Category Archives: Commentary

Opinion or analysis concerning whatever’s on my mind.

Cutting Slack

Posted on May 15, 2020 by JMN

Rather than fostering some new sense of civic unity, the virus is just as likely to worsen inequality further [my bolding]. (Farhad Manjoo, “San Francisco Beat the Virus. But It’s Still Breaking My Heart,” NYTimes, 5-13-20) Calling out infelicities of … Continue reading →

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The Secret Life of Fruit

Posted on May 14, 2020 by JMN

The ending of a poem I’ve read recently goes thus: On the plus, foods in hispanophone kitchens taste richer when spoken. zanahoria for carrot. melocotón names peach. many cubans say fruta bomba for papaya. mitt romney once claimed he loves … Continue reading →

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Where Polytheism Works

Posted on May 12, 2020 by JMN

GenesisBritons have… trusted in the N.H.S. since 1948, when it was created by a Labour government after World War II to forge a country that would eradicate the “five evils”: want, disease, squalor, ignorance and idleness. PantheonWe all have respect … Continue reading →

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The Troubling Arousal

Posted on May 11, 2020 by JMN

While I resist drawing lines between pornography and art, if forced to offer a distinction I might say that pornography, like propaganda, wants us to feel a single thing. Art is made of contraries, of ambivalence and ambiguity; it never … Continue reading →

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When Less Is More

Posted on May 10, 2020 by JMN

I’m glad to know about tengujo, the thinnest paper in the world, and to learn a bit about how it’s made. One of its numerous uses is in repairing and preserving old documents in places such as the Library of … Continue reading →

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“Play Like You Don’t Know How”

Posted on May 9, 2020 by JMN

“… Play like you don’t know how to play guitar.” That’s the instruction that John McLaughlin recalls Miles Davis giving him. It was on the occasion of his being pressed precipitately into service to collaborate in Davis’s milestone album “Bitches … Continue reading →

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The Texas Proviso

Posted on May 8, 2020 by JMN

Along with other farmers, [Joe Del Bosque] has been pleading with Congress for the past few years to legalize farmworkers… because “you need these workers today, tomorrow and for a long time.” The boys from Mexico worked so hard, Texas … Continue reading →

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So Playfully Valorized Seriousness

Posted on May 6, 2020 by JMN

[Wayne Koestenbaum] valorizes the intellectual seriousness of Sontag, and of the poet and translator Richard Howard, but also confesses his attraction to idleness and lassitude. Books are fine and good, but have you tried sex, or doughnuts? So this review … Continue reading →

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Alphabeticalism

Posted on May 5, 2020 by JMN

I once had to choose Arabic or Greek, the sole elective, in a course of study. It made a lot of difference in what I did next. I enthuse time and again over instances of letters lateraled into graven imagery … Continue reading →

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Color in Shadow

Posted on May 3, 2020 by JMN

Jordan Casteel’s paintings come at you. There’s no subordination. They are like a roomful of stories told all at once. One figure hides in his colorful skin; two others iridesce, starkly defined. Sofas riot; a hot mirrored lamp commandeers its … Continue reading →

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