Category: The Arts

Robert Wiblin, a loyal MR reader, asks:

Thought experiment for MR: what if the law said we couldn't make any new art (movies, novels, music etc). And perhaps said we ought to rerelease each year the art that first appeared 50 or 30 years ago. How would people's leisure activity and society's cultural evolution change?

I pose a similar question in my book Good and Plenty: The Creative Successes of American Arts Funding. After the adjustment process, I believe that matters would settle in an orderly fashion, although whether we pick the art from 30 or 50 years ago would make a big difference in terms of the required rejiggling of our aesthetic sensibilities.  We would pick out bestsellers from 30 or 50 years ago and some of them would be in demand, if only because people wish to share common cultural experiences.  Overall it is the more obscure books from that era that would likely rise to be the bestsellers today.

1979 is barely an aesthetic leap; could not The Clash be a hit today?  How about Madonna?  Is it so ridiculous to think that people still might go hear The Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney in concert?  How about buying a Stephen King book?  Here are the top songs from 1959 (yikes!), but recall that same year brought many excellent jazz albums.

The entire process would work better if the material from the past were temporarily unavailable prior to its rerelease.

It's an interesting idea to relive the release of the culture of the past but with today's sensibilities.  What we would like to think we would like is probably not what we would like at all.  And maybe some works we like only because they are in our past.

Finally, everyone is so ga-ga over arts subsidies, but it is remarkable how many models with microfoundations instead imply that we should tax the arts.

Most of the answers seem too obvious to list.  I will say only that there is more to Swedish detective fiction than Stieg Larsson (start with Henning Mankell), lingonberries are usually a good idea in a meal, "Honey Honey" is the most underrated Abba song (it didn't make Greatest Hits I), there are more excellent Bergman movies than most people think even if you don't like the stereotypical ones, Carl Milles's greatest work is in a Fairfax/Merrifield cemetary on Rt.29 in Virginia, Emanuel Swedenborg is unreadable, and the world music group Simbi really does make note-perfect copies of native Haitian musical styles.  The Cardigans are better than their reputation and Knut Wicksell's 1898 Interest and Prices still has unmined insights.  The pizza is surprisingly good.  Robert V. Eagly's book on the 18th century Swedish bullionist controversies is excellent and neglected.  Everyone should read Staffan Burenstam Linder's The Harried Leisure Class.  The country has long appreciated the merits of floating exchange rates.  Ann Margret was from Sweden too.

1. Novel, set in: The Leopard, by Giuseppe di Lampedusa.

2. Movie, set in: This is a tough one.  But I'll opt for Visconti's The Leopard (big screen required, don't bother with Netflix) over Coppola's Godfather sequence, not to mention La Terra Trema and L'avventura.  Wow.  Is there a Sicily scene in Patton?

3. Chess opening: 5…a6, the Najdorf.  Chess is a good example of the more general point that it takes a long time to discover which innovations turn out to be valuable and which not.  Thirty years ago, who would have thought that 6.Be3 would become the most common response?

4. Playwright: Luigi Pirandello, but I would call this a "favorite only because I can't think of anyone else."

5. Opera composer: Bellini, especially the first Act of Norma, sung by Maria Callas.  There is also Alessandro Scarlatti but I don't know his music well.

6. Musical arranger: Pete Rugulo, yes he was born in Sicily and later he arranged for Stan Kenton.  That music still sounds impressive to me.

7. Philosopher: Gorgias was smart but cynical (if we trust Plato).  Empedocles was sooner a natural scientist in my view.  Archimedes I would count as a mathematician.  

8. Painter: Antonello de Messina is a clear first choice, unless you count De Chirico as Sicilian.  Here is a very good Messina image.

9. Movie director: Frank Capra was born in Sicily; see my comments on Pirandello.  Note by the way that I am not considering Sicilian-Americans unless they were born in Sicily.

They have a bunch of accomplished writers and poets I'm not familiar with, other than Lampedusa, so I don't have a favorite there.

The bottom line: A nice, diverse list, with numerous surprises.

This was a reader request, so here goes:

1. Song about: Venus and Mars, by Paul McCartney and Wings.  The melody is nice, the synthesizer is used well, and the song doesn't wear out its welcome.

2. Album about: David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Venus and Mars is not overall a good album; it is mostly dull and overproduced.  So Bowie is a clear winner here.

3. Novel about: The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury.  Worth a reread, especially if you first encountered it when young.  Red Mars by Kim Robinson is a runner-up.  What else am I missing?

4. Film about: Mission to Mars.  Underrated de Palma, much better on a big screen, where it has a nice poetry of motion.  I already know that some of you hate this movie, so there is no need to pillory me again on this count.  I have never seen The Eyes of Laura Mars.  What's that old science fiction movie modeled after The Tempest?

5. TV show about: Veronica Mars, especially season one.  Excellent dialogue, and it asks what family really consists of.  One of my favorite years of any TV show.  Is the British show Life on Mars good?  I vaguely recall My Favorite Martian from when I was a kid.  Was it actually about being gay?

6. Musician: Sun Ra.

7. Mars, painting of:  Jacques Louis David probably wins this one.  This image is from Pompeii.

8. Best Cato Institute essay about Martian economics: By Ed Hudgin.

The bottom line: It's not just a culture, they've got a whole planet to work with.

1. Popular music.  Emmylou Harris is from Birmingham and I like her albums with Gram Parsons.  "The New Soft Shoe" is an excellent song.  While I appreciate Nat King Cole in the abstract I never choose to put it on.  Lionel Richie has a nice voice but the sound is too bland for my taste.

2. Painter: The early Howard Finster is excellent, although he churned out weak material for a long time later on.

3. Jazz: Lionel Hampton is the obvious choice, but I will pick Sun Ra, who is a musical god of sorts for me.  Jazz in Silhouette is the best place to start, although it does not communicate the overall diversity of his work.  He remains an underrated musical figure.

4. Country music: Hank Williams.  Even if you hate country music you should buy the two CDs of his collected works.  I also love Shelby Lynne; start with I am Shelby Lynne.

5. Bluegrass: The Louvin Brothers.  Tragic Songs of Life is one of my favorite albums as it has a deeply scary and tragic feel; again you can love it even if you hate country and bluegrass.  Do you know the song "The Great Atomic Power"?

6. Writer: I can't make my way through To Kill a Mockingbird.  Who else is there?  Wasn't one of Charles Barkley's books funny?  I've never finished a Tobias Wolff novel, too stilted.  Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King were very good writers, though they don't quite fit the category.  Same for James Agee.  Truman Capote would be an easy pick except I don't enjoy his books.  Zora Neale Hurston was born in the state though I am inclined to classify her under "Florida."

7. Quilters: From Gee's Bend, Alabama, there is an entire tradition.  The traveling exhibits of these works are excellent.

8. Gospel: Blind Boys of Alabama.  They transfer better to disc than do a lot of gospel groups.

9. Song, about: Don't go there.

10. Movie, shot in.  Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  As for "Movie, set in" here is a worrying list.  Maybe I'll go with Fried Green Tomatoes, although the book is supposed to be better and more open about the sexuality of the main characters.

The bottom line: There are some major stars here and I haven't even mentioned the famous athletes.

I am flying there tonight, to speak at www.freedomfest.com.  But yikes people, this is a tough one.  I never finished Walter van Tillburg Clark's The Ox-Bow Incident and what else can I think of?  Wikipedia tells me that Curtis Hanson, who directed L.A. Confidential, is from Reno.  Does Wayne Newton somehow enter this equation?  The Killers are OK.

How about this?

1. Movie, set in: Viva Las Vegas, with a number of strong runner-ups, including Ocean's Eleven, Leaving Las Vegas, the still under-rated Casino, Diamonds are Forever, Showgirls, Austin Powers (partly, I recall), and you might even squeeze Godfather II into the category.  Catch this erotically supercharged clip of Elvis singing to Ann Margaret.  Wasn't Them set in Nevada?

2. Song, set in: Viva Las Vegas, with Las Vegas, by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, as runner-up.

3. Architecture book, set in: Robert Venturi, Learning from Las Vegas.

The state has excellent food, but overall I come no further.

The bottom line: You tell me.  If you're wondering, I've never gambled, although I have visited the city four times.  I genuinely cannot understand why so many other people find gambling to be an appealing pastime.  It's negative expected value!  There are so many positive expected value things to do.

Find them here and they are excellent.  One thing we learn is that women playwrights are more likely to write stories about other women.  Women playwrights are also more likely to write plays with fewer major characters (slide 19).  Outside evaluators are most likely to perceive the story's characters are less likable, if they believe a given script was written by a woman (slide 31).  They also judge the economic prospects of a script to be poorer (slide 32).  It is female artistic directors who have the harshest judgments of scripts submitted under female names (slide 34).  Women writing plays about other women have the toughest time (slide 36).  On Broadway, female-written shows are 18 percent more profitable than male-written shows yet they do not have longer running times (slides 44 and 45).

The original paper is here.  She'll be on The Colbert Show on July 2.

Hat tip goes to the indispensable Literary Saloon blog.

Here is more.

Or was it dinner?  He let me order and we ate at the excellent Sichuan Gourmet, on 39th between 5th and 6th.  Felix asked me who were the three greatest living contemporary artists.  Although we had never discussed this question before (and we had barely met before), we agreed immediately on picks #1 and #2 and required only a short while before settling the more difficult question of who should be #3.

Can you guess our picks?  I'll leave it to Felix to decide if and when to offer up our answers, whether on his blog or in the comments section here.

I also had an excellent lunch with Gretchen Rubin, covering the strengths and weaknesses of Judith Harris's The Nurture Assumption, people who have a "relentless" writing style, and what sells books and what doesn't. 

I have never once met a person whose blog I like and then been disappointed.  Never.

1. Cellist: Pao Casals; see my comments under Puerto Rico.

2. Artist: Joan Miró, who remains underrated.  Oddly many people do not see him as better than the guy who puts the squiggles on their design bags.  Almost everything he did — across media — was phenomenal in terms of composition and textures.  I am fond of Antoni Tapies, although his work does not reproduce well on-line.  Aristide Maillol, who was French Catalan, did paintings and sketches.  Dali is now so vilified by some intelligent people that he can rightly be considered underrated.

3. Novelist: Albert Sanchez Piñol's Cold Skin is a favorite of mine.  Quim Monzó is a fun writer, as is Carlos Ruis Zafón.

4. Architect: I have mixed feelings about Gaudi; it feels to me like he is trying too hard.  How about Lluís Domènech i Montaner?  Try this one too.

5. Composer: Isaac Albeniz, especially as played by Alicia de Larrocha.  There is also Federico Mompou.  I grew up playing the guitar music of Fernando Sor, though it is less fun to listen to.

6. Economist: Xavier Sala-i-Martin; his home page is full of interesting links.

7. Bandleader: Xavier Cugat.  Wong Kar-Wai likes him but mostly he is forgotten.  Here is a good video and you can hear his unusual Spanish accent as well.

8. Medieval theologian and memory expert: Ramon Llull.  I am a big fan of Llull, a cosmopolitan polymath and early advocate of animal welfare.  I wrote a part of my next book about him, although I ended up cutting it out of the final draft because it didn't quite fit.

9. Movie, set in: I've never seen Barcelona (is it good?), so I have to go with Vicky Cristina Barcelona.  There's probably a better movie set in Barcelona, but offhand I don't know it.

10. Chess opening.  Duh.

They have a bunch of opera singers too.

The bottom line: This is an impressive showing, yet what ties it all together remains elusive in my mind.  Perhaps that is what makes the region so interesting.