Ciceronian Review

When you can't win, sue.

Clinton's campaign is grinding to a halt I think.  Not very subtle threats to sue to block results from Texas -- a state she held a 20 point lead in not much over a month ago -- suggests more than just concern about the outcome, although it does certainly do that.  With the arguments for fully accrediting the delegates out of Florida and Michigan, where she alone appeared and no one campaigned, it gets harder to see the run for the nomination as something positive.  There seems to be too little concern for the outcome of the general election or for the party.  We shall see how the voting goes Tuesday, but I think Clinton is at the end of her run.

Something Abou Nothing

On a recent trip I read Kirk Varnedoe’s Pictures of Nothing. Varnedoe was curator at MoMA for a long time, a key figure in art markets since the 70’s. I love MoMA, and visit whenever I have the chance. The collection has had a deep influence on my understanding of art. The book is a defense and explanation of the value of abstract art since Pollack. The book is an edited version of a series of lectures given at the National Gallery (where I bought the book). (The lectures must have been great fun to attend.) The book has a relaxed style, consistent with its origins. But it is not just lecture notes, or even lecture notes at all. Varnedoe and his editor did a lovely job. As I said, the essential aim (I think) of the book is a vindication of Varnedoe’s work as curator, defense of the promotion of particular artists. I was looking forward to reading it, and quite enjoyed it. But I was not convinced of many of the important claims. A couple of examples. Cy Twombly – Varnedoe speaks highly of his work, but the pieces reproduced in the book (and others I have seen over the years) really offer nothing of interest. It is still bland decoration, and not more. It is nice to learn that Twombly had to sit on someone’s shoulders to scribble some picture or other, but, so? I have read half a dozen biographies of Rimbaud, but it is ridiculous to think that the value of his poems depends on knowing his life, or anything about his life. Again and again, Varnedoe ends up explaining the import of some work or other by telling us about the artist, what he (a couple of shes) was thinking or doing, etc., i.e., the biographical detail. The fact that Stella spent time in a shipyard is interesting, but useless to justifying the works.  (If it did, we could hardly value work more than a couple of hundred years old, and certainly nothing of the ancient Mediterranean, for example.) Stella, still seems to me best described as an artist who hates people. The formal qualities – oh look, the rhombus has been rotated – do not overcome the fact that the pieces all bear down on observers oppressively. But that aside, there is nothing much beyond the immense egotism of creation. What Varnedoe confirmed for me is that very much of the post-Pollack work is trivial, concrete forms for very small ideas. A lovely scam if you can run it. None of which means I won’t read it again. 

Utah Lawmaking

I thought I might try to catch up on some books I’ve read over the recent months, working backwards. I suppose I could write about the Utah Legislature, which is in session another week or two, unfortunately. A collection of monsters, I must say. Killed funding for International Baccalaureate programs in some local high schools because the OB program is “anti-American”. That consists in its connection to Switzerland, that bastion of one-world government. The Swiss, you see, have adopted an arbitration model from an UN agency, which means that the UN controls the schools. It is that or that the schools teach socialization, and that is bad. No kidding, that is the Utah Legislature. When people carp about the possibility of DC becoming a state, I treat them to the deliberations of Utah’s legislature. DC is a horrible mess, but it seems pretty close to impossible that in self-governance would be any less functional or weirder than what we get in Utah. There is also the bill which requires Slat Lake City to fund schools in the southwest of the valley, because, well, no reason at all beyond the general belief that cities should subsidize suburbs. The brilliant plan last year to impose loan constraints on state chartered credit unions so they could not compete at all against banks. Following which most of the credit union took on federal charters. What one learns in places like Utah is that one party rules is unrelenting corruption. Bill after bill is pay-off to some constituent. A doc builds an imaging center, and gives away free exams to legislators. Next year, we get mandates for insurers to pay for imaging centers. No thought to how the hospitals are going to be funded, or to allowing insurers to set their rates. Ah, but we did get a soccer stadium last year that Salt Lake County did not want. We give up 15% of the taxes for recreation programs to fund the stadium. Pumpkins.

Rorty's Shadow

A very late essay by Richard Rorty, published post-mortem, discussing what he thought about as death approached -- here.  It is interesting, and came as a surprise to me.  I was not a Rorty fan (I thought much of the late work was passing time and bloviating), but it surprised me (I said that) that it was not philosophy of any kind that he finally turned to, nor even the great work of literature.  What would I read were I to be in his soon to be empty shoes?  I have lots I could list, but it is one of the situations about which it is quite easy to propose but rather hard to predict reliably.  In any event, let me recommend the essay.  In fact, the whole series what poetry means to me by people who are not part of the professional poetry production world -- has been quite interesting.

African Bush

Despite best efforts, one might say, quite unfairly.  Bush has done some good things over the last term, and his programs in Africa count there.  The anti-malaria campaign is pretty well run and effective.  And it is something Bush has pursued notwithstanding the limited political value flowing from it.  (One might be unhappy about the Sudan and some other war zones, but I have no clue what would improve those situations.)  Malaria reduction leads to a host of good things, e.g., falling birth rates, improved education and increased welfare (beyond reducing the number of those with malaria).  (More children survive, so fewer are born, more resources devoted to each, leading to more effective use of available resources, etc.)  It is an interesting 'building block' -- in the US, dental care for the poor is something similar. 

Philosophy and Poetry

Borrowed from another source; this is a charming, and a nice bit of mistaken philosophy.


The Solipsist 

            by  Troy  Jollimore   

Don't be misled:

that sea-song you hear

when the shell's at your ear?

It's all in your head.

That primordial tide—

the slurp and salt-slosh

of the brain's briny wash—

is on the inside.

Truth be told, the whole place,

everything that the eye

can take in, to the sky

and beyond into space,

lives inside of your skull.

When you set your sad head

down on Procrustes' bed,

you lay down the whole

universe. You recline

on the pillow: the cosmos

grows dim. The soft ghost

in the squishy machine,

which the world is, retires.

Someday it will expire.

Then all will go silent

and dark. For the moment,

however, the black-

ness is just temporary.

The planet you carry

will shortly swing back

from the far nether regions.

And life will continue—

but only within you.

Which raises a question

that comes up again and again,

as to why

God would make ear and eye

to face outward, not in?