"Punk: Chaos to Couture"
Region: New York
The Punk exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art had giant, dazed, passive crowds the day I went (Sunday, May 19). Everyone was searching for the secret of Punk, which of course was missing. Why? Perhaps the essence of this movement isn't in its clothing. Punk was prophetic. The world we live in now, where random violence of faintly-political import strikes at Mother's Day parades in New Orleans and runni... more
Views: 202Why I'm Voting NO Against the 2014 Budget for the Dobbs Ferry Free Union School
Region: New York
For the first time ever, I am voting against the proposed $40M budget of the Dobbs Ferry Free Union School District. My NO vote is a protest against rising benefit costs, especially pension costs. I understand that pension policy is set in Albany, not in Dobbs Ferry, but I have run out of ways to express my frustration. The only really significant increase in the the school budget this year is pensio... more
Views: 574Latifa Echakhch, "Erratum"; P.S. 1
Region: New York
You look through a doorway into a former classroom (I presume) littered with broken glass. The wall text surprisingly identifies the glassware as "broken tea glasses," and Latifa as Moroccan. Were the glasses Moroccan?, I wonder, examining the debris. It's hard to tell -- they're broken. You can see the marks where the tea glasses were thrown against the wall (unless those marks were painted by Latifa? Or were they pre... more
Views: 152Public Sector Pensions and The Fall of the Western World
Region: New York
Pensions are a boring subject. If I write about war, my articles get thousands of views and dozens of comments. If I write about public sector pensions bankrupting the United States, a few hundred people might look at the article and no one, except the occasional irate first responder, ever comments. Pensions might be boring because we are all conflicted on the subject. I want my pension. I jus... more
Views: 533"scorned beauty/comes up/from behind: preverbs" by George Quasha
Region: New York
Even the title of this book is demanding: from behind ... more
Views: 335Jock Sturges in "Poetry Northwest"
Region: New York
My friend Lynn threw out the magazine Poetry Northwest (Volume 1, Number One, Spring 2006) so I stole it from her recycling bin. I don't like any of the poems, but the photographs by Jock Sturges, of nudist camps, are milky and involving. The editor, David Biespiel (or whoever made that decision) was exactly correct: a naked person (for example "Vanessa; Le Porge, France, 2003") is a poem, as she lies beside a ... more
Views: 352Pussy Riot, Set Them Free!
Region: New York
British reporter Phil Black stood outside the courtroom on August 17, 2012 just after the court handed down the Pussy Riot verdict: "A great many people agree that their performance was tasteless... but a large number of people believe that this was a statement of free speech, perhaps even an artistic statement." All great art strikes us as "tasteless," because it is, before our eyes, revising the dictates of ... more
Views: 549"Born This Way": A Defense
Region: New York
Political art is impossible in America today, most critics believe -- except for a few art installations created by humorless lesbians. But this is untrue. Allow me to celebrate a successful work of social commentary by the ever-transforming Lady Gaga. You've no doubt heard this song, if you've been in a supermarket in the last two years: "Born This Way." The tune reached number one in over 25 countries, selling 8.2 mi... more
Views: 586"A Time and Motion Study and Other Poems" by Roger Merritt Morrell, M.D.
Region: New York
Am I the only person for whom books appear, in the garage, as if conjured by a bibliophilic genie? One of them is A Time and Motion Study, a slim, hardbound, gray volume produced in 1958 by the unfamiliar-sounding Exposition Press of New York City. (The front matter lists one other book by the author, A German-English Glossary of Neurophysiology [pictured].) So much of art is a weighing of reputations.... more
Views: 593"The Mystery of the Midnight Visitor" by John and Nancy Rambeau
Region: New York
"I'm reading Rimbaud," I would tell people in January -- or that's what they thought I said. Actually, I was saying: "I'm reading Rambeau," referring to Nancy and John, the able writers of The Mystery of the Midnight Visitor, copyright 1962, by Harr Wagner Publishing Company. I was attracted by the astonishing cover, showing four of the major characters -- Gabby, Vinny, Miss Wellington and Bill -- with their backs to u... more
Views: 466
