but true that the older people get, the more they require medical care. People are like cars with older models requiring part replacement, ie hips, knees and back vertebrae. Looking at life as a balance sheet, society is investing a good deal of capital in mechanisms that have an increasingly short half life. Anecdotal evidence would suggest that more people over 70 have joint and heart procedures than the rest of the population combined. From an actuarial point to view, aging gerontocrats are a bad bet. Most repairs are quality of life issues in which populations in a certain demographic are made to feel comfortable for rest of the ride aka life. However, the effectiveness of such procedures on a cost basis is questionable.  It's like throwing good money after bad. In societies where the elderly are venerated there's no question about making the necessary repairs. But many materialistically inclined consumers may look skeptically on the notion of replacing parts when enticing trade-ins are ubiquitously available.

Listen to Joan Baum's review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy on NPR

and listen to "Car Wash"by Rose Royce

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Tim's Vermeer

Van Gogh painted Arles, Manet, the bar at the opera. Mondrian "Broadway Boogie-Woogie." Is that where the title of the famous Johnny C Song, "Boogaloo Down Broadway" comes from? The next time you stay over at the Connaught on a jaunt to England, lie back on your four poster and stare out the window. Before you decide you are waking up, going to sleep or any of the activities in between stop to create your work of art. Painters usually buy their frames after they have finished their work. Framing will be the first thing you want to do. You don't need to go to the Orangerie or if you're in Washington, The National Gallery since a work of art is staring right in front of your eyes, a signature piece that will have the hallmark of your style. No one sees the world the way you do.

Listen to Joan Baum's review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy on NPR

and read Mark Segal's piece on Hallie Cohen's "Mi Ricordo: Roman Watercolors" show in The East Hampton Star



Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Life Ass

The Equitable Life Assurance Building (1890)

Are you in the life assurance business or do you take an actuarial attitude towards your life in 5 yrs you're blah, in 15 with a "touch of the poet," "my name is might have been no more, too late, farewell." This "Alas, poor Yorick" stuff is touching, earnest and moribund at the same time. On the other hand, there's nothing more disconcerting than those gluttons for life who live forever at the expense and happiness of others. Sometimes it's good to close up shop and declare, to quote the poet, "it's curtains for me." Beckett said it even more eloquently in Endgame. "Nice day" is the observation.                                                  "It almost makes you want to live," is the reply. "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" because of the fact they possess consciousness.

Listen to Joan Baum's review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy on NPR

and read Mark Segal on Hallie Cohen's "Mi Ricordo: Roman Watercolors" show in The East Hampton Star