family history

A Family History Like Too Many Others - Daniel Mendelsohn, Op-Ed (Feb 18th NYTimes)

As with any genre, such letters had their characteristic tropes. There's the uneasy opening, hovering between an emphasis on the writers desperate situation and an awkward acknowledgement that his relationship to the addressee is perhaps not of recent vintage. To an old college friend Otto Frank wrote, " I would not ask if conditons here would not force me to do all I can in time to be able to avoid worse.....Perhaps you remember that we have two girls." A similiar agonizing tension colors the letters on my great-uncle, Samuel Jager. "You'll be wondering...why I'm writing to you after so many years," one of then begins, although he soon gives reason in this and many other letters: "From reading the papers you know a little about what the Jews are going through here, but what you know is just one-hundredth of it."

without accompaniment

leafing through Cormac Mccarthy's 'The Road', I couldn't bring myself to buy the book - a picture of utter bleakness - a post-dystopian picture if that's possible. Life During Wartime is really pretty bleak too, without the music, particularly bleak, though I must admit, the hills I live near often seem very inviting. The pull of paranoia (that is a kind of pseudo-rational but almost narcotic response)in dark times for the secure - for millions and millions a reality they live.

Life During Wartime - Talking Heads

Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons,packed up and ready to go
Heard of some gravesites, out by the highway,a place where nobody knows
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance, I'm getting used to it now
Lived in a brownstore, lived in the ghetto, I've lived all over this town
This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,this ain't no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey,
I ain't got time for that now
Transmit the message, to the receiver,hope for an answer some day
I got three passports, a couple of visas,you don't even know my real name
High on a hillside, the trucks are loading,everything's ready to roll
I sleep in the daytime,
I work in the nightime,
I might not ever get home
This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,this ain't no fooling around
This ain't no mudd club, or C. B. G. B.,
I ain't got time for that now
Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?
Heard about Pittsburgh, P. A.?
You oughta know not to stand by the window
somebody might see you up there
I got some groceries,
some peanut butter,to last a couple of days

But I ain't got no speakers, ain't got no headphones, ain't got no records to play
Why stay in college?
Why go to night school?
Gonna be different this time
Can't write a letter, can't send a postcard,
I can't write nothing at all
This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,this ain't no fooling around
I'd like to kiss you, I'd love you hold you
I ain't got no time for that now
Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock,we blended with the crowd
We got computer, we're tapping phone lines,
I know that ain't allowed
We dress like students, we dress like housewives,or in a suit and a tie
I changed my hairstyle, so many times now,
I don't know what I look like!
You make me shiver, I feel so tender,we make a pretty good team
Don't get exhausted, I'll do some driving,you ought to get some sleep
Get you instructions, follow directions,then you should change your address
Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day,whatever you think is best
Burned all my notebooks, what good are notebooks?
They won't help me survive
My chest is aching, burns like a furnace,the burning keeps me alive
Try to stay healthy, physical fitness, don't want to catch no disease
Try to be careful, don't take no chances, you better watch what you say

Reading Milosz

Reading Milosz
- Adam Zagajewski ( published March 1st edition of The New York Review of Books)

I read your poetry once more,
poems written by a rich man, understanding all,
and by a pauper, homeless,
an emigrant, alone.

You always want to say more
than we can, to transcend poetry, take flight,
but also to descend, to penetrate the place
where our timid, modest realm begins.

Your voice at times
persuades us,
if only for a moment,
that every day is holy

and that poetry, how to put it,
rounds our life,
completes it, makes it proud
and unafraid of perfect form.

I lay the book aside
at night and only then
the city's normal tumult starts again,
and somebody coughs or cries, somebody curses.

vaguely connected thoughts on utility & moral actions

The gestural language developed in the representational tradition, codified and represented states of mind and body in terms of determined sets of movements and facial expressions. What was considered 'representational' has become for us generally the very definition of the 'theatrical'. Now movements of the body and face are the object of psychology and sets of normative standards that recognise the symptomatic and define the healthy from the sick. The range of movements and capacities of the body are the object for training and disciplining for specialised roles in a technological society. Competence and dexterity of manual control and movement are virtues, in a society that values utility above all, competence becomes a supreme virtue.

When we evaluate the performance of the military, our thinking is almost always framed by this consideration, 'they are expertly trained, they make mistakes, but because of their training and discipline we can safely assume they didn't really mean to, and we criticise them accordingly - as not really capable of doing bad things, because they are only doing their job, for which they are extremely well trained'. It seems evaluating as competent/incompetent the performance of an action, we can postpone perhaps indefinitely, more troubling issues.
It's interesting also the inference we make about violence inflicted by untrained people - they are motivated by a deep hatred - it is totally pathological. Violence committed by untrained people on 'our side' is often heroic, a spontaneous outburst of bravery. Violence by 'the other side' who are clearly trained, however is the sign of a devious, cunning and duplicitous nature.

Of course disciplining and training is very necessary and of clear benefit; the skill of the surgeon, the musician, the expert skills that are of general benefit to society, and in those countries which still permit the death penalty some people would add the competence and skill of the executioner, .
This Sunday I read an article in the New York Times magazine about the current controversy of administering lethal injections. The slowing conveyor-belt of executions has come to a full-stop in some states in the US because there are concerns that this means of execution inflicts undue suffering and pain on the individual. In the article Robert Blecker a Law professor at Columbia is interviewed, as a supporter of the death penalty, he believes we should be indifferent to the fact of whether pain will be inflicted on the prisoner. The article comments on Foucault and Discipline and Punish where '[Foucault] observed that in the West, the locus of punishment has shifted away from the body to the soul, and because execution requires an act of violence, it is a task we are almost ashamed to perform. [Blecker continues] "Foucault was not a fan of the death penalty, but he was right, the twitching, the moaning, we can't even tolerate that." Executions, to be ethical, must be transparent, Blecker maintains: "My view is that executions should be public, that we should take responsibility for what we do. If we can't face it, we should abolish it."
We shouldn't go out of our way to inflict pain, but if pain results from the process of destroying the individual, who for sake of argument we'll assume is guilty, then we shouldn't go out of our way to prevent the suffering. I suppose Blecker is suggesting, if we believe this is the right thing to do, we should develop a steely indifference to the prisoners manifest suffering, perhaps we can train the administrators of the chemical cocktail so they are better at their jobs, but we'll have to accept the fact that at least some executions will be botched.
Hume says that we all experience a certain amount of indifference towards vice and suffering, the out of sight, out of mind principle, but now we practice a 'studied indifference', this is how we 'manage the flow', and to an extent accept the fact of suffering for the 'greater good'.
It is almost as if the utility principle has got disconnected from a body that Hume thought was always going to be capable of making certain choices, on the basis of enduring psychology. It's difficult to make out whether he believes social goods are selected in relation and correspondence to our sentimental make-up, or whether our sentiments are selected according to the social good they do.
The place of utility here is interesting, because in the first case it rests upon a understanding of human sentiment that Hume suggests cannot be totalised, the second on the fact that it can in a snap-shot sort of way relative to what at any particular moment helps society prosper.

subtle rant

If secular ethical formulations like utilitarianism and the Categorical Imperative are historically rooted to particular cultural moments and social necessities, referring to pre-existing communities, what now is the role of these concepts and our ability to conceptualise ideas of individual autonomy and agency in communities profoundly mediated through technological development? In short what is an ethical life once we accept that relations with technology have and will always constitute the terms through which autonomy and agency must be formulated ? Given that in western tradition these concepts have arisen as a resistance to arbitrary coercion, what transformations do they undergo in response to the potentially extreme coercive impact of technology? Because our notions of freedom are mostly defined to prevent an arbitrary and capricious abuse of power, traditionally the exercise of sovereign power, more subtle interventions and trade-offs especially if they accompany certain benefits are difficult to perceive, to predict the consequences of, and if necessary to organise resistance against. Modern liberal-democratic governments because they can claim legitimacy not just on behalf of the most recent election result, but in naked ontological terms as the 'best (or least worst) form of human governance' have whether they know it or not available to them a wide range of activities that can all be justified as necessary to maintain the stability and continuing existence of the 'good' or 'good form'. Most courses of action have been relatively dormant, up until now or have appeared so to the general population - spying, torture, discretionary rather than necessary application of military force. All these courses of action taken to maintain the security of the nation's citizens have never been definitely relinquished as we can clearly see now. It as if the state's claim to be the arbiter of life and death, its infinite interest and right to penetrate and organise the lives of the population is being laid bare. Perhaps these powers can never be dissolved whilst we require a form or process of government to guarantee the 'good' instead of understanding how we can develop different forms of commitment to the 'good', or doing 'good'. The question is what social groupings, if not the state can in fact be 'the good' or hold a 'common good' as its goal? How can societies develop without the figure of Hobbesian authority in some sense always present, latent with the power and consent to commit the obscene? If western liberal democracy cannot imagine it's own obsolescence and replacement by something better in the future, then perhaps it relinquishes its own positive and emancipatory agenda here in the present. It becomes closed to the 'world to come' as Derrida puts it.

Why I Love The Silver Surfer

in a totally heterosexual way, of course. A friend recently sent me a freeze-frame from the trailer to the new Fantastic Four of the character's movie version , the dude had no shorts, you could see his cosmic tackle. I thought, no, that's just not right, not that I didn't think he had his post-human manhood in entire, but seeing them adds nothing to the noble/tragic nature of the character, adds nothing to an understanding of his plight, illuminating little of his conflicted feelings towards a humanity he must suffer as much as aid, and the depths of space must be cold even for a cosmically powered being, he's wearing those shorts for a purpose.
Why do I love the Silver Surfer? Because he is a perfect marriage of pop/trash culture (to which comic book superheroes do belong most of the time, I'm afraid, this is not Shakespeare) and a mythical imagination which transcends our cultural moment. He reminds me that I am human, not a philosophically beautiful soul or angel, his plight cannot actually be ours, he is trapped and denied the heavens, and we are here in our element and must make the best of things. But most of the time it's just pretty cool, to imagine riding the skyways on a cosmic surfboard. A creation of no little genius from Kirby with some fun faux drama from Lee, but it works.

competent gestures 2

From our present moment Hume's picture of human psychology appears a little naive. He could not imagine the extent to which human preferences and sentiments are effected and provoked by a media economy of images, and the extent to which his own arguments in favour of utility could undermine his simple though honest faith in the human facility of sentiment. He writes:

And if the principles of humanity are capable, in many instances, of influencing our actions, they must, at all times, have some authority over our sentiments, and give us a general approbation of what is useful to society, and blame of what is dangerous or pernicious. The degree of these sentiments may be the subject of controversy; but the reality of their existence, one should think, must be admitted in every theory or system.

competent gestures 1

Jeff Wall, an artist whose work I like very much, has written about the gradual mechanisation of gestural language in pictures. The classical and even romantic ages developed a comprehensive lexicon corresponding to emotional and spiritual states. Today we see gesture as either symptomatic of some interior state, and with all the negative connotations that something symptomatic implies, or the outward sign or material after-effect of work competently performed or accomplished. Both relate to mechanisation, the first relates to the body and mind literally as a mechanical device which may malfunction, the second to the ability of a mind and body to accomplish tasks through the mastery of some type of machine.
At the moment I'm reading David Hume's 'An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals' which he wrote during the 1740s. So far his argument seems to be that morality derives from considering what behaviours are generally useful for society and what behaviours aren't. In a footnote he explains that although much human behaviour is valued because of it's usefulness we should never consider inanimate objects that are useful in the same way as human beings. He doesn't say, I think, that we should never, only that we can't, which is consistent with his generally belief that there just are some feelings we have about our fellows humans, that are naturally given, that we can rely on to be always part of our make-up.

smell of old paper

Perhaps it's my age but I often find myself trying to piece together certain scenes from my childhood, that is trying by way of memory to recreate the sensations I experienced when I was, say eight years old. The feeling of watching television, at the time still a marvelously ingenious device, even if I had to spend sometime fiddling with the arial to get a reception; and the test-card transmission, and milk bottles with the foil caps, packets of monster-munch, the illicit thrill of Top of the Pops on a Thursday night (my Mum and Dad were young old-fogeys, they never had much time for pop music, we would go on expeditions to the Opera, an art form I have never enjoyed), roaming from newsagent to newsagent in search of the latest 8p Spiderman comic, with all those black and white reprints of Marvel madness. While deeply caught up in nostalgia/revie mode of affection for past things I realised that instead of these memories being conjured from the vapours and remaining intangible snaps of the past, that it was in fact me now that was in some strange sense the phantom in the scences I was trying to reimagine, a ghost from the future intruding on a life that is no longer accessible. I don't draw anything particularly profound from this, it was a curious slight of hand of consciousness, though to some extent I suppose it's possible to say that we don't contain memories that we can do with as we wish, so much as they contain us.
I think Bergson probabely says something about this kind of experience though I'm not absolutely sure.

Behavioural Difficulties

It may be esteemed, perhaps, a superfluous test to prove, that the benevolent or softer affections are estimable: and wherever they appear, engage the approbation and good-will of mankind. The epithets sociable, good-natured, humane, merciful, grateful, friendly, generous, beneficent, or their equivalents, are known in all languages, and universally express the highest merit, which human nature is capable of attaining. - David Hume

Virtue, like wisdom, is an almost totally redundent notion today. Out of fear of hypocrisy we've dropped it as if it were a socially awkward guest someone made the mistake of inviting to a polite gathering.

melisma - personal responses to art, Part One

"A group of many notes (usually at least five or six) sung melodically to a single syllable. Melismas are found especially in liturgical chant"

The first poem of Messiaen's Poemes pour Mi contains a very beautiful example of a melisma. A word I learn the meaning of from the sleeve notes as they used to be called. The Alleluia sung by a female voice starts out of a winding, sinuous, chain of faltering notes that creates a backdrop to this exclamation of faith very different to some powerful affirmation. The music makes me feel, as this is a very personal reaction, as if something complex, quite profound is coming to surface, in a quite wholly contingent manner, quite independently of any action or intention, on the part of what is human. It is a spiritual revelation appearing out of some natural process, or very close to a natural process, perhaps it suggests a world in the act of appearing, as it comes susceptible to human perception.
There is a tradition of French Catholic pantheism which Messiaen belongs to, very tuned to the material world, attentive to this force which brings to life the world, an elan vital, which to my mind is not such a silly notion as some argue.

grace and confusion

Hopper's painting of the empty room may anticipate the white cube of the contemporary art space, or look back to the simple surroundings of a church, a place where experience can become simple again, can go back to basics, perhaps to be cleansed or some such thing. A container or format for renewel and refocus. In regards to holding today a common language, we hold in common if anything this desire for a means to let the world not be so complicated again, that is the belief in a place where excess can be washed away, a place where we can reset life to zero. We confuse this 'reformating' with grace.

Edward Hopper

Hopper is a little bit of an anomaly. A twentith century representational realist or more accurately naturalist painter. But absolutely modern. There is no contradiction really, he painted less real space than a kind of meta-space, beyond simple psychological reductions to inner experience or rather naive naturalistic portraits of an outside visable world. Where and what is this place of spaces he painted?
To answer my own question I think a little like Manet his paintings are about spectatorship, except where Manet was very much a society painter, for the American Hopper, society is always out of view. Society has already been overcome, that's why it is rare to see anymore than a single individual in his pictures. There is just this freedom to have in front of us something to view. The spectator - freedom, freedom therefore the spectator. Just for comparison's sake, Van Gogh painted pictures that definitely do not this - his paintings are co-creating a world that definitely does not exist outside of a making, participation, a process of production. What is idealised, and is both attractive and melancholic in Hopper is the illusion he offers, that there can be places to view the world that are of the world, but not altogether part of the world, his paintings take their place with other spectral productions of the 20th Century like cinema; all ghosts that try to walk in sunlight.
Hopper's connection to cinema is always noted, the idea that his paintings suggest stills from movies. Are they not also in some sense experiences whose descendents we find in our reactions to contemporary media? Wasn't 9/11 like a movie, when celebrities are seen in real-life, when we can't quite believe something is happening 'before our eyes'. The fantasy suggests everything is moving too fast and it is disorientating. Perhaps it is quite the opposite, and like Hopper the painter we are quietly, almost unconsciously marking out a place from which to sit back and watch the world as it appears to disappear in front of us.