“Our problem was what laid underneath all that: the way things really were, despite what we taught in civics class.”
(James Comey, “Mr. President, Please Take a Stand Against Racism,” NYTimes, 8-4-19)
No disrespect to Mr. Comey, but what lay underneath his verbal peccadillo was the lack of a good editor. Come on, NYTimes, you can do better than this!
(Cc) 2019 JMN
A math equation recently stirred up trouble by seeming to offer two equally valid, and very different, solutions. Some software programs flatly refused to take the bait. Credit Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images.
If you want a clear answer, ask a clear question.
Adapted from Steven Strogatz, “That Vexing Math Equation? Here’s an Addition,” NYTimes, 8- 5-19)
Strogatz reprises an online debate about the answer to this equation:
8 ÷ 2(2+2) = ?
I got 16. The answer can be either 16 or 1 depending on two differing standards for order of operations that are equally valid. Mr. Strogatz concludes that his notation for the equation had a built-in ambiguity, which he intended.
(c) 2019 JMN
The violence that erupts continually in an “advanced” country has trapped me in a morbid rumination that has two horns.
First: Given our pervasive gun culture, along with the persistence of capital punishment as a remedy-at-law, why is the firing squad not used more widely outside Utah as an instrument of execution? A well-aimed volley of shots to the head or heart is quicker than the electric chair, gas chamber, or lethal injection.
Second: The current measure for an American “mass” shooting is three fatalities. Under that standard, given the firepower available to almost everyone, we will keep having mass shootings every few days. Let the count be five. Or ten. Anything less can be dismissed as a “group” shooting!
We have little apparent recourse but to adapt our idiom to the folly we abet.
(c) 2019 JMN
Lucy Jones.
In this essay Sara Nolan affirms with wit and grain her sense of the “godliness of the everyday” brought home by the birth of babies of any species. I glimpsed it with sugar ants.
We are just creation playing its long dice game, no better or more important than anything with wings, hind legs, scales.
(Sara Nolan, “What Parrots Taught Me,” NYTimes, 8-2-19)
(c) 2019 JMN
One of Manet’s last paintings, “Jeanne (Spring),” from 1881, is the centerpiece of the exhibition. The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles acquired it in 2014 after more than a century in the shadows. Credit The J. Paul Getty Museum.
My favorite touch on this painting is the mauve-against-yellow bonnet garnish — purple-yellow adjacencies enthuse me. Otherwise, the mannequin with the bee-sting pucker and doe-stupid gaze is both masterful and tiresome.
Jason Farago writes about the exhibition “Manet and Modern Beauty,” on view at the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition “focuses on the art of Manet’s last six or seven years before his early death in 1883, at the age of 51.”
Farago says art historians tended to dismiss these later genre scenes, portraits and still lifes “with the three Fs: frivolous, fashionable and (worst of all) feminine.”
The trouble I have with Farago’s art criticism is in keeping excerpts from it lean and crisp — my standard for blogging. His comments tend to be maddeningly on point vis-à-vis my personal tastes — making it difficult to omit things.
Manet’s “Olympia” (1863) set off a nearly riotous scandal when it was first displayed at the 1865 Salon. It resides in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Credit Francois Guillot/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.
This peep of history on how Manet’s “Olympia” was received in its day is amusing for what it reveals of the perennial clueless bawling of mobs:
Visitors shouted and bawled… Art students threw punches. Security guards had to be called in… Newspapers published brutal caricatures of Manet… Art critics savaged [the painting] as “vile,” “ugly,” “stupid,” “shameless”….
“Flowers in a Crystal Vase,” circa 1882. Credit National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Manet had always been an adept of women’s fashion, and “Manet and Modern Beauty” looks carefully at how clothing and accessories work to signal modernity in the artist’s late work.
… Even the curators’ choice of walls of muted rose and dusky lilac signals their embrace of the “feminine” epithet that opponents of the late work once hurled.
“The Café-Concert,” circa 1879. Jason Farago writes that Manet treated the cafes and parks of Paris as “venues where new life was made from scratch.” Credit The Walters Art Museum.
The received history of modern Western painting… can feel like a succession of attacks on beauty by generations of arrogant men… But Manet knew that there is as much rebellion and insight in a dress, a bouquet or even a pile of strawberries if he could see past their surfaces to the richness within.
(Jason Farago, “Manet’s Last Years: A Radical Embrace of Beauty,” NYTimes, 8-1-19)
(c) 2019 JMN
“Food is constantly implicated in economic and political processes, as well as in social and historical processes… Because of the recent events in the Middle East, even something as innocent looking as a ground chickpea ball can be used as a weapon of sorts.” (Yael Raviv)
(Quoted by Dene Mullen, “Does Egypt have the best falafel in the world”? BBC.com, 7-16-19)
Exploding falafel is on a par with the heart attack sandwiches flogged relentlessly by American fast food giants: stealth bombs targeting a population in the belly.
I wonder if the bacon cheeseburger will poison the West slowly but surely just as leached wine flagon lead is said to have poisoned Rome?
(c) 2019 JMN
The influence of fashion and grooming on art (and vice versa?) is of great interest to me. The mention of Sonia Delaunay brings back pleasant memories of being thrilled at a receptive age by her work and that of her husband.
Italian artist Emanuela Di Filippo uses oil pastels to create sinuous images of women wearing bold outfits in the style of Biba, the swinging 60s fashion store set up by Barbara Hulanicki.
Influenced by the vibrant colours of artist Sonia Delaunay and the slender portraits of Modigliani, Di Filippo trained in fine art in Rome before moving to the UK.
“I was inspired by abstract, minimal, contemporary artists. But then I came back to my first loves: art and fashion,” she says.
Biba’s designs are reminiscent of the classic Italian fashion Di Filippo grew up with: “They have a simplicity of shape, and I loved the colours.” Hulanicki referred to these as “auntie colours”, such as olive, rust, and “bruised purple”.
(Dominic Holbrook, “Inspired by Biba: oil pastel fashion — in pictures,” The Guardian, 3-2-18)
(c) 2019 JMN
This year-old piece from The Guardian has some charming, free-and-easy-seeming sketching that I would dearly love to be able to pull off myself.
Earlier this month, London-based artist Joey Yu headed to Field Day, a two-day music festival held in south London’s Brockwell Park, to record the action with crayons, pencils and paper…
All drawings were done in situ and took between 10 minutes and half an hour, though she did finish a couple at home because of the weather.
“I can’t express the pure joy of drawing in the moment, connecting eyes and ears to hands. It’s like meditation or dancing,” she says. “I think it really gives a different feel for the atmosphere that photographs just can’t grasp. It was a good adventure.”
(Georgia Simcox, “Sketches of Festival Life — In Pictures,” The Guardian, 7-16-18)
(c) 2019 JMN
Australia’s Steve Smith maintained his mastery over England on the third day at Edgbaston. Photograph: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images.
I’ve excerpted this piece with love and impish selectivity from Vic Marks’s excellent cricket bloviation.
While [Steve Smith] is still at the crease nothing can be guaranteed… England made some solid progress: a first-innings lead of 90 and three early scalps… But… [by] the close Australia were 124 for three from 31 overs and with Smith still at the crease….
… Smith has already mangled a few minds. Upon his arrival at the crease England reverted to funkiness… For the seamers there might be two men on the leg side one moment, five the next, maybe with a cunning leg slip and short mid-on….
Smith was in clover as England forgot… that even the great batsmen… do not like being tied down and compelled to work for their runs….
… Why offer Smith so many easy options to jog off strike?… Hide your eyes if necessary and try a length just outside off stump along with the occasional bouncer.
So Smith was there unbeaten on 46 at the close and Australia’s lead was 34… Cameron Bancroft was caught at bat and pad by Jos Buttler at short-leg.
Burns finally square-drove a boundary… Out came Moeen… He kicked four leg-byes and defended three deliveries… [then] shouldered arms and lost his off stump.
Next, Bairstow wafted against Peter Siddle to be caught at slip… Often Broad swishes in these circumstances but he buckled down… nudging singles and occasionally slog-sweeping….
The packed Hollies Stand applauded jubilantly at the addition of every run in between chanting “He’s got sandpaper in his pants” to Bancroft….
Eventually Broad was caught at long-leg off a short delivery from Cummins….
The challenge ahead was clear: England were going to have to win this match without the assistance of [Jimmy Anderson] their champion bowler, a circumstance that is bound to be repeated at Lord’s next week.
(Vic Marks, “Steve Smith stands firm again as Australia establish lead against England,” The Guardian, 8-3-19)
(c) 2019 JMN
EthicalDative 
Fashion Landscape
Dior shirt, $2,200, (800) 929-3467. Prada pants, $1,350, and socks, price on request. Church’s shoes, $750, church-footwear.com. Credit Photo by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. Styled by Olivier Rizzo.
(c) 2019 JMN