Tag Archives: rhetoric

Native ‘Son’

Posted on April 16, 2021 by JMN

A chance juxtaposition of readings* has suggested to me the perennial nature of America’s brutish policing streak. In 1941, Richard Wright’s manuscript novel “The Man Who Lived Underground” is rejected by publishers who are made queasy over scenes of violence: … Continue reading →

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‘Cry of Pain’

Posted on April 15, 2021 by JMN

Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young” ruefully ironizes over a lad clever enough to “slip betimes away / From fields where glory does not stay.” Novelists, though, get more mileage out of superannuated jocks — Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom, Malamud’s Roy … Continue reading →

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‘Inter faeces et urinam nascimur’

Posted on April 13, 2021 by JMN

“Between feces and urine we are born,” said Augustine in the 4th century. The bishop of Hippo’s take on parturition was that our mothers effectively defecate us from their feculent crannies. Doctrine on sex and love handed down by dour … Continue reading →

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Be Paint

Posted on April 11, 2021 by JMN

… [Clement] Greenberg’s organizing idea was surprisingly simple: modern painting, having ceased to be illustrative, ought to be decorative. Once all the old jobs of painting—portraying the bank president, showing off the manor house, imagining the big battle—had been turned … Continue reading →

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But Also Thank the Devil

Posted on April 6, 2021 by JMN

The worst way to defeat a social or cultural ill is to declare war on it. The U.S. declares war on problems it can’t or won’t solve. The worst way to foster a social or cultural good is to declare … Continue reading →

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Wide Load

Posted on March 28, 2021 by JMN

Jason Farrago lavishes a container shipload of exegetical rumination on Julie Mehretu’s paintings. Lines accreted in an essentially radial configuration, with large arcs orbiting an absent central axis, and orthogonal spokes sprouting from the core. (The Mehretu black line is … Continue reading →

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‘The Painting Just Falls Off the Brush’

Posted on March 5, 2021 by JMN

… Ms. Shinoda worked primarily in sumi ink, a solid form of ink, made from soot pressed into sticks… “It is… necessary to finish one’s work very quickly. So the composition must be determined in my mind before I pick … Continue reading →

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Fossilism on Parade

Posted on February 21, 2021 by JMN

On Sunday [February 13], demand for electricity hit a winter record, at 69,150 megawatts, and by Monday morning, more than 30,000 megawatts of power went offline. These plant outages represented twice the level that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, … Continue reading →

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Reading God’s Mind

Posted on February 16, 2021 by JMN

“Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God!” said the letter, addressed to Kinzinger, the word “disappointment” underlined three times and “God” underlined once, according to the version published by the Times. “You go against your … Continue reading →

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Birds of a Kerfuffle…

Posted on February 15, 2021 by JMN

“The clear message that we get from the proceedings in America is that after all the toings and froings and all the kerfuffle, American democracy is strong and the American constitution is strong and robust.” (Martin Pengelly, “Boris Johnson calls … Continue reading →

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