What should we come to … if political denunciation is to be turned without check against art?
Category: Society
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What should we come to … if political denunciation is to be turned without check against art?
Here I Stand
What should we come to … if political denunciation is to be turned without check against art?
Denunciation
What should we come to … if political denunciation is to be turned without check against art?
You Get Out
“It’s all almost too stereotypical,” Shore reflects. “A 1930s-style military parade as a performative assertion of the Führerprinzip,” she says, referring to the doctrine established by Adolf Hitler, locating all power in the dictator. “As for Los Angeles, my historian’s intuition is that sending in the national guard is a provocation that will be used to foment violence and justify martial law. The Russian word of the day here could be provokatsiia.”
Everything Old is New Again
Williams Shirer on editing his college newspaper. We’re still experiencing the same stuff today.
Nothing to Say
I’m a jack of all trades, master of none. It’s my epitaph, along with “Yet Another Patron Saint of Mediocrity.”
This. Is. Us. Part Two
We have ALWAYS been this. One example among countless: The Sand Creek Massacre: “An estimated 70 to 600 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho – about two-thirds of whom were women, children, and infants – were murdered and mutilated by Col. [John] Chivington [a Methodist minister] and the volunteer troops under his command. Chivington and his men…
This. Is. Us.
The following quote so accurately pegs the U.S. of the 2020s as it did the U.S. of the 1890s. Shirer writes of Upton Sinclair’s famous and seminal work, The Jungle, regarding the Chicago and U.S. in which he was born and raised. This. Is. Us. More will follow.
On Courage to Stand Your Ground
Regarding < this interview in the New Yorker>: A response. As I know from being a reporter (and as opposed to the myth we all had agendas), all I had to do was let someone talk and then print a transcript. They showed their moral bankruptcy or stupidity or cupidity themselves without help. This reporter…
198 Methods of Non-Violent Action
Use < this > as a guide for the next years of the collapse of the American republic, the destruction of which is fully underway.
Fatigue is Not Our Friend
We can’t afford it but it’s real. Don’t forget: Ignore outrages and DJT. Focus on Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, who remind me of Eichmann and Heydrich. Read the stories not only of Oskar Schindler and The Franks, but of Corrie ten Boom and the price of providing sanctuary for undesirables. Worth every penny. Corrie’s…
Beginning of the End Day—Year 80
“Instead of “Thank you for your service,” try, “We’re sorry you had to expend your blood, sweat, tears and toil to clean up our monumental failings.” Every time you meet one of the dwindling numbers of WWII veterans (and those of all the other magnificent little American wars we’ve fallen into), keep your mouth shut and your brain focused on peace. These “Greatest Generation” folks answered the bell and won the fight. We might not be as blessed next time.”
What a Tangled Tweet We Weave When First We Practice to Get Outraged
A “good job” according to whom? May I ask when exactly was the last time you were in an elementary school and sat through an entire school day with first graders? I ask because my mother makes this same argument frequently, yet has not been in an actual elementary school building since 1976. Her grandchildren were taught at home so she, therefore, has no experience either visiting a school or evaluating a public school education since 1976.
#EmptyThePews
“FRICKIN’ HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD! JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH! POPE PAUL VI AND ALL THE SAINTS! AND DEAR GOD WHY ARE ALL THESE WOMEN IN EXPENSIVE ULTRASUEDE DRESSES RUNNING UP AND DOWN THE AISLES SCREAMING THEIR FOOL HEADS OFF???!!!!!”
It was a Cold and Boring Night
“To me, as a gay boy, hugging another boy was perfectly natural. It always has been, it always will be. I always felt instinctively somehow that people would disapprove and say I was naughty. And I always felt instinctively that I knew what I wanted and I was going to have it and all those disapproving people could just go suck eggs and pound sand. Even at the height of the worst spiritual and sexual repression that Oklahoma and its churches could dole out, my inner belief has always been the same. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve known who I am and what I wanted since I was at least five. And everyone else who is not onboard with that can go over Niagra Falls without a barrel.”
(Re)Birth of Venus
Shit overflowing.
Movie Night: Red Dust
“The attraction here isn’t really the cultural relic/curiousity value, it’s the variation of the old man meets woman, they hate each other, they clash with sparkling dialogue and then end up together ’til death they do part. This bit has been done to death in Hollywood’s 100+ year run, but it can be freshened and redeemed if the scriptwriter is up to the job.”
American Civil War Casus Belli: African Negro Slavery.
Let’s be clear: The war was about slavery, from first to last. And after the gun stopped firing, the war continued in multiple ways that all-too-often includes violence and murder.
Movie Night: Born Yesterday
“Born Yesterday is pretty fabulous. At least until it sinks in that it’s just as applicable today (especially today!) as it was in 1950. In that year, it could have been warning against the House Un-American Activities Committee, which ultimately wrecked lives, but failed. But today, the movie is depressing when you realize that Broderick Crawford’s Harry Brock is in charge of the country, the Senate and the judiciary and is sitting in the White House tweeting.”
Donelson Renovates
Not much can be done about the traffic volume as long as Metro and the State are devoid of ideas or even the hint of wanting to think about possible solutions. Nashville is drowning in traffic, but no one has the will or money to do anything about it.
The Indictment
“Senate Republicans are setting a dangerous precedent that threatens the republic itself. I’m not naive enough to think they would hold Democratic presidents to the low standard they’ve applied to Trump, but all future presidents will be able to point to Trump to justify …”
Normandy 2019
Tragically brilliant.
Movie Night: The Big Clock
“Regardless of whether you saw it then as scandalous that such perversions were being exhibited in public theaters or whether you see it now as being stereotypical, offensive and overly focused on white, male, straight actors and queer panics and Italian stereotypes, to wit … offensive!! … there is much to actually be loved here.”
Movie Night: The Yellow Rolls Royce
“… this is probably the granddaddy of all product placement movies, far more egregious than even Joan Crawford’s conspicuous scattering of Pepsi bottles in Strait Jacket …”
Movie Night: Sweet Charity
“The songs and dances, Shirley MacLaine and Cita Rivera, et al, were great; it’s just the stuff in between that is less than satisfying.”
Movie Night: Strait Jacket
“The bonuses here are George Kennedy as a farmhand foreshadowing by 22 years Billy Bob Thornton in 1996’s Swing Blade (“I like them French fried potaters.”), all the Pepsi placement, and Lee Majors in pre-Six Million Dollar Man mode, along with his very hairy chest, fluffily rising and falling just before the axe falls.”
Movie Night: A Cry in the Night
“Whatever the novelty of seeing goodie two-shoes Perry Mason as a Peeping Tom/Kidnapper, it’s Carol Veazie who is the standout.”
Movie Night: The Ritz
“Regardless of whether you saw it then as scandalous that such perversions were being exhibited in public theaters or whether you see it now as being stereotypical, offensive and overly focused on white, male, straight actors and queer panics and Italian stereotypes, to wit … offensive!! … there is much to actually be loved here.”
Movie Night: An American Tragedy
“Basically, amoral social climber from poor background seduces poor factory girl, gets her pregnant, wants to marry a rich socialite and so kills poor factory girl by smashing her in the head with his tennis racket and dumping her body in a lake, fakes a canoe accident, trips self up by being basically an idiot, dies in electric chair after mercy is refused by Governor Charles Evans Hughes.”
Movie Night: Thieves’ Highway
“Thieves’ Highway is a classic Noir tale of truckers and apples and greed and sex and San Francisco and California and highways and death.”
Movie Night: Desk Set
“Not only is it hilarious, it has fabulous midcentury (ugh, that word) interiors, jokes only librarian/book/research nerds understand, an awesome supporting cast including EMERAC and Kate gets to get blotto and talk about the “Mexican Avenue Bus” (the Lexington Avenue Bus, that is).”
Movie Night: Hot Millions
“There’s a lot more than just smiles to recommend this one–ts droll English humor, its glimpse at fashions and designs and trends of 1968, the fantastic acting of everyone, including the performance of Bob Newhart, whose movie outings are often forgotten, the sarcastic wit and the satire–it’s a long list and will need a second viewing to get it all.”
On Crime and Punishment This Fourth of July
“It’s well worth a challenging read-and-think on everyone’s part at this particular moment in the country and society.”
Pocket Guide to France, or, Onward to Parisian Mademoiselles
“You are a member of the best dressed, best fed, best equipped liberating Army now on earth. You are going in among the people of a former Ally of your country. They are still your kind of people who happen to speak democracy in a different language.”
Beginning of the End Day
“Instead of “Thank you for your service,” try, “We’re sorry you had to expend your blood, sweat, tears and toil to clean up our monumental failings.” Every time you meet one of the dwindling numbers of WWII veterans (and those of all the other magnificent little American wars we’ve fallen into), keep your mouth shut and your brain focused on peace. These “Greatest Generation” folks answered the bell and won the fight. We might not be as blessed next time.”
Paranoia, Fear, Terror and Facebook, et al.
“Insane levels of fear and control and succumbing to terror. We are a nation which is perhaps the most fearful of all countries.”
Corporate Power
“Many states whose sovereignty is threatened are now finally waking up to the danger. But is it perhaps already too late to do anything about the seemingly over-mighty corporations?”
Capital Destroys All It Touches
“What’s our death toll up to in this week’s boutique pay lots of money and die fashionably sweepstakes? 19?”
Where Are the Bodies? We Have an App for That.
“The information presented is stark and perhaps unsettling.”
No Slope, No False Equivalency. Just the Same. Damn. Thing.
Immoral, indecent, inhumane. … We are running concentration camps and human beings are dying.
The Wages of Sin, America, is …
“It is impossible to engage in intellectual discourse with National Socialist Philosophy. For if there were such an entity, one would have to try by means of analysis and discussion either to prove its validity or to combat it. …”
Random American Notes
“An American gentleman . . . likewise stuck his hands deep into his pockets, and walked the deck with his nostrils dilated, as already inhaling the air of Freedom which carries death to all tyrants, and can never (under any circumstances worth mentioning) be breathed by slaves.”
Movie Night: Conquest
“The film itself is fairly representative of the period and shows how far ahead of her time Garbo was … that she could shine in spite of rather stilted dialogue, in a non-native language shows just how great an actor she was at the height of her career. It wasn’t bad, and I might have another look under certain conditions, but I probably wouldn’t buy it for the DVD collection, unless Criterion gets hold of it.”
Kit Marlowe is a Naughty Nellie and Probably a Witch
I just caught this from two years ago on The Guardian‘s website. Two years behind, that’s about my speed. But it is a fascinating document of Elizabethan paranoia and skulduggery. “A controversial document in which the playwright Christopher Marlowe reportedly declared that Christ was gay, that the only purpose of religion was to intimidate people, and…
Sieg …
“DEEPLY OFFENDED that a child refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance bc freedom is all about mandatory loyalty oaths.”
Stupor Bowl Sunday As It Happens Happened
“19:56: We popped over to the Puppy Bowl in time for some nauseating exploitation. But I hope it helps some puppies.
“19:57: Fourth first down? They’re showing signs of life? And Romo is a totally sarcastic smartass. And the Rams get one more first down.
“20:02: Suddenly Rams show a spark. But McCordy smacks the ball outta the hands of the Rams receiver in the end zone. Frustration on the sidelines.” | Read more after the jump:
New York City Municipal Archives
The city of New York photographed every building in the five boroughs for property tax assessment purposes. The city’s photographers took more than 700,000 pics as a result.
Finally Entering the Public Domain
We’re finally getting some « spectacular stuff » released into the public domain on New Year’s Day (screw you Disney!).
118 Years of NYTimes Focus Countries
Whew. Long title, fabulously fascinating graphic.