Category: The Arts

No, I am not there, but this was a request from a loyal MR reader.  Here goes:

1. Mystery writer: Eric Ambler, most of all A Coffin for Dimitrios; the villain is pathetic, not fearful, and this is most of all a study in collective mythmaking.

2. Philosopher: Francis Bacon.  I’m not a Straussian but he really does have hidden and deep meanings.  Read Perez Zagorin on Bacon for a guide to the complexity of it all.

Honorary mention goes to Jeremy Bentham, whose proposal for interest-bearing currency, ideas on animal welfare, and Auto-Icon (most of all the text, not just the body) still stand ahead of their time.  He was a subtle thinker, not a one-dimensional simpleton.

3. Favorite song off London Calling: "Jimmy Jazz" remains dearest to my heart.

4. Favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie: Vertigo may be the most complete masterwork, but the best segments of The Birds, Psycho, and Marnie (all inconsistent movies) stick most deeply in my mind.

5. Favorite Henry Purcell recording: The Complete Odes and Welcome Songs, and no, eight discs of this music is not overkill.

6. 17th century economics pamphlet: Nicholas Barbon’s Apology for the Builder.  Barbon to Dudley North is a wonderful period in the history of political economy, spend a few weeks reading that stuff sometime.  This short pamphlet has increasing returns, aggregate demand management, urban economics, and the invisible hand, all well before Adam Smith.

7. Favorite neighborhood to stay in: Kensington, it is leafy green and away from both the monarchy and the hideous theatre district.

8. Favorite painting in: The National Gallery offers stiff competition, but how about this Gauguin, in the Courtauld?  As for carpets, here is the Ardebil, in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

9. Pianist: The elegant Clifford Curzon remains underrated.  He produced a lyrical account of Liszt’s B Minor Sonata plus try his Schubert B flat sonata and his Mozart.

Other stuff: Do I really have anything to add about Chaucer, Blake, Defoe, Forster, Keats, Milton, Samuel Johnson, Dickens, Orwell, Turner, Turing, Mick Jagger, Tim Harford, Stephen Jen, and The Economist?  Maybe, but not today.

Twelve-year-old Andrew Reed says he never felt any pressure from his parents to collect art.

That is from The Wall Street Journal, much of the article concerns how to minimize estate tax liabilities.  It is titled "Small Collectors."

Americas is the magazine sponsored by the Organization of American States.  The September/October issue features the Mexican amate painting collection owned by yours truly, so pick up a copy if you are interested.  They did the visuals very nicely and the story is good (and accurate) as well.  I don’t think the article will be on-line for many months.

Growing up, I regarded Pennsylvania as the most typical and most American part of the country; I loved it.  I loved the mid-sized towns with old industrial and domestic architecture, I loved the museums of Philadelphia, and I loved the bridges of Pittsburgh.  Of course this was before America moved South and I gave the honor of most American place to Knoxville, Tennessee. 

This list didn’t require much thought, and the candidates poured out right away:

1. Eugene Ormandy recording: He introduced me to so much in classic music and somehow I felt he would never let me down; I’ll pick either his Beethoven 5th and 6th or his Shostakovich 10th.

2. Painting: The Gross Clinic, by Thomas Eakins. and my second choice would be the Andy Warhol car crash or electric chair paintings.  Mary Cassatt, George Catlin, Andrew Wyeth, John Sloan, Stuart Davis, and Keith Haring all deserve honorary mention.  And I’m sure there are others.  Wow.

3. Sculptor: Alexander Calder, but only the little ones, the more delicate the better.  The big ones in plazas are garish and misplaced.

4. Book on free trade: Henry George’s Protection or Free Trade remains a wonderful introduction to economics.

5. Writer: John Updike, or Benjamin Franklin.  John O’Hara never clicked with me, though he was my grandmother’s favorite after Shakespeare.  I’ll pick The Coup as my favorite Updike; I don’t think he’s written a good novel in a while.

6. Popular music: Todd Rundgren was remarkably talented, never quite fulfilled his promise, but Something/Anything remains a wonderful double album.

7. Jazz: Art Blakey, Keith Jarrett (The Koln Concert, or his Shostakovich), Erroll Garner, Earl Hines, and George Benston was good at the very beginning.  Stanley Clarke is amazing to hear live.  Wow.  And that’s not even counting jazzmen who played long stints in Philly, such as John Coltrane and Sun Ra.

8. Rap music: Schooly D, The Adventures of Schooly D, remains one of my favorite rap albums.

9. Stepdaughter: Yana (it feels funny to list her as a thing, but in the metaphysical sense yes indeed she is), who as of today is moved in at Franklin and Marshall.  Boo hoo!

Note we haven’t even touched the Amish quilts, Fraktur drawings, mighty rivers, the Barnes collection, fall foliage, sports, Reading, or philanthropy.  Harrisburg, however, is a blight.

The bottom line: Almost certainly, Pennsylvania is better than your state.  If you are a foreigner, and want to understand what made America great, study and visit Pennsylvania.

This link has much more; here is background and explanation.  Should I have titled this post "Meditations on Liquidity"?

This is one of my favorite features of The Wall Street Journal.  Yesterday they asked Kanye West to name his five favorite restaurants.  Usually (and more usefully) some other celebrity is asked to name five favorite books, CDs, or movies.

Five is enough to frame the namer’s tastes.  And your chance of learning about a new peak experience is relatively high.  Even if you get no useful information, you’ve had a chance to judge a celebrity.

I believe this method of "criticism" will become increasingly popular.  The biggest potential downside is encouraging excess winner-take-all behavior on the part of producers.

Addendum: Here are favorites from HobNobBlog.

Here is the story, here is one bit at the end:

Now that the Bhagwatis have acquired a strong collection, they have decided to shift their focus away from expanding their art holdings.  The couple will be working more with charities and philanthropy.  Ms. Desai is also writing her 10th book, which is about America and the opportunities it offers to reinvent yourself. 

Thanks to David Quinn for the pointer.

What are critics good for anyway?

I look for one main piece of information from a review: is the name of the product or artist worth Googling?  Yes or no.  That is a binary decision.

Once I have the answer to that question I usually stop reading the review.

I look for one main piece of information from Google: is the product worth buying, on Amazon or elsewhere?

Once I have the answer to that question I usually stop pawing through Google.  That’s another binary decision.

Imagine that.  The critic as the handmaiden of Google, and Google as the handmaiden of Amazon.

To me, the most valuable critics are those who can be disposed of most quickly.  Is it any wonder that so many critics do not like the Internet and bloggers?

Sometimes I think it is enough to simply list how many of the book’s pages I bothered to read.

I’m not a huge fan of performance art but I love this piece of meta performance art.  Damien Hirst (whose work features chopped up animals and maggots and flies) recently unveiled the most expensive piece of contemporary art ever, a skull encrusted with millions of dollars worth of diamonds.  In response, "Laura" created a similar skull using Swarovski crystals and in the middle of the night she dumped it outside the gallery along with a pile of trash.  Priceless.

There’s a malady sweeping the nation that’s highly contagious to concertgoers.  It doesn’t have a name yet, so let’s call it Excessive Ovation Syndrome (EOS for short).  Those suffering from it stand and applaud at performances that aren’t good enough to deserve such enthusiasm. In extreme cases, they shout “Bravo!” during events that are best forgotten.

The more people pay for tickets, the more susceptible they are to EOS, because ovations confirm that their money was well spent.  Even those in bargain seats can easily catch it from their neighbors.  The urge to stand and cheer may be irresistible if everyone around you is doing it.

Here is more.  Is the fear that too much costly clapping goes on?  I believe most of these people enjoy the pretentious show of approval.  A more plausible worry is that audiences, if they approve all performances, can no longer signal quality to performers.  Given that other and arguably more accurate signals remain in place (critics, bloggers, the conductor, etc.), I am not sure we should be concerned by greater noise in the audience signal.  After all, the very complaint suggests that the audience cannot be trusted to judge quality, so why not neutralize them?

And if the excess clapping gives the less musically sophisticated attendees a better memory of the show, that is arguably a benefit.  Are we not, after all, committed egalitarians?

Against my better aesthetic judgment, I am on the verge of endorsing Excessive Ovation Syndrome.

These do not spring easily to mind:

1. Public building: The new Denver art museum, by Daniel Liebeskind.

2. Fiction: I reject Kesey and Michener, so I’ll go with Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book, an excellent piece of fantasy/science fiction.

4. Movie, set in: The Shining comes to mind. 

5. Music: I can’t pick John Denver and while I enjoy big band, I think that Glenn Miller, once you get past a few tunes, is overrated.  Jello Biafra, of The Dead Kennedys, is an obvious pick here; don’t forget "Holiday in Cambodia." 

6. Wild card: Ted Mack, remember his amateur hour?  It was a favorite show of my father’s.

The bottom line: Eh.  Toss in Lon Chaney and Douglas Fairbanks and it is still Eh.  I hope the green chili is good.

You’ll find it here.  They love Roberto Bolaño, as should all literate people.  My favorite post (disclaimer: it cites me) is here, on the relative pricing of different artworks.

The guy in jeans at the Sotheby’s auction is more likely to buy a $40 million Picasso than the guy in the suit, who is probably just an art dealer.

Here is the link, thanks to Trieu Truong.  Here is my previous post on counter-signaling.

No, I am not there, but I am catching up on requests from loyal MR readers.  Today I will set this one right:

Pianist: Oscar Peterson.  His best albums are The Trio and the set with Joe Pass at Salle Pleyel.  For all his talent, many of his CDs are quite boring.  On another front, I usually don’t like Marc-Andre Hamelin.  Despite the critical raves, I find him icy cold, enjoying only his rendition of the Scriabin sonatas.

William Shatner performance: I will opt for "City on the Edge of Forever."  (NB: I haven’t yet seen "Incubus".)

Actress:  Genevieve Bujold, most of all in Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers.

Popular music: I don’t much like Leonard Cohen or Celine Dion.  Rufus Wainwright is OK.  Arcade Fire is OK.  Help me out here people…

Author: Saul Bellow wins hands down, though he is not a personal favorite.

Philosopher: Charles Taylor.  There is also G.A Cohen, though I have to put him on my "totally wrong about everything" list.

Linguist: Steven Pinker.

Movie Director: Mack Sennett, and yes I used Google/Wikipedia to find that one.

Painter: This guy would be the mainstream pick.  I’m holding out for one of the strange naives, but the name escapes me.

The bottom line: I must be linguistically limited, because most of these names come from English-speaking families.  It is also striking how many thorough web sites exist, dedicated to nothing but listing the many famous and meritorious Quebecois.