Dynamite Man

Dynamite Man, by Robert McGinnis.

Don't Do That

Let the wild rumpus start.

From Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak

Don't Do That

It was bring-your-own if you wanted anything

hard, so I brought Johnnie Walker Red

along with some resentment I’d held in

for a few weeks, which was not helped

by the sight of little nameless things

pierced with toothpicks on the tables,

or by talk that promised to be nothing

if not small. But I’d consented to come,

and I knew what part of the house

their animals would be sequestered,

whose company I loved. What else can I say,

except that old retainer of slights and wrongs,

that bad boy I hadn’t quite outgrown—

I’d brought him along, too. I was out

to cultivate a mood. My hosts greeted me,

but did not ask about my soul, which was when

I was invited by Johnnie Walker Red

to find the right kind of glass, and pour.

I toasted the air. I said hello to the wall,

then walked past a group of women

dressed to be seen, undressing them

one by one, and went up the stairs to where

the Rottweilers were, Rosie and Tom,

and got down with them on all fours.

They licked the face I offered them,

and I proceeded to slick back my hair

with their saliva, and before long

I felt like a wild thing, ready to mess up

the party, scarf the hors d’oeuvres.

But the dogs said, No, don’t do that,

calm down, after a while they open the door

and let you out, they pet your head, and everything

you might have held against them is gone,

and you’re good friends again. Stay, they said.

This poem by Stephen Dunn was found in The New Yorker, June 8, 2009.

More standing.

"New York City Skyline" (1940), by Leon Dolice

Another interesting passage from the book I'm reading, "I'll Take my Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition":

"Religion can hardly expect to flourish in an industrial society. Religion is our submission to the general intention of a nature that is fairly inscrutable; it is the sense of our role as creatures within it. But nature industrialized, transformed into cities and artificial habitations manufactured into commodities, is no longer nature but a highly simplified picture of nature. We receive the illusion of having power over nature, and lose the sense of nature as something mysterious and contingent.

Nor do the arts have a proper life under industrialism, with the general decay of sensibility which attends it. Art depends, in general, like religion, on a right attitude to nature and in particular on a free and disinterested observation of nature that occurs only in leisure. Neither the creation nor the understanding of works of art is possible in an industrial age except by some local and unlikely suspension of the industrial drive.

The amenities of life also suffer under the curse of a strictly-business or industrial civilization. They consist in such practices as manners, conversation, hospitality, sympathy, family life, romantic love - in the social exchanges which reveal and develop sensibility in human affairs. If religion and the arts are founded on right relations of man-to-nature, these are founded on right relations of man-to-man."

Jabberwocky

"Farm Road" (1979), by Andrew Wyeth

Below is the favorite poem of many: "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872.  I know people who talk like this.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

City Life

"Room in Brooklyn" (1932), by Edward Hopper

In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton describes the city dweller's need to travel in the countryside by referencing the poems of William Wordsworth, who

"... proposed that nature - which he took to comprise, among other elements, birds, streams, daffodils and sheep - was an indispensable corrective to the psychological damage inflicted by life in the city.

The poet accused cities of fostering a family of life-destroying emotions: anxiety about our position in the social hierarchy, envy at the success of others, pride and a desire to shine in the eyes of strangers.  City dwellers had no perspective, he alleged, they were in thrall to what was spoken of in the street or at the dinner table.  However well provided for, they had a relentless desire for new things, which they did not genuinely lack and on which their happiness did not depend.  And in this crowded, anxious sphere, it seemed harder than it did on an isolated homestead to begin sincere relationships with others."

An excerpt from Wordsworth's "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey":

[Nature] can so inform 

The mind that is within us, so impress 

With quietness and beauty, and so feed 

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 

The dreary intercourse of daily life, 

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 

Our chearful faith that all which we behold 

Is full of blessings.

Stink Gorilla More

The essay found here is a collection of thought-provoking ideas surrounding the nature of art, humanity, expression, morality and abstraction.  It reminds me of a story on Will's blog about a man who associates mathematical concepts like Pi with colors, lights, and feelings, and it makes me wonder if our whole notion of "abstraction" and "concept" are too restrictive.  Perhaps the categories of "real", "think" and "feel" are far more fluid than we imagine them to be.

The top image to the left is "Stink Gorilla More" (1983), and below is "Anger" (1984), both by Michael.

Politics and the young man.

"Aristotle with a Bust of Homer" (1653),
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

Something about the events of this past Tuesday brought to mind a wise passage in Aristotle's Ethics:

"Now each man judges well the things he knows, and of these he is a good judge. And so the man who has been educated in a subject is a good judge of that subject, and the man who has received an all-round education is a good judge in general. Hence a young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time, but on his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit."

Or, as Ronald Reagan famously asserted regarding Walter Mondale, "I refuse to make my opponent's youth and inexperience an issue in this campaign." (Hat tip to Dr. Moore for the historical fact checking...)

You don't recover.

"Homage to the past" (1944), Marc Chagall

"You don't recover from the events of life, you take them with you, you knit them in, you grow with them and around them; they become who you are; they are life itself; how else my life might have been is unknowable." Charles L. Mee

Life and art

"The function of the artist is to provide what life does not." Tom Robbins

"Art is finished once the artist has truly said everything that was in his heart." Christian Krohc

Painting by Michael Sowa. Click on image for larger version.

The unreasonable man

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw

Image is "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear" (1889), by Vincent Van Gogh. Click on image for larger version.

Rooms by the sea

"Rooms by the sea" (1951), Edward Hopper

The Giant

"The Giant" (1923), by N.C. Wyeth

Superdelegates

The painting to the left is: "Freedom of Speech" (The Saturday Evening Post, February 20, 1943), by Norman Rockwell. An earlier study for this print is below.

As I suggested earlier, there has been a shameful void of both worthwhile reporting and relfective analysis during this perpetual presidential election cycle. I am thankful for the articles that buck this trend, such as the piece by Stanley Fish appearing in The New York Times this morning. The full text can be found here. The article looks at the history, moral standing and political requirements of the Democratic Party's "superdelegates". Here's a sample:


... when the group NoSuperDelegates urges the DNC “to not seat the Super-Delegates . . . and instead nominate the candidate leading in the delegate count,” what it is really urging is the jettisoning of the rules because its members fear the outcome that following them might produce.

Of course, they don’t see it that way. They see themselves engaged in a noble cause: “We are urging Americans to simply stand up for what is right and let democracy work the way it’s intended to.”

Whose intention and whose democracy would that be? Not the founding fathers, who were more fearful of democracy in 1787 than the Democratic elders are today. James Madison complained in Federalist 10 that “measures are too often decided . . . by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” Democracies, he continued, have ever been “spectacles of turbulence and contention.”

Alexander Hamilton was even harsher in his judgment. Replying to the assertion that “pure democracy” would be “the most perfect government,” he declared, “no position is politics is more false” because “the ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government.” Indeed, he concluded, “their very character is tyranny.”

Federal laws exist to ensure transparent and orderly elections that adhere to certain principles. This I get. What is not clear to me is why some (not Stanley Fish) expect a similar, constitution-level standard of justice governing internal party processes. The two-party system that dominates our country today is not addressed in the U.S. Constitution, so while the method that a party uses to nominate a contender is fair game for criticism, only the members of that party can determine the party rules, and evaluate whether or not it is a "good" process for their members (and, I hope, for the country as a whole).

The fight over Superdelegates is interesting because it highlights an argument often heard in this country: Rules that have resulted in acceptable outcomes are good rules, but rules that have resulted - or may result - in unacceptable outcomes (the Electoral College in 2000, for example) must be discarded. This, clearly, makes the whole idea of pre-existing rules a) meaningless, b) dependent upon each individual's willingness to compare long-term consequences against short-term results, and c) dependent on each individual's current preference for things "acceptable" or "unacceptable".

One wonders if we are still a country with a long vision for stability.

Allan B. Jones

"Self portrait" (1991), by Allan B. Jones

(click on painting for larger image)

Le Noeud Noir

"Le Noeud Noir / The Black Bow" (1882), by Georges Seurat

Love

"Love in the afternoon" (1992), by Andrew Wyeth

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings. - Anais Nin

Anger is the fluid that love bleeds when you cut it. - C.S. Lewis

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the perturbations of love is Hell. - C.S. Lewis

No people find each other more absurd than lovers. - C.S. Lewis

Love and Truth: Their warfare seems eternal. - E.M. Forster

A friend loves at all times. Proverbs 17:17

Evolution and Ethics

"Luna Moth / Actias Luna" (2007), by Honor Marks

In a very un-modern way, I routinely find myself struggling to accept the ethical implications of social and biological Darwinists. Generally, these Darwinists argue that what we call "morality" is a different way of articulating "those behaviors and characteristics that maximize surviving and thriving".

From time to time, I read thought provoking books (such as "The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life", by Robert Wright) or articles (such as "Three-way mating game of North American lizard found in distant European relative") on the subject and I get an uneasy feeling that what is undoubtedly fascinating science is being used to promote a highly questionable view of ethics and religion. It does happen.

The philosophical principle most often violated in this, and similar arguments is called the "fact-value distinction" (or perhaps, depending on the argument, the "is-ought distinction". Associated closely with David Hume, this principle asserts that one can not ground normative arguments in positive arguments. One can not say that because a being does behave a certain way, then it ought to behave that way, as some evolutionary psychologists do. The first claim belongs to the realm of description / empiricism, while the second is a prescriptive judgment. My dog does poop on my jackass neighbor's lawn, but one can not conclude from this that she has a moral obligation to do so.

Sed Digressio. Consider the following conclusion drawn from the scientific observation explained in the lizard article above:

Force defeats cooperation. Cooperation defeats deception. Deception defeats force.

What science can not tell us here is whether or not we should be forceful, cooperative, or deceptive - it only tells us the way the world is. We still must make a moral judgment about who we intend to be, and what we ought to do. Authors like Wright tend to blur this line, while I prefer the delineation to be sharp.

Black and Violet

"Black and Violet" (1923), by Wassily Kandinsky

Wish you were here

"Hotel Room" (1931), Edward Hopper

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

by David Gilmour and Roger Waters

About the song

Young Redhead

"Young Redhead in an Evening Dress" (1918), by Amedo Modigliani