Hirshhorn Diaries--11

"Reclining Figure: Internal and External Forms (Working Model)", Henry Moore, 1952

There is nothing easy about Henry Moore. Anyone interested in complicated expressions of form would be wise to focus on Moore's work and not on the Colorformistas the Hirshhorn was celebrating this go around. Moore is a tactile genius, able to elicit a strong and irrepressible desire to touch and examine--to the point that it is almost a crime that we are not allowed to touch. A piece so complicated, that I often had to reexamine my assumptions each time I looked up from my journal. In fact, it is a piece I could spend all day interacting with.

Super Tuesday!

As an independent voter and a person who has long distasted group-think, I have to admit that, watching the Democratic debate the other night, and listening to the crowd react to Hillary’s “It took a Clinton to clean-up after the first Bush…” line, I was stunned. As someone who voted for Bush in 2000 (and has had to live with it for 8 years), I found the fact that Clinton could be so glib and slightly delusional regarding her husband's (and, by a proxy she is attempting to assert, her) role in helping W. Bush to power, arrogant and insidious. No person of sound mind and body would claim that Clinton (and Obama) are not benefiting from Bush fatigue. Is there anyone who doesn’t think that the Democrats will win the White House? If Hillary plans to trot out and celebrate the Bush fatigue that propelled her husband into the White House, than she had better—by Zeus’ beard!—be willing to answer the tough question of whether or not eight years of her husband Bill helped Bush-Part-Deux into the White House. Can she seriously claim that Clinton fatigue did not help W. Bush into the White House over the more “qualified/experienced” (those fancy Hillary cards) Al Gore? I know it mattered to me in 2000. I was, quite frankly, so over the shameless politics of Bill Clinton: the impeachment, the lies, the false modesty, the smugness that could only have resulted from taking on Congress and winning, the pardons, the investigations, the arrogant infidelity, the careless humiliation of poor Chelsea at the hand of a media who wanted to see the sins of the father vested on her, that aggravating lack of humility. Let’s not forget that many people in the Clinton White House (Hillary included, although off-screen) inferred that Paula Jones was too “unattractive” to ever have ever been harassed the President—after all Jennifer Flowers made it into Playboy! Take that patriarchy! How many Americans were tired of their duplicity and shameless politics and instead saw a neutered, poor-speaking, governor from Texas as an outsider (as ivy league and as privileged as they come), who, at the time, seemed to offer up a cabinet that we might have assumed had integrity (sadly, how wrong I/we were—but there was that dash of pepper that was Colin Powell: forever to be remembered now as an awful politician, out of his element against Cheney and Rumsfeild, rather than a four star general he was). Bush’s crimes have clearly dwarfed Clinton’s. There can be no debate about that. But I can’t help but recall the comedian Joe Rogan's bit in which powerful politicos sit in a dark room looking at the farce that is the Bush presidency (we’ll substitute if for Clinton in this instance) and say, “You know… I think we can go dumber.” Let’s not kid ourselves that things were so much better back then, and all of it was directly a result of the Clinton’s and not the exploding tech market and shady accounting that came to light in 01. I seem to remember Rwanda, Somalia, “Don’t ask don’t tell”, a spectacular health care debacle, blow jobs on my tax dollars in the room that has the red button, lies under oath. But here, eight years later, I still can never forgive them for one of the biggest crimes against humanity: Fox News. Let’s face facts, would Fox News and Rush Limbaugh be what it was today if the Clinton arrogance hadn’t so appalled the average Americans who still consider human decency to be one of the most important traits of a president that they found solace in a news channel that seemed to (over) react to as much? As successful a politician as Clinton was (one of the best ever), he was a divider, a man who left the White House so befouled that Gore couldn’t shake the stench during his run (a man who, by all accounts, is a better person than either Bush or Clinton). We cannot lie to ourselves and claim that his legacy did not, on some level, offer up a precedent that W. Bush and Co. have been tweaking and developing for eight years--our cynicism. Any other president in history would have already impeached (or investigated) by now, yet because of Clinton’s arrogance and privilege (he could have simply fucking admitted it—as if we didn’t know already, which speaks to the galling aspect of it all), Americans view the process as completely partisan (which it became—thank you Republicans, you must have had a crystal ball). If we try to tell ourselves that Clinton was not a divisive personality that pushed many independents towards Bush in 00, then we simply waiting for those dark suited politicos to step in with their Bush Version 3.0 in 2012. I can’t think of a more catastrophic.

Which is why Barack Obama, and not Hillary Clinton, should be the democratic candidate for president. As a teacher, I see the unexplainable disgust on many of my students face when you mention Hillary Clinton. That this reaction is misguided and ill-informed is obvious—they were children during the first Clinton-era and could hardly have any real, well reasoned, feelings about Bill. Yet, those poisoned waters (their parents) remain and are palpable. To think that Hillary can reach across the aisle and help us get past the partisan blockades that have taken over this government (blockades she did her fair share of building in dismissing real American concerns as “a vast right-wing conspiracy"—not exactly the words of a uniter), is the height of delusion.

Rather than take my word for it, I will allow The Dropcloth and Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon to make a case for Obama...

…Did you check them out? Good. Allow me to close on this point. If you can find no reason in the above links to vote for Obama, then let me ask you a simple question: What major sport/endeavor/field has not experienced its own renaissance upon the inclusion of African Americans? Baseball, basketball, football, music, literature, art, and business—has a one suffered as a result of the inclusion of African Americans? While investigating the appeal of Pan-Africanism, it was James Baldwin who argued that African Americans could never be African, because they were inherently American, probably more American than many of the Whites who sought to keep them segregated and marginalized. In fact, if one traced back the lineage of many African Americans and compared it to the standard Cracker, we might find that, for the most part, they have been here longer (I have no basis in science for this statement, it just seems right since slavery was here at the beginning). That finally, after four hundred years, we finally have a candidate who has the potential to bring a diverse experience to the White House, should be a cause for celebration. Still, you shouldn’t vote for Obama because he is a black man. You should vote for him because his is an intelligent, articulate, charismatic, impressive, black man. You know all the things we used to think a president had to be.

Hirshhorn Diaries--10

"Woman (Personage)", Joan Miro, 1947

One of the more hilarious sculptures in the museum. Some kind of sex-penguin with a lady-bug vagina and a crunk booty. Has objectification ever been so cute?

There Will Be Blood: Thoughts

If The Godfather made epic the underbelly of the American Dream, and Citizen Kane made dark the ego and entitlement of privilege, There Will Be Blood has, at last, provided an irrefutable account of the scorched earth between, shinning a head-lamp-light on the corruptible relationships at the heart of the rest of us. As far as protagonists go, Michael Corleone, having risen to the top of his game as a criminal, was always near the bottom; while Charles Foster Kane, starting at the top before catastrophically collapsing upon himself, was (as that final scene in the basement incinerator illustrated) never low. As There Will Be Blood opens, Daniel Plainview finds himself pretty low (beneath the surface actually), scratching and digging away at the skin of the earth for whatever meager nugget of silver he can find, and, over the course of two-plus hours, after a successful life as “an oilman” (back when such a thing was the embodiment of “working class”) finds himself sniffing the top. The wonder of Paul Thomas Anderson’s film is that we finally have the Protestant/working-class epic that speaks to the same themes, at the same level, of despair and alienation as those two great films. Plainview is, after all, not a very subtle name, and at the film’s core is that timeless scientific principle: that something cannot be created from nothing and that the energy and costs of attempting to bend the earth (and people) to our will are astronomical and catastrophic.

All of this might seem trite now (seriously…an oilman? after innumerable “message pictures” about the war in Iraq? subtle…) if not for Daniel Day-Lewis, who is a force. Day-Lewis has created a character so forceful that you can practically smell him—all that dirt, sweat, and, oh yes, the oil. That Plainview is ambitious and not above using an orphan to help present a veneer of respectability and honesty is clear (family—that uniquely American prop), yet is the height of disservice to Day Lewis’ performance to ignore the passion and love (?) he shows his son H.W. (the eerie Dillon Freasier). As long a Plainview can keep this boy close, he is able to cling to his own fading illusions of humanity—a species he has no love for but finds himself surrounded and beset by. That we might not want to give Plainview credit for the pain he feels when H.W. loses his hearing during a rigging accident is insensitive; yet it occurs as a result of our own weak and ingrained piety and becomes a tool used against Plainview in the film. As the film progresses and the stakes rise, it becomes clear that, like the best businessmen (Mitt Romney claiming that running America is like running a company—talk about sleight of hand!), Plainview is quite the showman. A fact that results in a confrontation when Plainview encounters the equally preposterous magician, Eli Sunday (played with wonderful exaggeration by Paul Dano), who engages Plainview in an escalating bout of “see-what-I-can-make-you-do”.

Have I said yet that this is a great film? What makes it great is the collaboration between Day-Lewis and Anderson and their critique that has yet to be so pristinely captured on film: the humiliating relationship between (successful) business and religion in this country. It’s transparent how amoral business moguls (oil companies being just one example) have prostrated themselves before religious demagoguery as a way of shoring up political capitol. Look no further than the Republican Party as it is currently constituted and the bitter rumblings emerging from secular conservatives who bemoan the evangelical pandering required maintain their slipping control over the populace. One need only see Bush & Company’s occasional quotes regarding gay marriage and not see a version of the slaps Eli Sunday visits on Plainview in the front of his flock of zombified believers, where, at its conclusion Plainview mutters, “There’s the pipe-line…”—much in the way Rove and Cheney must surely have muttered after one of Bush’s more evangelical turns of phrase, “There’s an election…”. Yet what we have in front of us, both political and artistically, are the facts. And all facts point to Plainview being an atheist, as religion, in all its forms, (ideally) works to condemn everything he’s about (the individual, financial success, winning, being left alone to do as he pleases), yet he must humiliate and degrade himself in front of those other businessmen who hold the keys to our morality. Is it that hard not to imagine Dick Cheney, Rumsfeild, or Rove, given their off-hand but bitter comments about “crazies”, in the same way? Yet it is this relationship that is so corruptible and fundamental to our country (it’s on our money for crying out loud!), that when we watch Plainview beat and run Sunday through the mud from his (at the moment) position of power, is it not hard to substitute Plainview as Cheney, Sunday as Billy Grahm? It is this corrosive, unholy, hypocritical, alliance that Anderson makes so clear is at the root of our nation. Or that in their giant oil-rich mansions Cheney & Rumsfeild would gladly bludgeon the pious who have on the one hand condemned them, while, at the same time, kept their hands in their pocket? Are such men known for generosity or sharing? Not really… And, finally, we have a film that addresses this. Finally…

Hirshhorn Diaries--9

"Soft Night", by Arshile Gorky, 1947

A painter who is undeniably talented and important, but one whom I find, more often than not, I'd rather read about than spend hours contemplating. With the exception (of course) being this piece: a disquieting gray exercise with essential splashes of color that hint at an underlying wish reacting against an imposed paralysis.

Hirshhorn Diaries--8

"Video Flag", by Nam June Paik,, 1985-96 (watch a grainy video of it here)

I could stare at Paik's video-drone art for hours, relishing the retinal punishment and mulching of my cerebrum. Like some benign Cronenberg-hell, Paik's work invites (and traps) observation: An electric pop-hole, sucking in anyone who looks.

Hirshhorn Diaries--7

"Sky Light", by Alma Thomas, 1973.

Sadly, I could not find an image of this. Painted a few years before she died, "Sky Light" is one of those paintings that has the unique ability to induce a sense of vertigo when looked at for prolonged periods of time.

Best of: TV

Since I don’t have cable, the following is a list of the best TV shows I watched (on DVD) all year (Netflix is awesome):

1. The Wire (Season 3&4): While not being as literary as The Sopranos, or as beautiful as Deadwood, The Wire is, without a doubt, THE MOST IMPORTANT SHOW IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION. Much like Paul Thomas Anderson did this year with There Will Be Blood (more on that later), David Simon (with help from Ed Burns, Dennis Lehane, George Pelacanos, and Richard Price) has, with divine insight, tapped into what it really means to be American and created a saga that makes The Godfather films look like a high school prepatory course on the American Dream (that’s right, I said it!). And, while The Godfather looks decadent and dark on a theater or widescreen TV, Simon’s show has found an equal home within the confines or 4:3 TV (seriously, I can’t get the show, no matter how bad I want to, to fit the widescreen setting on my TV—because they film it that way). Since, with a gun to my head, I couldn’t point to a single character on this epic show and say, “that dude/ette is what The Wire is about”, I’ll instead take this as an opportunity to list my favorite characters in no particular order (single names only please): Bunk, McNulty, Bubbles, Kima, Lester, Prez, Rawls, Snoop, Avon, DL, Bodie, Marlo, Daniels, Carcetti, Carver, Hurk, Wee-bey, Bunny, Randy, Michael, Sobotka, The Greek, Cutty, Cheese, Omar, Prop Joe, Stringer Bell and Brother Mouzone (okay two names).



2. Lost (Season 3): The Wire may have been the best show on television, but Lost is what brings me to Best Buy at 9 AM on new release Tuesday. The only show that successfully manages to provide more questions than answers—and I don’t care! Jack and Locke are iconic television characters, but let us not forget the fantastic Josh Holloway, whose “Sawyer” is currently redefining the anti-hero on non-premium cable. A show with genuine moments of drama and wit. Sure the season finale should be applauded for its’ surprise twist (for people who didn’t know beforehand—sadly not me, I can’t abide a surprise on this show, I have to know what is happening even if I’m not watching it. Thank you EW!), but what should be praised instead is the creative the nerve it took to make that leap in order to open up the show for the next few seasons. Coolest line: Sawyer to Mr. Friendly (in the season finale), “That’s for the kid.” If you saw it you know what I’m talking about. Awesome.



3. Battlestar Galactica (all of it so far): Take the politics of The Wire and mix it with the sci-fi mystery of Lost, and you have Battlestar Galactica. Props to Starbuck for being the strongest female on TV, and let us heap praise on the dynamic duo of Admiral Adama and President Roslin, not to mention the ever expanding mystery of the great Cylon “plan”, and you have something you can’t take you’re eyes off of. At one point during the mid-season finale of Season 2, when Helo and Chief Tyrol are racing through The Razor, I actually yelled at the television. Now that’s good TV.



4. The Office (Season 2&3): Let us hope that the movies never take Steve Carrell away from this show. I never thought Carrell would be able to outdo Ricky Gervais, but he has made Michael Scott his own kind of awkward beast. Bravo to a show that has never been as painfully awkward as its’ British counterpart, but has found its’ sweet center by regularly going beyond the whole Jim and Pam thing (example: Michael’s presence at Pam’s art show—one of Carrell’s finest bits of acting).



5. The Sopranos (Season 6, Part 2): For being one of the best things on TV and ending strong. By the way: Tony dies. Did you catch that?

Honorable Mention (in no particular order): Angel (all of it), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (all of it), My Name is Earl (season 1), Arrested Development (season 1 & 2), 30 Rock (season 1), Rome (season 1)

Hirshhorn Diaries--6

"Head of Woman", by Pablo Picasso, 1909

Let us pause a moment to, once again, observe Picasso's "Head of Woman". A sculpture that--paired with Rodin's "Balzac"--will remain, for museums around the world, the equivelent of Skittles and Snickers at a gas station.

Best of: Reads

What follows are the best books/articles/reviews I’ve read all year:

1. Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer: One of the more mind-boggling and terrifying books I read all year. A must read for anyone obsessed with the blotchy path of religious/political history between the crucifixion, Constantine’s dream, and ascension of Charlemagne. If at any time you’ve wondered how a poor Jewish carpenter, with a few words and a glorious death, could have taken over the world, might I suggest looking no further than Salt Lake City, Utah, a place where history is being gathered and vaulted by the LDS. That Joseph Smith lived during the modern age (the fact that there are book reviews of the Book of Mormon blew my mind) and thrived during the Second Great Awakening, having established one of the fastest growing religions, is, on the one hand, perfectly American—which is to say that Joseph Smith and Brigam Young’s (one of the true criminals of American history) legacy has been one of violence and subjugation during the age of manifest destiny should be a given. That Mormonism's more fundamentalist aspects still exists and are growing should be terrifying (seriously, see if you feel safe driving through Colorado City). Anyone who looks at Mitt Romney and is perplexed at how one could have risen so high so fast, for essentially tailoring his message (a nice way of saying contradicting himself) to an exceedingly desperate audience (republican voters in the wake of W. Bush), need look no further than his religious idol Joseph Smith: a first rate, handsome, showman, who always seemed to have the “perfect story”, not to mention a peep stone and a black hat that gave him all the answers.

2. All The Shah’s Men by Stephen Kinzer: No other book I’ve read this year better illustrated the way in which American arrogance and small mindedness has damaged the Middle East. After reading this book, it was not hard to fathom the idea that had America stood with Mohammed Mosedegh, rather than orchestrating his downfall (Kermit Roosevelt making James Bond look like a pussy), a progressive Middle East might not have seemed like such a pipe dream. It also goes a long way towards illustrating America’s willingness to forego its’ integrity and principles for the sake of economic supremacy. Not to mention those fucking British…

3. His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman: After a good week spent raging against the last Harry Potter, I needed my pallet cleansed. I remembered a friend mentioning Pullman’s books as a better example of young adult fiction. Boy was he right! Let me go on record as saying Pullman’s canny and vicious Lyra Belacqua could kick Harry Potter’s pouting ass, and that Will Parry could make mincemeat of Ron and Hermione (that is assuming he could handle Hermione’s dangerous EXCLAMATIONS!!!). A saga in which the young heroes actually aged, while, with great vigor, rigorously dissecting the confusing morality and complexity of the adult world. A believable relationship between two budding adults, no short cuts, no neat tidy thirteenth-hour revelations—oh, and two words: Gay Angels… (Note: Avoid the movie adaptation at all costs!)

4. Into Thin Air by John Krakauer: Everything I ever wanted to know about Mt. Everest and an effective missive about why I should never go. Adventure writing at its peak (heh, heh…)

5. “Disaster Capitalism” by Namoi Klein (Harper’s Magazine): If reading this doesn’t put you into an existential funk, then might I suggest her book The Shock Doctrine. Word of advice: Do not read said book with a loaded gun in the house. You may not survive.

Honerable Mention (in no particular order): The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright, Lost Girls by Alan Moore, Y the Last Man by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra, 100 Bullets by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, “Clueless into Kabul” by Michael Scheuer (The American Interest), “Making Enemies” by Anna Simons (The American Interest), “The Vacationers” by Colin Mort (Virginia Quarterly Review), “Utopianism Redux”: a review of Leszek Kolakowski’s Main Currents of Marxism by John Gray (The American Interest), “Their Men in Washington” by Ken Silverstine (Harper’s Magazine), “Literary Entrails” by Cynthia Ozick (Harper’s Magazine), “Moby-Duck” by Donovan Hohn (Harper’s Magazine), “The Madness of Jewcentricity” by Adam Garfinkle (The American Interest), “Shepherdess by Dan Chaon (Virginia Quarterly Review), The Headmaster Ritual by Taylor Antrim.