“The Wreckage of the Medusa,” 1978. Credit… The Robert H. Colescott Separate Property Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
My weakness for parody has emerged at easel in attempts to paint pictures that convey a profound disquiet over gun culture. I read (present tense) the paintings of Robert Colescott (1925 – 2009) with profound amazement, and Roberta Smith’s comments, as always, with interest. She calls Colescott’s work “relentlessly provocative.”
It reveals a man who was eventually able to meld his own private demons about race with his country’s public ones, creating one of the most compelling, simultaneously personal and socially relevant bodies of work in 20th century American painting.
“Eat Dem Taters,” 1975. Credit… The Robert H. Colescott Separate Property Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
… He trafficked in stereotypes and caricature of both Blacks and whites, often reformulating Western masterpieces with nonwhite subjects. They were antic and savagely satirical… Colescott’s paintings continue to make people nervous, especially in the art world’s coastal enclaves.
Robert Colescott, “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder,” 1979. A parodist, he appropriated well-known themes from Western art history (in this case, from Matisse). Credit… The Robert H. Colescott Separate Property Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
His points were pushed forward by his searing palette (hot pink, magenta and a vibrant cerulean blue) and vigorous brushwork, at once masterly and sloppy. In 1990, he wrote of making “big sensuous paintings. It’s the first impact that people get. They walk in and say, ‘Oh wow!’ And then, ‘Oh [expletive]’ when they see what they have to deal with in subject matter. It’s an integrated ‘one-two’ punch; it gets them every time.”
“Knowledge of the Past Is the Key to the Future: Matthew Henson and the Quest for the North Pole,” 1986. Credit… The Robert H. Colescott Separate Property Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
(Roberta Smith, “Robert Colescott Throws Down the Gauntlet,” NYTimes, 7-7-22)
His mother graced me with this son on a fine Spring day. I salute him now, a Navy nurse coming off 5 years of service abroad to this land, his and yours and mine.
Welcome home, Lieutenant!
(c) 2022 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved.
“I think some of you might decide that this place isn’t for you, and that self-selection is OK with me… Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here.”
(Meta CEO Zuckerberg’s message to 77,800 workers)
Zuckerberg’s passive-aggressive comment is uninteresting, but listen to his chief product officer Chris Cox:
“We need to execute flawlessly… We must prioritize more ruthlessly, be thoughtful about measuring and understanding what drives impact, invest in developer efficiency and velocity inside the company, and operate leaner, meaner, better executing teams.”
(Meta CPO Chris Cox’s memo to employees)
Spare a thought for Anne Boleyn. The rank of Henry VIII’s second wife entitled her to beheading by a topnotch swordsman. Her execution must be flawless.
For the student of rhetoric, Cox’s rancid corporate cant has a dotcom-busty, pre-Y2K feel to it. I was drawing a paycheck at Compaq when Compaq swallowed Digital Equipment. Compaq itself was soon swallowed by Hewlett-Packard. Each fish was eaten and excreted by a bigger fish. I had been given my walking papers by then, “made redundant” in the pungent British phrase.
Tinpot motivators peopled legions of conference calls and marketing huddle-ups that I sat through during that period. Cox’s peroration sounds cribbed from their homiletics, lifted from one of a zillion antique PowerPoint decks. It forecasts for Meta a busy HR department, executing severance packages, confiscating company badges, and escorting casualties from the campus.
(Mike Isaac and Sheera Frenkel, “Mark Zuckerberg Prepares Meta Employees for a Tougher 2022,” NYTimes, 7-1-22)
BROKEN NEWS: CONSTITUTION HELD CONTRARY TO CONTRACEPTION
The collective of putative originalists of the Chambered Bastion holds supreme and solely licit the celebration of procreative congress in the conventional way, minus obstruction of semen, at sanctioned intervals, between gender-pairs held suitable for biblical knowledge since the Book of Genesis, and using the genitals assigned by God implicitly in the Constitution.
Dictamen of the Dark Robes of the Alitonian Persuasion
Hew to the Straight and Narrow, decree the Robes. All hail the right of states. Expose your kids to priestly guidance, southern baptistic or catholic. Inculcate wholesome discipline. Say to them:
Don’t be Satan’s playmate. Shun frivolous coitus. Say “No!” to onanism and wet dreams. Stay off PornHub. Keep your seed and eggs in the self storage of abstinence. Sublimate base urges into clean outdoor fun and recreational gunfire. Legally mate with a legitimate opposite number. In due time husbandry and wifery for propagation of the race will call you up for righteous duty in the missionary position. You will be blessed with fruits of the womb and tender mercies of states’ rights from the bronze age of Silent Cal.
The Robes’ will be done now, henceforth, with anterior effect, time out of mind, forever and ever, world without end (maybe), amen.
I have a cartoon figure on each shoulder; one whispers “you aren’t” in my ear and the other whispers “you’re not” in my ear. I don’t know which is the devil. If you aren’t swayed by this contrived tease, you’re not likely to read further.
***
The prefaces to Wright’s Grammar of the Arabic Language are dated 1874 and 1896, which situates it in time. I want to give you a flavor of this monument in its English aspect. I hope you’ll savor Wright’s majestic pedantry (still helpful to the student), and marvel with me at how weirdly granular and specific it is for a language to have (or have had) a word for “fat, lazy, old woman,” in the first place, plus a way to make it diminutive.
***
The Arabic word for quince (the fruit)
[safarjal-un]
turns into this
[sufairij-un]
when it’s made diminutive (little quince). It illustrates the rule for forming the diminutive of quinqueliterals:
“When the noun contains five letters, of which the fourth is strong, or more than five, the diminutive [fuƸaiƸil-un] is commonly formed from the first four, and the rest are rejected.”
(Wright, p. 168)
[fuƸaiƸil-un] — template for the diminutive of qinqueliterals.
But exceptions to the rule include the term for a fat, lazy, old woman:
[jaḥmariš-un]
A little fat, lazy, old woman can be either this:
[juḥaimir-un]
or this:
[juḥairiš-un].
Wright states that the diminutive is used “not merely in its literal sense,… but also to express endearment… or contempt…, and even enhancement….”
I share a post by Javier Sánchez for the enjoyment of a real friend, and imaginary ones, who, along with me, study Spanish. Javier takes wicked potshots at moving targets in his zany, deadpan, rollicking, headlong, trigger-happy, over-the-top, irreverent, zesty romp. His creation sends me a whiff of Hunter Thompson. My Spanish being acquired, not native, I’m sure I miss plenty of nuances. It’s beyond me to do justice to the myriad detail, lightness of touch, and mischievous slanging that Javier deploys, but I want to hint at its gist and flavor as best I can. In the following, I mix summary and paraphrase with snippets of the Spanish text translated (or mistranslated) by me.
Mi nombre es Alberto Lose, pero todo el mundo me llama Javier Sánchez, la policía me conoce como el “come papas”, es que estoy gordito y mi pareja llama “oye tú” [My name’s Alberto Lose, but everyone calls me Javier Sánchez, the cops know me as the “eat potatoes” [“potato eater”?], I’m on the heavy side and my partner calls me with “hey you.”]
Unemployed, bored, miserable, at loose ends in a stifling flat with a cheap sofa that leaves him stove up and dragging himself around like a “drunk snail,” he considers jumping out the window: En vista de que estaba a punto de tirarme por la ventana y no me hubiera hecho nada pues vivo en una planta baja. [In light of which I was on the brink of throwing myself out the window and it wouldn’t have done anything to me since I live on the ground floor.]
He suddenly catches a glimpse of his “super computer” out of the corner of his eye and approaches the “diabolical machine”: … Le di al botón de power y me fui a cocinar, es que tengo Windows 95 y tarda unos 45 minutos en arrancar. [I pressed the power button and went to cook a meal, the fact is I have Windows 95 and it takes 45 minutes to boot up.]
Surfing the net of nets, amongst all the “shit” that was there it occurred to him to look for courses of instruction, and lo and behold: … Vi uno que me pareció interesante, un curso de una escuela online que se llama “Psicólogy barating of the dead for losers…” [I saw one that looked interesting to me, a course of an online school that was called “Psychology berating [?] of the dead for losers…”] It has nice photos, and the computer downloads them to Alberto at the sedate pace of 3 minutes per picture. The academy has a typical British aspect, including people playing cricket which, Alberto clarifies, is a sport like baseball but played on dirt and dressed in the style of the 18th century.
Alberto signs up for the 800-hour course. He takes classes 8 hours a day and devotes weekends to studying and weeping. He’s an empathetic person, and when people weep, he weeps. By hook and crook with drastic cheating, Alberto acquires a diploma to practice psychology. He hangs out a shingle on the 32nd floor of a Barcelona tower in an office perfumed with Chinese patchouli and sticks of sandalwood. The locale has a fine view of the sea, say neighbors. Alberto takes it on faith because his windows face in the opposite direction. No surprise, things don’t go well consultation-wise. It’s hard. You have to talk to all kinds of weird people! Alberto discovers in practice that few go to a psychologist, and those who do are in bad shape. But in the evenings he hits the bars and relaxes over a few drinks with his invisible friend Pepe.
A cultured gentleman of 60 shows up — an Argentinian accountant named Alejandro Jaramillo Cuesta. He walks into the office with a determined step and looks the place up and down. Alberto shrewdly deduces that he’s by nature an observant fellow who looks places up and down. The sonofabitch proves to be asymmetryphobic, streetphobic, spousephobic, phobiaphobic, and suffers from pernicious alopecia. He bellyaches for one hour and fifty-eight minutes during which Alberto can’t get a word in edgewise, and alternates sleeping with taking copious notes. In the end the psychologist tells the patient to stick his troubles up his ass and fuck off. Then he inquires, “Will you be paying by card, check or cash?” The jerking of his head while sleeping during the session worked havoc on Alberto’s neck. After the fact, he bought a neck brace to wear, the kind they put on you in an ambulance, telling inquisitive clients it’s for an injury incurred while playing team chess.
After the rocky encounter with Alejandro Jaramillo Cuesta, which nearly caused him to lose his vocation, Alberto settles into steady practice with 4 patients whose sessions he spends wearing ear plugs and spectacles that have open eyes painted on them.
***
There’s a lot left out, but that’s a taste of the hijinks as I perceive them. Apologies to Javier for any insult in my précis to his original. It’s the translator’s fault.
When words turn flammable we call them “f-words.” They’re too hot to utter.
F***. — The granddaddy of f-words. All f-words trace their ancestry to this one. It’s unsafe for print and held flammable by stare decisis until Alito. In the formerly-United-K, striving-to-again-be-Great Britain, it’s a staple of effing and blinding.
Fascist. — British radio presenter James O’Brien says “f-word,” when he means “fascist,” referring to policies proposed and enacted by the Tory government. The Tories hate the word. He doesn’t give a fig, does he? He knows it’s flammable and flaunts it in their faces.
Filibuster. — Laws are plucked and spatchcocked with the Senate filibuster. They bleed out because they need 60 votes to pass. It lets the few ride herd on the many. “Filibuster,” formerly a fiddle and a fudge, is a McF-word now in the Speaker’s honor.
Fifth. — The ex-brass looked like a man with his cahooties in a vise. Fifth! he croaked, when asked if he believed in the peaceful transition of government. A pettifogger manhandles the dodgy plea into: My client prefers to keep his innocence to himself. “Fifth” leaves a skidmark on the polity’s underpants. It’s an f-word now, except when used for bourbon.
Facts don’t speak for themselves. They’re spoke by the folks that make ‘em up.
(Marjorie Lauren Zayphod-Beeblebroxx, “When Your Gut Talks to Ya,” Podex Press, 2022)
“Marjorie Lauren” is a made-up person (cap doff to Douglas Adams). Don’t take her seriously. Her figment came to mind when a New Mexican in the news said recently something like, “All I need to know is what my gut tells me.” Good buddy, check in with a piece of you that’s north of your intestines if you can find it. The gut’s a chute for you-know-what. Jazz god Louis Armstrong honored it with a plaque on his toilet that read: Leave It All Behind You.
A Spanish metaphor does more justice to the organ: hacer de tripas corazón. It means literally “to make heart from guts.” Maybe akin to Hemingway’s “grace under pressure,” it’s summoning toughness and nerve when you’re gripped by visceral dread. The Ukrainians are doing it as we speak.
Natalie Angier’s brisk account of the thrilling odyssey undertaken by three resolute bitches gives a comparable view of indomitable pluck against forbidding odds:
Three sisters braved lions, crocodiles, poachers, raging rivers and other dangers on a 1,300-mile transnational effort to forge a new dynasty.
(Natalie Angier, “The Incredible Journey of Three African Wild Dogs,” NYTimes, 6-20-22)
The scaffolding that supports the letter of the edifice of the law erected for the citizenry by the solons of the state of the land of the brave in which we live is the prepositional phrase.
In May, 2022, Texans voted Yay or Nay on an amendment to the state constitution. In abridged form it read like this on the ballot:
A constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to… for… of… of… on… of… that may be imposed for… and… on… of… who is elderly or disabled to… from… in… of the maintenance and operations taxes imposed for… on the homestead.
(Proposition 1 of Senate Joint Resolution 2)
To assist voters in making their decision, the secretary of state, one John B. Scott, mailed out the following “Explanatory Statement” prior to the election. In abridged form it read like this:
SJR 2 proposes a constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to… for… of… of… on… of… that may be imposed for… and… on… of… who is elderly or disabled to… from… in… of the maintenance and operations taxes imposed for… on the homestead from the preceding tax year.
(John B. Scott’s “Explanatory Statement” [Bolding is mine — JMN]
The “Explanatory Statement” differed from the wording on the ballot in the particulars I bolded. The secretary of state’s value added is indelible.
Postscript: For the incredibly curious, here’s the full wording of the amendment that appeared on the ballot:
A constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for the reduction of the amount of a limitation on the total amount of ad valorem taxes that may be imposed for general elementary and secondary public school purposes on the residence homestead of a person who is elderly or disabled to reflect any statutory reduction from the preceding tax year in the maximum compressed rate of the maintenance and operations taxes imposed for those purposes on the homestead.
The pro-life movement is inevitably bound to some kind of conservatism, insofar as a anti-abortion ethic is hard to separate from a conservative ethic around sex, monogamy and marriage. [The bolding is mine. —JMN]
(Ross Douthat, “The End of Roe Is Just the Beginning,” NYTimes, 6-25-22)
The NYTimes sets a high editorial bar for style, and scrupulous rhetorician Ross Douthat is always a good model for tight writing. Hence my slight intake of breath when I met the phrase “a anti-abortion ethic” instead of “an anti-abortion ethic.” I surmised that the adjacency of the indefinite article to a word starting with “an” might have triggered the slip. These things happen even in journals we depend on to keep the language sharp.
It crossed my mind that perhaps there’s an exception rule I’m unaware of that now endorses the “a an-“ combination (“a antique,” “a anagram,” “a anarchist,”…) responding to a repugnance for the collision of “an an-.” If so, phrases such as “a antithesis” would still sound discordant to my conservative ear.
EthicalDative 
Robert Colescott: ‘Oh Wow… Oh [Expletive]!’
My weakness for parody has emerged at easel in attempts to paint pictures that convey a profound disquiet over gun culture. I read (present tense) the paintings of Robert Colescott (1925 – 2009) with profound amazement, and Roberta Smith’s comments, as always, with interest. She calls Colescott’s work “relentlessly provocative.”
(Roberta Smith, “Robert Colescott Throws Down the Gauntlet,” NYTimes, 7-7-22)
(c) 2022 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved