Conflicting Directional Arrows for Lethem's Woketariat

 In my previous post -- Jonathan Lethem, "Narrowing Valley" -- I discussed Lethem's view that he could not write the expected conclusion to his New Yorker short story because to do so, he would have to misappropriate the culture of an Indian, or Native American, and, well, as a member of the woketariat (those for whom prevailing political correctness comes first and foremost), that was impossible.

The story is all about a coming showdown between a white family about to take possession of a patch of desert purchased sight unseen from an anonymous "Realtor" and the Indian who presumably actually owns if -- if "owns" is the right word for Native American land.

So, Lethem simply bailed out as the confrontation neared, leaving his readers rather distinctly short changed, but New Yorker editors, presumably also anxious to be politically correct, apparently impressed and, who knows? even relieved.

No Indian appeared in his story so he could avoid getting into trouble for daring to write about a person with a cultural background other than his own.

Now let's look back a couple of years to a post I wrote in June 2020 on a New York Times article on the work of Wallace Stegner.  It was the first in a Times series on American writers "who show us who we are." Stegner, by the way, was once known as "the Dean of Western Writers."

In the course of discussing Stegner's work, A.O. Scott, the author of the Times article, noted that Stegner's work had been criticized by, among other, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, a writer and member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, because Stegner failed to significantly address the indigenous peoples of the region or a variety of non-white immigrant groups.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. 

Perhaps Mr. Lethem, who talked in his New Yorker author interview about making political correctness conundrums "teachable moments" at Pomona College where he is a professor of Creative Writing, could horse that one over. Maybe he could even put it up for a vote and let us know what the students decided.

SFMOMA: "An Unexpected Outcome"

 "Though he is not a woman or a person of color, and I understand how that may be an unexpected outcome, I believe he will materially promote the visibility and best interest of those groups based on his past performance." 

So said Pamela L. Joyner, a black woman who co-headed SFMOMA's search committee, which settled on a white male, Christopher Bedford, to head up the museum, yet another American cultural institution troubled by charges of past racism. 

Well, as a Feb. 10, 2022, New York Times story on this development noted, Bedford not long ago made waves as head of the Baltimore Musem of Art by proposing to sell of works by Brice Marden, Christopher Still and Any Warhol to finance acquisitions of art by people of color and to finance staff salary increases. He also at one point announced a year-long commitment to acquire only works by female artists.

Such is the world of American culture at the moment: just who created something is of far greater importance than what exactly got created. To be fair, however, there are few if any objective standards of what makes for a great work of art.  Generally, someone considered an authority in such matters makes a pronouncement, or perhaps the price for which something sells is viewed as a sufficient proxy for its artistic merit.

In any event, despite the fact that by his gender and the color of his skin, Bedford represents the racist, colonialist, patriarchal past that is said to underpin prevailing U.S. social conditions, he's more or less acceptable for his new post.

I say "more or less" because here's what the NYT reported Ford Foundation president Darren Walker had to say: "While I'm disappointed that a diverse candidate wasn't chosen, no museum leader is more committed to diversity than Chris Bedford." In other words, second choice despite certain merits. 

According to the newspaper report, the museum may well have had to settle on Bedford despite his gender and skin-color shortcomings because the job isn't that attractive, and demand is high for qualified women or those of color.

"A person close to the job search who spoke on the condition of anonymity because that person was not authorized to reveal its details, said that the SFMOMA position was not an easy sell to candidates, given San Francisco's comparatively low-profile contemporary art scene and tepid interest in art patronage among Silicon Valley moguls." So the NYT reported.

Culture and Identity: "The Last One" by Fatima Daas

Although there is considerable controversy about this, the ancient Greek rhetorician Isocrates (436-338 bce) is credited with advancing the idea that culture can trump other markers of identity.

This was at the time when Philip II of Macedon, not a Greek but a person with Greek leanings partially as a result of three years of early education in Thebes, was about to embark on conquests that, under his son, Alexander the Great, would "Hellenize" much of the then-known world.

"Our city has so far surpassed other men in thought and speech that students of Athens have become the teachers of others, and the city has made the name "Greek" seem to be not that of a people but of a way of thinking, and people are called Greeks because they share in our education rather than in our birth," Isocrates said in one of his writings. 

I mention this because it is an important idea for many modern nation states, in particular -- in this instance -- France, which much like Isocrates in ancient Athens, came to believe French culture superior to most if not all others.

A few years back, for instance, the man then serving as France's Minister of Education, denounced "intersectionality," an outgrowth of the feminist movement, as in conflict with French republican values.

While Kimberley Williams Crenshaw, a Black American feminist, is credited with originating the term in the late 1980s to explain different layers of oppression experienced by women of color, intersectionality has since come to be a way of parsing out what, in the current era, are all-important questions of personal or social identity. According to Wikipedia, this includes such things as race, gender, sex, sexuality, class, ability, nationality, citizenship, religion, and body type.  

One other thing worth noting before continuing: a person's perceived intersectionality can be viewed either in positive or negative terms.

That's a very lengthy introduction to a few comments on a book called "The Last One," which, according to the New York Times, created quite a sensation in France where it was originally published. Written under an assumed name by a young lesbian Muslim woman living in a Paris suburb, the protagonist attempts to sort through her multiple and sometimes conflicting strands of identity both to find her true self and to reconcile those strands of identity with what it means to be French.

"Representation and identity are fraught topics in France, a country that prides itself on a universalist tradition that unites all citizens under a single French identify, regardless of their ethnicity or faith," Julia Webster Ayuso, reviewing the book in The Times, said. That's at least in part because too much focus on individual identity can be seen as a threat to social cohesion, the NYT review noted.

In other words, collective culture trumps individual notions of identity if you are French, more or less along the lines of the notions but forward by Isocrates.

"If you want to be French today, a fully French citizen, you have to give up one of the fragments of your identity," the author of "The Last One," called Fatima Daas, told the NYT.  Perhaps more than one, it might seem.

"The Last One" is apparently divided into a number of chapters, each of which considers one strand of the protagonist's identity. Some, such as her sexual orientation and her Islamic religion, are in conflict with each other as well as, perhaps, with a general cultural overlay. There's arguably nothing particularly new about that, but overall, the book, available in English, is perhaps an illuminating read in our current identify-focused culture. 

Self-Censorship and The Purpose of the Arts

 Back in early December 2021, the New York Times had an article entitled "Writers Tackle the Challenge of Self-Censorship" based on a discussion of the topic sponsored by PEN America, an organization founded in 1922 in support of freedom of expression.

Long considered a basic right in the U.S. as enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, free expression is under threat from both the right and the left at present with writers of all description in the firing line.

This came to mind the other day when I read in the NYT a review of a book called "Authority and Freedom, A defense of the Arts," by Jed Perl. In it, Perl argues art should be freed from the notion that to be valid, it has to address prevailing sociopolitical concerns. 

The reviewer, American composer John Adams, who has had rare success with contemporary opera -- "Nixon in China" and "Doctor Atomic" -- faulted Perl for not giving any examples of art that sacrifices aesthetic authenticity for social relevance. 

"On wonders whether the real reason for his silence here is the now-familiar threat of being cancelled," Adams said. 

I, personally, wouldn't be all that surprised since I have been pondering, in the prevailing cancel-culture, cultural-misappropriation climate, whether I need to change the race of a character in my operetta "Patricia," a work in progress (and one that in all likelihood always will be).

While I personally tend to fall into the "art-for-the-sake-of-art camp," Adams clearly doesn't.

"It's unlikely that 'Authority and Freedom' will change many artists' minds about how they view their work. They will do what they want, and many, if not most, today are ablaze with an intensity not seen since the 1930s to make their art speak truth to power, to heal what they deem the rent in our social fabric," he said.

Perhaps Adams, on his part, can provide some examples of contemporary art that has successfully healed (my emphasis) as opposed to -- say -- addressed "the rent in our social fabric."  

"If you ask them," Adams continued, "they will tell you that art that doesn't address this sense of urgency is not just out of touch with the times, it is irrelevant."

My own sense is that if an artist creates something of exceptional aesthetic value, it will far outlast creations that are first and foremost in touch with the sociopolitical currents of their times although, to be fair, there are examples over the course of history that have successfully hit both targets.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" Wins NYT Best Book Contest

 Last October, to mark the 125th anniversary of its Book Review section, the New York Times asked readers to nominate the best book published in a variety of different categories during that time frame,

In its Dec. 29, 2021 edition, the Times announced that after tallying more than 200,000 votes from all 50 states and 67 foreign countries, the winner for fiction was "To Kill a Mocking Bird," by Harper Lee.

I've written about "To Kill a Mocking Bird" (and arguably its very different first draft, subsequently published as "Go Set a Watchman") here, here and here. 

Those interesting in taking another look at "Mockingbird" might find it interesting to consult what I have written about it before doing so.

By the way, back in 2012, "To Kill a Mockingbird" came in second on a 200-best-books list offered by the British Broadcasting Company -- just after Jane Austin's classic "Pride and Prejudice."   You can find that list here.

The Nature of Women, and Sociopolitical Observations

 "What do women want?" is an age-old question and one that is particularly relevant for writers of fiction -- male authors in particular, I suppose.

With men it is easy: they want power, money, sex and celebrity in no particular order since one of those objectives often brings all or most of the others along with it.  Endless books revolve around such themes. 

With women it has been more of a puzzle, but two articles in the Nov. 11, 2021 New York Times may be of some help. Both -- one in the arts section and the other in the sports section -- involve violence on the part of women toward other women.

The arts section article concerns "Yellowjackets," a film about to appear on "Showtime" that depicts first what happens when a place carrying a U.S. girl's soccer team crashes in a remote location and then what happens to the survivors. Essentially, as the NYT article suggests, it's a gender-reverse version of "Lord of the Flies." Instead of young boys turning against each other in a sadistic fashion, this time it is girls.

"It argues for the savagery of girlhood -- with or without an aviation disaster -- and how that savagery reverberates throughout women's lives," the article says.

Let's pause for a moment and consider a major current of sociopolitical thought these days: that white males are responsible for most if not all of the world's ills.  Suppose the patriarchy is successfully toppled; what sort of a world are we in for next?

"The show abounds with strong women, none of whom you would want to share a bottle of chardonnay with," is one observation contained therein. Another is: "There's a very specific feminine way of brutalizing each other."

But even before the plane crash, some of the girls are depicted as malevolent at home in up-scale suburbia. One betrays a friend and another grievously injures a teammate.

Which brings me to the NYT sports section article. It reports on the arrest -- and subsequent release -- of a French professional woman soccer player suspected of being instrumental in the beating of one of her teammates by a couple of thugs who concentrated on injuring the victim's legs while stealing nothing from her. The accused woman was described to be an understudy of the victim and, indeed, replaced her as a starter when the victim, a French national team veteran, was unable to play in a subsequent match.

While no charges have been filed, an investigation by French authorities is continuing,

It is now necessary to pause for a second time and consider another prevailing sociopolitical issue: racism.

The two NYT articles on the incident -- reporting the arrest and then the release -- did not mention the race of either of the two women, but large photos accompanying the pieces showed clearly that one -- the suspected perpetrator based on names in the caption -- is black and the victim white.

Let's think about that for a moment. If this incident had occurred in the U.S. and the race of the victim had been black as opposed to white and the alleged perpetrator white rather than black, this incident would have been trumped as another example of the endemic racism that is said to characterize American society.

About Whether Works of Art & Intellect Stand on Their Own

 A topic I have written about in the past is:

Should a work of art or intellect stand on its own after it has been released to the public, or is its worth subject to reevaluation because society at some point takes a different view of the merits of its  creator?

The most obvious recent example of this on-going controversy was a decision by the publisher WW Norton to take Blake Bailey's massive biography of author Philip Roth out of print shortly after it was released because Bailey was then publicly accused of sexual assault or harassment by various women in earlier years. 

Before the accusations became public, the high-profile book received generally positive reviews in major publications, suggesting that readers interested in Roth (never a favorite author of mine despite his stature) would be well-served by Bailey's efforts.  That is presumably still the case. No one, before the accusations surfaced, seems to have said: "this book is flawed; it reads like it was written from the perspective of a sex offender and as a result, lacks credibility (or whatever)."

Technically, of course, Bailey is not a sex offender having not been tried and convicted of such an offense. But he stands accused and in the prevailing Me Too climate, that's enough. As a result, Baily's work of intellect has gone from praiseworthy to toxic, or so it seems.

Alternatively, I suppose one could view Norton's reasoning as: while the contents of the book are still valid, neither Bailey nor Norton deserve to collect any money from it because of Bailey's alleged past behavior. The publisher released its rights to the book, saying anyone else could publish it, and said it would donate an amount equal to the author's advance to  organizations that fight against sexual assault or harassment and make efforts to protect survivors.

I mention this in part because of a somewhat related curiosity. The New York Times just ran one of its "five minutes of music" features in the online edition.  This time around, a group of luminaries selected brief samples of their favorite Classical choral music so as to help expose interested readers to that genre.

One of them, Leila Adu-Gilmore,  a New Zealand performer/composer of Ghanaian descent, with a doctorate in music composition from Princeton, said: "As a woman of color and a composer, I struggle with the Classical period. Widely thought of as the height of Western European culture, this was a time full of violent colonization and slavery." 

In other words, the works of, say, Mozart can't be enjoyed on their own musical merits. One cannot consider anything written by a white European who lived in a time of colonization and slavery to be enjoyable or beautiful. If you like Mozart, that presumably means you approve of violent colonization and slavery.

So, instead, Ms. Adu-Gilmore chose an excerpt from a piece written by a woman born in 1098, which she said predates the age of violent colonization and slavery. The woman in question was a Christian nun and mystic named Hildegard of Bingen and her composition is of merit because by linking nature and the divine, it connects us as humans through time, Ms Adu-Gilmore said.

In response, in the comment section of the NYT feature, a person identified as Jeff from Toronto had the following to say:

"No surprise Adu-Gilmore didn't pick anything by Beethoven, who spent many years working on an opera about the struggle for freedom of a political prisoner. Why the racial stereotypes? And gender stereotypes -- there's no evidence that the racial attitudes of Hildegard of Bingen were any different from those of the men of her time, but Adu-Gilmore gives her a pass because she was female. OK, she says it's because Hildegard "predates" the colonial era and slavery, but so what, she still benefited from serfdom. As if that has any relevance to her music."

Further, here is a comment from JM, of the Northeast section of the U.S.:

"I was disturbed when I read the introduction by Leila Adu-Gilmore. I am a practicing musician and I have seen first hand how it is becoming increasingly fashionable to dismiss the works of "dead white European men" as one of my colleagues put it. Adu-Gilmore struggles with the Classical period because it "was a time full of violent colonization and slavery." She then points out that Hildegard predates all of that misery. She conveniently forgets that there was a thriving slave trade during the Middle Ages, and Hildegard was a member of the Catholic Church at a time when forced conversion, torture and religious military conquest was not unheard of. Should we all have issues with medieval music? That seems to be what Adu-Gilmore is saying. If we start rejecting our music solely based on the social or political environment in which it was written, there will be nothing left to listen to. No musical era is without abhorrent political events. The comment by Adu-Gilmore is musically irresponsible and sets a dangerous precedent."

So what do you think: should a work of art or intellect stand on its own terms, or should its worth be measured by the moral status of its creator or the by the moral status of the society in which it was created?

What will Ms Adu-Gilmore think about that piece of choral music if records surface that show Hildegard, in her role of head nun of an abbey, took advantage of her young charges in certain, inappropriate ways?  Will that be, as the saying goes, "the day the music died?"

Current U.S. Culture Wars Plus An Age-Old Controversy

 Readers interested in what appear to be intensifying culture wars within the U.S. -- specifically over whether "Whiteness" should be toppled, but other issues as well -- are strongly encouraged to read "Blind to Hate or Sounding the Right Notes?" in the Oct. 15, 2021 issue of the Arts section of the New York Times.

The lengthy article also brings up an age-old controversy: whether a work of intellect or art stands independently on its own merits, or whether the merits of it's creator need to be taken into consideration when deciding it's worth.

For example, see "Is It Time Gaugin Got Canceled?" in Nov. 18, 2019 New York Times.

But back to current culture wars, this time centered on a University of North Texas professor of music theory named Timothy Jackson and his chief critic, Philip Ewell, a professor of music theory at Hunter College in New York City,  Jackson is white and Ewell is Black (I'm following the NYT here in that the word "white" when referring to racial identity is not capitalized while "black" is.)

In Ewell's view, music criticism generally is dominated by white males and beset by racism, the NYT reported, and nowhere more egregiousness so than by the work of a Jewish theorist named Heinrich Schenker who died in Austria in 1935.  Jackson, identified as the grandson of Jewish emigres, has, the NYT said, has devoted himself to the study of Schenker's work.

In response to Ewell's views, Jackson and some colleges decided to solicit a series of papers on the  controversy for publication in the "Journal of Schenkerian Studies," which boasts about 30 paid subscribers, the NYT said, and a veritable volcano erupted. Read the article for details.

As for culture wars, the central battle covered by the article is yet another front in the ongoing war over whether not just the U.S. but, indeed, all of Western Civilization, is simply one big racist abomination  that needs to be overturned. In that context, Powell contends that when it comes to the study of music, Ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, French and German should be prohibited except by special dispensation in specific instances.  One wonders how English made the cut,

But also at issue is what the article descried as a contention by Jackson that Ewell's position is illustrative of a much broader current of anti-Semitic attitudes of American Blacks. 

Free speech -- an increasingly controversial topic in the wake of silencing Trump -- also comes into question in the Jackson-Ewell flap.  The traditional notion that speech should be free particularly on college campuses competes with a "newer view that speech itself can constitute violence," the NYT article said. In other words, things may be moving beyond concerns over "micro aggressions"  into justifications for censorship -- on both the Right and the Left.

Lastly, there is that issue of what to think about the products of intellectuals and artists who have lived arguably reprehensible lives or expressed arguably reprehensible opinions.

Schenker, for instance, is on record as having referred to "inferior races" and worse -- views that, in Ewell's opinion, are inseparable from his apparently very significant contributions to music theory. The counter view is that the theories should stand on their own merits.

The answer apparently isn't easy as per the comment of an NYT reader identified as "Lisa" (from Boston) who says:

"I have a doctorate in music and while I have always been aware of Wagner's well-known antisemitism (just to name an example) I was required to understand and utilize Schenkerian theory on my comps--and it was not until this controversy came to light that I was even *aware* that Schenker was a racist. To the point, it is up to the individual to decide what to do with information once it is known. But it NEEDS to be known. When it's not, it is indeed what Ewell says it is: whitewashing."

In "Lisa's" case, Schenker's work clearly stood on it's own when she needed it academically, but ... 

 

It's a Good Moment to be a Black Artist in the U.S.

 "Despite the really horrific climate we've reached, it still doesn't distract me from the fact of how amazing it is to be a Black artist right now,'' Brooklyn sculptor Simone Leigh told the New York Times upon being selected to represent the U.S. at the 2022 Venice Biennale.

That was the lead paragraph of an article I wrote on Oct. 15.  You can find it here.

In a similar vein, the New York Times led it's Nov. 2020 "Weekend Arts" section with an extensive write-up of Derek Fordjour, a Black artist who paints, sculpts and makes film and video.

"I'm benefiting from a moment," he told the NYT, echoing the sentiments of Ms Leigh. "I recognize that I'm an artist in society and when society goes and moves in a different direction I've still got to be rooted in what I'm doing."

Where society, as represented by the art world, is going now is in the direction of strongly promoting the work of Black artists, not necessarily unfairly in view of a certain amount of neglect if not outright discrimination in times past.  But the point is, times have changed, for the moment (as Fordjour put it)  at any rate. White privilege has been replaced by Black privilege and artists like Mr. Fordjour are clearly enjoying their recognition.

According to the NYT, Fordjour "was a market sensation in 2019" as evidenced in part by the sale of one of his paintings at auction for a price double the estimate. And, the paper noted, he was sued last March by a former New York gallery owner for not living up to an agreement allegedly made back in 2014 to deliver 20 canvases. The case, which Fordjour's attorneys are seeking to have dismissed, is still pending. But it is illustrative of the current state of demand for the artist's work.

Fordjour, now 46, had a considerable climb up to his current prominence. It took 20 years from his first stab at art school to his first museum show earlier this year at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. That followed a commission by New York's Whitney Museum to create a mural near its building. entitled Half Mast (2018). It depicts a crowd of people with some depicted as rifle targets as a commentary on violence in the U.S. against people of color.

The New York Times write-up of Fordjour was occasioned by a current show of his works, entitled "Self Must Die," at New York's Petzel Gallery. It runs through Dec. 19. At a full two and a half pages of a section that ran only 14 pages, that's definitely indicative of "the moment."

A Little Help From Manohla Dargis on What Women Want

"Like many women, I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to move through the world. How to walk with confidence but not too much swing. How to stand with my shoulders back without sticking out my chest. How to smile, like a nice girl. How to cross my legs, like a lady. How to speak up, within reason. How to take up space but not too much. Yet I love watching women who take up space, who swagger and sometimes wildly crash."

That quote is the first paragraph of a recent article by New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis and it is interesting in the context of writing fiction. How should women be depicted (much, of course, depends upon the era in which a story is set) and what do they want?

In a nutshell, Dargis wants to see women in action and the more extreme, the better. She's an advocate of what one might call "the alpha-female." As is the case with respect to the proverbial alpha-male -- a stock character of popular fiction -- the alpha-female is a person who exerts control over other people and her environment. She makes things happen and if people get in her way, they better have more physical clout than she has.

Among others, Dargis points to actress Charlize Theron who she praises for kicking butt "again and again" in "Atomic Blonde," an action thriller released in 2017, and who now stars in "The Old Guard," described by Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday as "a violent, fantastical action thriller about a group of supernatural mercenaries."

"The Old Guard" has recently received a lot of critical attention because it is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and as such, is said to be the first graphic, or comic book-based, film directed by a black woman.

The secret power of the supernatural mercenaries is that they are impossible to kill -- sort of like kick-boxing cockroaches, one suspects.

One of things Dargis said she liked to watch on YouTube were stunt videos from action films centered on women.

"Only recently did I grasp that the behind-the-scenes videos I was looking at were showing women kicking and punching their way to different kinds of female representation," she said.

This is in sharp contrast to women of the relatively recent past.

"In the films I saw growing up in the 1970s, including those from the classical era, women didn’t register as especially physical unless they were swimming, riding a horse or dancing, like Eleanor Powell and Ginger Rogers, whose athleticism was bound up with the feminine ideals of their era. Women in movies — the stars, at any rate, the desirable and desiring ones — were elegant, small, tidy and contained, even at their curviest," Dargis said.

"And then," she continued, "there was Shelley Winters, whose heroic swim in the 1972 disaster flick 'The Poseidon Adventure' destroyed me. Her matronly Belle, a former competitive swimmer, takes the plunge to save the leading man. She succeeds but dies."

We're all familiar with the objectification of women -- the male gaze. But it seems women can objectify women as well.

Here's Dargis again:

"There’s a potent feminist critique that women have long been made to be looked at for male pleasure in movies and elsewhere. But women also look, and the female gaze always complicates that dynamic. Winters’s big, powerful, fish-pale thighs complicated it for me."

There's more on that theme (the female gaze) in the article by Dargis plus and a lot more on how violence -- as brutal as possible -- becomes women. Who needs men at all, one begins to wonder, except perhaps as a punching bag when women aren't slugging it out with each other?

But back to "The Old Guard" and it's director.

In the above-referenced Washington Post article by Ann Hornaday, Prince Bythewood is quoted as that her identity as an African-American woman informed every decision she made, some of which involved making sure fight scenes were depicted from a different angle than the usual "white male gaze."

One scene in particular -- a fight between two women on a cargo plane -- was said to be particularly sensitive for the director.

"I didn't want anyone to look at that and say, 'That's a sexy cat fight' [as white, but not males of other races, apparently would]," Prince-Bythewood was quoted as saying. "No, I want you to see two badass women going toe-to-toe, but also see their vulnerability within that. Because for me that's what badass is: that swagger, that strength, but also empathy and vulnerability."

Anyway -- all of the above is offered by way of providing a few clues to help those interested in coming  up with a contemporary answer to the age-old question: "what do woman want?"

When an Artist is a Celebrity, Role Confusion Can Result

 When an artist becomes sufficiently well known, he or she acquires an additional identify: that of a celebrity and suddenly that person's persona is as important if not more important than the art.

Such appears to have happened with respect to German artist Neo Rauch, the subject of a Nov. 11, 2020 New York Times article on a topic that has gotten a lot of interest in recent years: the apparent rise of a new right wing movement in Germany.

What triggered this was an incident last spring in which a German art historian named Wolfgang Ulrich argued that Rauch was contributing to the country's right-wing drift because Rauch had made public statements criticizing political correctness. The operative word was "statements" -- as opposed to, for instance, "paintings," which is Rauch's artistic medium.

Lets think about that for a moment.  If Rauch had not become a prestigious artist thanks to the quality of his work (The New York Metropolitan Museum has given him a solo show), no one except perhaps persons in the immediate vicinity of his remarks, would have cared in the slightest what he had said. But as a celebrity, those words were another matter.

Ulrich, the art historian, seemed to realize he was walking on thin ice because, according to the NYT article, he went on to claim that Rauch's alleged right-wing sentiments were reflected in his art as well because the surrealist worlds he creates on canvas constitute refuges from "a contemporary society he hates." In other words, there is nothing obviously and explicitly right-wing within them.

In view of his contention, one wonders if Ulrich would thus conclude that every person who plays an on-line fantasy game, often taking on another identity in the process, is doing so as a means of taking similar refuge and thus has right-wing inclinations as well?  I don't think so.

Ulrich's apparent failure to be able to point to any explicitly right-wing leanings in Rauch's paintings squares with prevailing views among art critics generally. While the paintings have been interpreted as signaling a sense of alienation, they haven't been identified as pointing in any particular political direction as an alternative.

Wikipedia, for instance, quotes art historian Charlotte Mullins as saying that while the paintings suggest a narrative intent, closer scrutiny immediately presents the viewer with enigmas: "Architectural elements peter out; men in uniform from throughout history intimidate men and women from other centuries; great struggles occur but their reason is never apparent; styles change at a whim."

According to the NYT article, Rauch's work "is known internationally for paintings that blend elements of Pop Art, Surrealism and Social Realism."  They "feature dream-like groupings of figures in garish colors, assembled into horrific or comic scenes."

An example is below:

 

A couple of years ago, Rauch told a major German newspaper he objected to political correctness because it reminded him of the authoritarian regime of former Communist East Germany, where he was born. He also said everyone should be wary of the current "cancel culture" movement.

The point of all of this is: shouldn't one view the flap over Rauch's comments as more in the nature of concerns about the influences a celebrity (in our celebrity-driven culture) might have on what others think rather than anything having to do with art?

 

 

James Joyce, Cardi B and the Censorship of the Arts

 In 1933, Judge John M. Woolsey famously found that James Joyce's novel "Ulysses" was neither pornographic nor obscene despite, for instance, a scene in which the chief protagonist, Leopold Bloom, masturbates within his pants in sight of a young lady who has encouraged his sexual act by lifting her skirts. 

This, by the way, appears to have been informed by an incident in Joyce's own life. On his first date with his future wife, Nora Barnacle performed a similar service in a park not far from where the scene involving Bloom took place and at about the same time in the early evening.

Woolsey's ruling, which was upheld upon appeal and built upon by various subsequent rulings, opened the door to a much wider range of literary expression than had been the case previously, resulting, for instance, in books such as "50  Shades of Grey" being published without incident.

Now comes Cardi B and her collaborator Megan Thee Stallion with their recent hit "WAP," song a recent New York Times article identified as "brazenly graphic" and "uninhibited raunch." Well, if one reads the lyrics, that's putting it mildly.

Before I go on, some readers might contend there is a difference between a song and literature. Well, not any more.  Bob Dylan, one might recall, was recently awarded the Novel Prize in Literature for the "poetic expressions" contained within his song lyrics.

So what has Cardi B's song got to do with "Ulysses?"  Censorship lifted in the case of the latter and censorship imposed in the case of the former, but not by public authorities seeking to protect public morality and the established order of things.

In the case of "WAP," the censorship is voluntary and aimed at maximizing revenue, money apparently being more important to the creators than freedom of artistic expression. That's one for the Nobel folks to ponder if Cardi B eventually comes up for consideration.

As the NYT reports, 

While "WAP" with its original lyrics is free to stream and in so doing, managed to command the top spot on "Billboard's Hot 100" for four straight weeks, receiving over a billion clicks in the process, it needed to be cleaned up, which is to say censored, before it could be played on commercial radio.

"Today, most major releases that have some naughty words -- including the latest from Taylor Swift and even Stevie Wonder -- also come out in censored versions," the NYT article said. "Decades ago, that may have been done in part to avoid political controversy. Now business is the driving force, as labels chase down every click and playlist placement to maximize songs' streaming revenue."

"There is definitely a market for edited content," Jim Roppo, general manager of Republic Records, told the NYT.  "If you are eliminating yourself from that market, then you are leaving money on the table."

Perish the thought, and especially in the name of artistic integrity -- giving Ms. B and Ms Stallion the benefit of the doubt here.

A Woman's Life Lived Not to the Expectations of Others

 I was looking through the Arts section of the Nov. 1, 2020 Sunday New York Times  and got reading an article about a photographer named Jona Frank.

What jumped out at me was the following:

"Unlike her mother, however, she pursued her personal dreams, not others' expectations." 

This reminded me of a project of mine, proceeding very slowing at present as a result of the pandemic: trying to get at least a few arias of a neo-baroque operetta called "Patricia" composed and sung. While I may blog more about this in the future, if you are interested you can find out the details and hear a couple of songs sung here. (Click on the word "here.")

The operetta is all about a young woman named Patricia who, like Jona, doesn't want a life based on the expectations of other people.  

Jona's mother, readers learn, believed in the importance of "respectability" in traditional middle class American suburbia. "She was not a person who believed she could have options," the NYT quotes Ms Frank as saying. While her mother lived in what Ms Frank believes was "quiet despair" Ms Frank herself felt trapped in "the uncomfortable fit between societal norms and individual desires." Her photographs attempt, among other things, to explore such a situation.

Patricia's situation is a little different. A very bright girl, strong in math and science, her parents and teachers strongly encouraged her to pursue a career in such directions and when one encounters her in the operetta, she has a high-paying technical position with a firm specializing in digital imagery. Her first aria, in the baroque da capo style, is entitled "All my life I've been sensible" and her second is entitled "I'm good at my work."  I'm sure you get the idea.

But Patricia has just returned from her first visit to Manhattan, for an industry conference, and her eyes have opened. She wants to drop everything and go there to "search for the woman I am, shed the woman they made me untrue."

Her friend Beatrice is horrified -- an on it goes from there.

Well, I started this project well before the pandemic and I suspect Patrica would not be anxious to start over in Manhattan at the moment.  But the composition project is moving exceptionally slowly and with any luck, a vaccine will have been deployed and Manhattan back to it's familiar self, with respect to culture and the performing arts, by the time this is completed.  If not, I suppose I can set it clearly in the past as sort of a nostalgia piece.

Where Matters Stand When It Comes to Culture

The Oct. 11, 2020 New York Times Magazine, which comes with the Sunday paper if you still get it delivered, is identified as "The Culture Issue" and it contains a number of articles on where the editors think matters currently stand here in the U.S. For instance: can Hollywood successfully make a film about slavery in view of prevailing controversies about American history and racial identity?

Although I read most of the articles and skimmed one other, what struck me most forcefully was a full-page ad on the back cover by First Republic Bank. Not surprisingly these days, it featured a large photo of two smiling folks identified as satisfied customers: a tall, thin black gentleman and an attractive bespectacled woman, apparently of Asian family origin, who is evidently his wife.

There's a pretty clear cultural message right there -- not necessarily all that new, but one meant to send a signal nonetheless. You don't have to be one of those "privileged" white people to do business with First Republic, which, in the current environment may be making a concerted effort to visibly diversify its customer base. As a culture, that's where we are these days and perhaps rightfully so.

But who are the bank's two customers, shown in what appears to be their tastefully decorated home, and what can we learn about our prevailing culture on that basis?

The man is identified in the ad as Rod Brewster, the Founder and CEO of a company called Pingtumi (think "ping to me") that evidently has availed itself of the bank's services. It makes an app that allows users to push messages out to groups of people who signal they want to receive them by scanning a QR code -- a Quick Response code, or one of those things that looks vaguely like a square finger print. They can be printed on almost anything, or appear on a website.

Receiving ever-more messages of one sort or another via smart phones is probably a lot more about where American culture is these days than what the NYT Magazine articles talk about. But there is more. The Pingtumi app also allows users to poll subscribers about topics of interest "and gain insights into their thinking." In other words, collect presumably usable data, and that's definitely where we are, culturally speaking.

The woman, identified as Ghia Griarte, is a Managing Partner of Ponte Partners (think "bridge"), a San Francisco-based firm that puts investors together with firms in need of capital, with a priority on confidentiality (according to it's website), and also makes investments on its own behalf.

Conveniently, the website shows the logos of a handful of the companies with which Ponte Partners has been involved and by looking at what these companies do, we can get additional cultural insights.

As it turns out, they facilitate small business finance by means of an online platform that matches up potential borrowers and lenders; make programmable robots for the education of children; make avatars for those who wish to "level-up their digital personality;" make software that helps accelerate how fast website content can be pushed out to potential buyers; make digital three-dimensional scenes and animations (think virtual models for swimwear), and, necessarily in view of most of the above, provide security for digital content.

Think about those products and services in the context of culture. It's pretty much the directions in which society is going.

But there is more. If you want to be "with it" from a cultural point of view, perhaps so you know what to wear and what to do, or perhaps for business purposes, Ponte Partners has also been involved with a firm that focuses on identifying consumer and design trends -- both current, and future. These include things like fashion, beauty products, lifestyle interiors, health, etc. This outfit has, among other things, "on-the-ground trend hunters" (you heard about that occupation at your high school job fair, right?) to help customers keep abreast of global trends.

Next year, perhaps the NYT Magazine's culture issue will focus on some of these topics and tell readers what it all means.

Wallace Stegner, Political Correctness and Who We Are

Here in America, we live in an age of political correctness. From time to time, it mutates, or morphs, or goes so far as to shoot itself in the foot (the election of Donald Trump, for instance), but it refuses to go away.

And as a result, "ideological pigeonholing" has, in the words of  New York Times critic A.O. Scott, "become our dominant form of cultural analysis."

This observation appeared in Scott's lengthy appreciation of Wallace Stegner, an author known primarily for his depictions of the American West, both in fiction and in other forms of writing. Scott's piece, the lead article in the June 7, 2020, NYT weekly Book Review section, was identified as the first in a series called "The Americans" -- profiles of "writers who show us who we are."

The point, an introduction to the series explained, is to restore a sense of complexity to an America that is increasingly being parsed through the medium of "the simplified, sloganized language of politics."

A certain paradox associated with Stegner  makes him worth reading at a time "when we spend so much time mapping the fault lines between privilege and resentment and fighting over who is part of the elite and who is entitled to victim status." So said Scott.

Although known during his lifetime as "the Dean of Western Writers," the author,  who died in 1993,  thought of himself as an outsider, but not in the usual sense of the region. He was an advocate of community and a critic of the rugged individualism so central to the mythical ethos of the American West and what it long appears to have stood for.

The Times said the new series will include a variety of American authors -- "some well-known, some unjustly forgotten and some perpetually misunderstood."

Stegner probably fits into the middle group -- largely forgotten.

His work "is hardly a fixture on college syllabuses or in the pages of scholarly journals," Scott said. In addition, one might add, his name is pretty much totally absent from popular cultural.

Moreover, Scott noted, "there is no Library of America collection of his writings."

In the context of political correctness, Scott noted that Stegner's work has been criticized by, among others, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, a writer and member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe on the grounds that his works fail to significantly address the indigenous peoples of the region or a variety of non-white immigrant groups.

Well, Stegner's novels ("Angle of Repose" perhaps the most well known) are works of fiction, not sociological treatises. Novels certainly can be sociopolitical in nature, but they don't have to be. As Scott points out, Stegner was most concerned about marriage and, in particular, the nature of monogamous marriage. Stories generally need a setting and he chose the West.  All he needed to tell readers about the West is what was important to the lives of his particular characters.

Then again, one can argue Stegner's main concern -- monogamous marriage -- is sufficiently sociopolitical in and of itself.  Monogamy, with its "crags and chasms" is "the human undertaking around which all the others are organized," Scott said.

Perhaps Stegner's exploration of that topic, more than is depiction of the West" is his salient contribution to "who we are."

What Happened to Newspapers?

What Happened to Newspapers?

As a former journalist, I get asked from time to time to explain what happened to newspapers and where journalism is headed.  In that context, a friend recently sent me a book by Joe Strupp called “Killing Journalism: How greed, laziness [and Donald Trump] are destroying news and how we can save it.”

Suffice to say that while the book contains interesting insights, the title is misleading. This sort of sensationalism is exactly what Strupp accuses all too many publications of doing: in fact, it is one of his major themes. Why do it? Because it sells, which brings me to one point readers need to keep in mind: the old Pogo adage of “we have met the enemy and he is us.”

Zadie Smith Has Some Explaining To Do

I'm a white male of a certain age -- in case you hadn't already figured that out.  So what would your reaction be if I said the following:

"The first time I was aware of Zadie Smith's existence was a few years ago. We had James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, Earnest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. What did we need with a black writer?"

My guess is I would be viewed at best as being politically incorrect and at worst as an outright racist.

So what should one think when Zadie Smith, herself, says the following in "Feel Free," her collection of essays published in 2018:

"The first time I was aware of Debbie Harry's existence, I was in college.  We had Joan Armatrading and Aretha and Billie and Ella. What did we need with white women?"

New York City's Fourth Dimension

In the preceeding post, with considerable help from a 1948 essay by E.B. White, I wrote about three types of New Yorkers: long-time residents, commuters and goal seekers who come from elsewhere, the third category being the most important.  But the city, and especially Manhattan, has an increasingly important fourth dimension: tourists, or very short-term visitors.

Defined as anyone who stays overnight or comes from at least 50 miles away, New York is expecting a record 67 million visitors in 2019, up from about 65 million in 2018 and only about 44 million in 2007 when former mayor Michael Bloomberg launched an effort to promote the city's attractions.

Most of these people will visit, or stay in Manhattan, which has a population of only 1.6 million people.  The population of all five of New York City's boroughs -- Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island -- totals about 8.7 million.

I mention this because, as the New York Times noted, Broadway theaters have just had another record fiscal year (it ends in May, and then come the annual Tony awards) with 14.8 million people, spending about $1.8 billion on musicals and plays that qualify as "Broadway."  There are currently 41 Broadway Theaters, located near Times Square or at Lincoln Center, all of which have 500 seats or more.

Then, beyond that, and not counted in the attendance and spending statistics mentioned above, there are "Off-Broadway" theaters (at least 99, but less than 500 seats) and "Off-Off-Broadway" venues, which have less than 99 seats.

While most tourists probably attend long-running musicals for the most part, their spending has definitely helped promote a very encouraging revival in straight plays, both new works and first-class revivals of great plays from the past.

Broadway is alive and well if increasingly expensive when it comes to ticket prices (they have in recent years soared relative to the rate of inflation). But the industry's policy is to fill up every theater every night and as such, same-day discount tickets (half off in many cases) go on sale at three locations in Manhattan every day. Thousands of people take advantage of them.

The ABT: Cassandra Trenary and Calvin Royal III

There are times, when watching a ballet, that one particular paring jumps out as especially  noteworthy -- and even so exciting that hair stands up on the back of one's neck.

So it was the other day at Lincoln Center where the American Ballet Theater (ABT) was performing a new work by choreographer Alexei Ratmansky entitled "The Seasons." It's based on a score of the same name by Alexander Glazunov that was originally choreographed by Marius Petipa in 1900.

Although Ratmansky, the ABT's artist-in-residence for the past 10 years, re-choreographed the  piece from scratch, it remains a plotless "divertissement" featuring Petipa's ideas of just which characters should represent the four seasons -- starting with winter and ending with a potpourri of weather.

The ballet, as New York Times dance critic Gia Kourlas put it, "overflows with steps" and as a result, in her words, gets choppy from time to time. That may be putting it kindly. It can also seem repetitive and boring.

But toward the end, out came ABT soloists Cassandra Trenary and Calvin Royal III, dancing characters identified as Bacchante and Bacchus, in the "Autumn" portion of the piece and one's attention -- and appreciation -- suddenly sharpened.  They were wonderful individually, but even more important, exemplary as a couple, executing their routine with an exuberant mutual understanding that seamlessly integrated polished technique with vibrant aesthetic and emotional expression.

"More, more!" one wanted to shout.

By the way, Ms Kourlas, whose review I read only after I had seen the piece, labeled Trenary and Royal "excellent."

More on Susanna's #Me Too Moment: This Time at BAM

Having recently written about perhaps most most poignant #Me Too moment in the Bible -- well, not in every version of the Bible -- I was interested to read the following story in the May 4, 2019 New York Times: "La Susanna Topples the Patriarchy." (Click on that link if you wish to read the review.)

I wrote about Susanna's story after listening to the streamed version of Handel's oratorio of the same name as performed by Trinity Church's outstanding orchestra and chorus.

In contrast, the Times review cited above concerns a performance of the story by Heartbeat Opera and Opera Lafayette at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).  It's based on a 1681 work by Alessandro Stradella, but apparently significantly re imagined to enhance it's relevance for a contemporary audience.  Unfortunately, I am not currently in New York and won't be able to see it.

The most significant change is that in the BAM version, the young Daniel (who goes on to become an important Biblical prophet) isn't the person who saves Susanna.  After all, he is a male and having a man save a woman just won't do in the prevailing social climate. This version, according to the review, is about "a young feminist's coming into her own."

Interesting.  There is little in the Biblical version that would suggest Susanna is a feminist.

How does the BAM production stack up as "an evening out?"

"This production is meant to be a lecture. It certainly felt like one," said Joshua Barone at the conclusion of his review.

I think I'll listen to the Trinity Church version again.