Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This is a big f—–g deal.

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity.

Almost as fun as hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Shocking, but not surprising.

I showered with Rahm and all I got was this shitty blog.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Also, too.

The Math Demands It!

This blog is Obama’s Katrina.

Hot Air and Ill Informed Banter

This is how realignments happen…

A snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals

Shock troops for the Unitarian Jihad.

I personally stopped the public option…

Our job is not to persuade Republicans but to defeat them.

‘Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

The revolution will be supervised.

Too inconsequential to be sued

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Han shot first.

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

Yes we did.

We can agree to disagree, but I’m right.

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KULCHA!

Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Give the People What They Want

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Sidebar from a professional art historian:

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Thursday Evening Open Thread: Monumental

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Barring universal conversion to Islam (which is vanishingly unlikely, for reasons) the making of what Terry Prachett referred to as ‘I Can See Your House From Here’ monuments will not perish from human society. That granted, what shall we put up in our public spaces to valorize our strength? Well…


Nancy Schon’s monument stands across from the Boston Common and not far from the State House. The mother duck is, by design, nicely sized for a toddler to sit on her back. There’s a ‘Make Way for Ducklings’ spring celebration every year, where people bring their kids dressed up as ducks, and the ducks get dressed up for local events, too. There are probably purists who are offended by the objectively pro-cop bias of the original book (a friendly policeman holds up traffic to permit the duck family to cross a busy street), but the ducks themselves are blessedly non-partisan.

I have fond memories of the Central Park Alice in Wonderland and Balto statues, which also have a noble history as climbing structures for small children.

Maybe we should stick to using animal or kiddylit statues for our commemorative sculptures, for a generation or two?

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Recreate the Beauty You Want to See in the World

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… to the best of one’s ability, under the current circumstances. Where would we be without our stubborn sense of beauty — and humor?

(Probably helps that I have fond childhood memories of the original Unicorn in Captivity tapestry, which is now in the ‘reimagined’ medieval-castle Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum annex in beautiful Tryon Park, just a bus ride away from my home in the Bronx.)

My favorite at the link below is the artist imitating daVinci’s Lady with an Ermine with the help of her cross-eyed Siamese:

 
But (semi)srsly:

… As the trend has continued to spread online since starting in March, helped by social media challenges broadcast by institutions including the Getty Museum in California and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, it’s become a welcome distraction and source of humor for audiences and creators alike. Step back, viral TikTok dances, livestream concerts and quarantine memes; this intensive form of expression is a whole new world of creative labor. In the middle of global uncertainty, it’s even become an important anchor for some.

Just take Chiara Grilli, a teacher at the Università di Bari in Macerata, Italy. Grilli, like many in Italy, has been working remotely. “This gives me plenty of time — too much, actually,” she told TIME. She lives in a two-room apartment with her boyfriend — “no balcony, no garden” — and after two weeks, she says she felt “asphyxiated.”

“One day right before lunch I went into my bedroom and I saw this beautiful sunbeam entering the window and stretching over my bed. The first thing I thought was, ‘How I wish I could go out!’ but the second thing was Hopper.” That’s a reference to Edward Hopper, the 20th century American painter known for his dramatic yet minimalist scenes of daily life…

“I thought that it represented the quarantine-like condition of many of us without using many words, hashtags or mottos,” she said. Her friends were enthusiastic, and Grilli went on to create social media pages under the name “Quarantinart.” She now has over a dozen photographs up, and intends to continue the project well past the impact of the coronavirus. “I found something that really helps me to have fun, and at the same time express my creative side,” she said…

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Friday Morning Open Thread: Year of the Rat – Gong Hei Fat Choy!

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The Year of the Rat is the first in the Chinese astrological cycle (as Aries is in the Western cycle), so Rat years are supposed to be times of new beginnings and fresh starts. No matter how devoutly rational one’s framework, you have to admit it would be a *great* omen if that were true in 2020!

Speaking of pleasant omens, the official Obama portraits are going on tour. Per the Washington Post:

… The paintings of former president Barack Obama — by Kehinde Wiley — and first lady Michelle Obama — by Amy Sherald — have attracted record crowds to the National Portrait Gallery. Starting in June 2021, the portraits will travel to five cities, giving new audiences a chance to experience them.

“We’re a history museum and an art museum, and they are really great representations of both. This tour is an opportunity for audiences in different parts of the country to witness how portraiture can engage people,” said Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery, the museum that commissioned the works. “You can use these portraits as a portal to all sorts of conversations.”

The tour will begin at the Art Institute of Chicago (June 18-Aug. 15, 2021) before moving to the Brooklyn Museum (Aug. 27-Oct. 24, 2021), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Nov. 5-Jan. 2, 2022), the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (Jan. 14-March 13, 2022) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (March 25-May 30, 2022).

The cities were selected by the gallery for personal and geographical reasons. The Obamas have deep connections to Chicago, for example, and the works will be there when the former president celebrates his 60th birthday. Sherald grew up in Georgia, and Wiley was born in Los Angeles, so those stops made sense, Sajet said. Wiley’s studio is based in Brooklyn, and its museum has several of his works in its collection.

Thursday’s tour announcement coincides with the publication of “The Obama Portraits,” an illustrated book from the Smithsonian Institution and the Princeton University Press that celebrates the portraits and their influence. Wiley and Sherald are the first African American artists to be selected for the gallery’s portraits of a president or first lady, and their paintings have drawn millions to the gallery since their splashy unveiling in February 2018…

I suspect Chicago is gonna throw quite the party, come August 2021!

I haven’t seen the Obama portraits myself yet, but I’m kinda tempted by a visit to Brooklyn. Cliche as it seems, there is frequently something in original artwork that simply can’t be reproduced, even via today’s technology. I’ve been privileged to see both Whistler’s Arrangement in Grey & Black #1 (at the Clark) and an early print of The Great Wave Off Kanagawa (at the MFA) — two of the more widely reproduced / copied works of our age — and in both cases found new facets that I’d never imagined.

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Happy Birthday, Hayao Miyazaki

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Miyazaki is renowned for a number of excellent movies, but my personal favorite will always be My Neighbor Totoro. If only in tribute to my personal Mai, the baby sister who resolutely refuses to accept ‘It can’t be helped’ as the global default.

Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbour Totoro was released in Japan 30 years ago to little fanfare. Misjudged by financiers and shoehorned into a double bill with Isao Takahata’s much-anticipated Grave of the Fireflies, Totoro trod water until slowly, surely, it became one of the most beloved animated feature films of all time…

Some believe Totoro to be a Kami (a spirit tied to nature) belonging to the camphor tree which Mei falls onto the belly of while she’s out playing. The tagline on the original Japanese poster translates as, “These strange creatures still exist in Japan. Supposedly,” which summons thoughts of old souls and endless wisdom. Ultimately, you can project whatever you want onto Totoro. Even Miyazaki leaves open the possibility that the creatures in the film don’t really exist (although he solemnly believes it to be real, as do I)…

Aside from Totoro making a killing in merchandise revenue, those who are familiar with Miyazaki can trace the film’s modern success to his stubborn moral mind. Reluctant to put his characters into straightforward ‘good’ and ‘evil’ boxes, the Ghibli stalwart nevertheless rewards the pure of heart and punishes greed and gluttony. It’s a trait that wasn’t missed by Roger Ebert, who described Totoro’s small kingdom as, “the world we should live in, not the one that we occupy.”

As McCarthy explains, “[Totoro] extended the studio’s positive green and social credentials by tying itself so firmly into a simpler time and a society ruled by nature. I think Miyazaki does two very difficult things in this film with considerable delicacy and grace: he makes a film at a child’s pace and on a child’s level; and he allows death to assume a major role in the movie without demonising or personalising death. It’s also consummately beautiful. After almost thirty years of watching it several times a year, it still surprises me with its capacity to deliver images of almost heart-stopping beauty.”…

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Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Not the Manliness You Were Aspiring to, Eh?

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Well, *I* LOL’d…

(This dude also does twitter D&D quests, which are hilarious even though I’m only loosely D&D-acquainted. I pray to a beneficent Murphy that he gets a book contract one day, because I want his stuff in hard copy.)

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How To Not Think About Trump* For Three Minutes And Change

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*or Virginia, or Brexit, or all things Putin or…

Via my sister-the-music-professor’s ex, this perfectly wonderful youtube came to my attention today.  Now it comes to yours:

 

I have to confess that I’ve been overwhelmed lately — by work and the shock of the new semester, partly, and more by a sudden politics and strife overload. Everytime I’ve started to post here, I’ve found myself facing ten-digit paralysis, unable to move the fingers over the keys to report and fulminate on the overlapping, serial outrages.

Finally, I hope, my rage is once more ready to overwhelm my despair, so I plan to show up a bit more regularly, as soon as the last syllabi are complete…but in the interim glorious foolishness like the above helps me. I hope it pleases the jackalry.

This thread is, of course, open.

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