Community

George Simmel

Small town life occasions familiarity. The sociologist George Simmel wrote about the difference between the life of the city  and that of the smaller world in The Metropolis and Mental Life (1903). Curiously it resembles the difference between the macro and micro worlds of quantum physics. The title of the Ferdinand Tonnies tome is Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, Community and Society (1887), The city offers freedom at the price of anonymity. The small town provides familiarity and the sense of being acknowledged. The downside is claustrophobia.

Blocked Calls

Do you suffer from the problem that few people are interested in what you're interested in anymore, in other words the problem that you might have the appropriate syntax but lack a referent that can be picked up by many people’s devices? You know how calls get blocked?

Grantchester

James Norton as Sidney Chambers

 If you're part of the demographic of the population that streams series, perhaps you've seen Grantchester. For lovers of Broadchurch, The Bridge and the miraculous Prime Suspect, here is a series with truly great writing, shall we say writing of a trans or inter medial quality. Take a recent episode. The Romeo and Juliet of this story are the Anglican Vicar, Sidney Chambers (James Norton) who is the lead character, and his great love Amanda Hopkins (Morven Christie). They are childhood sweethearts. Then there was a traumatic (for him) stint on the battlefield and her then choice of money over love, a choice she will always regret. Finally, 9 months pregnant, she leaves her boorish and sadistic husband, giving birth in the parish. That's just for starters, in one episode. The priest one should mention collaborates with the local constable Geordie Keating (Robson Green) as a detective team. The series is based on a collection of short stories, The Grantchester Mysteries by James Runcie. Spoiler Alert: in this selfsame episode they ferret out a stripper who's a con artist. This particular character brings to mind Madeleine/Judy (Kim Novak) in Vertigo, in the wily transformation of her physiognomy and entire being. Amidst all of this the pastor has a second in command a gay student priest Leonard Finch (Al Weaver) who gets in trouble for treating the Christmas pageant as a Brechtian epic. Weaver's performance is noteworthy and even profound in several places, as he struggles with his identity, and love itself. One of the most hilarious bits is his attempt to teach Verfremdungeffekt to a group of children. But that isn't all, amidst all this,  the self-same character manages to confront the local prelate, their superior, whose corruption lies in protecting a serial child molester. This is powerful stuff by any standards, with great writing and acting both.

Against Interpretation

photo: Lynn Gilbert

You may take Against Interpretation, the title of Susan Sontag's famous volume of essays more seriously after visiting the Krasner Pollock exhibition at The Met. In short Sontag was redefining art (at least a certain kind art). The artwork is not a representation of reality, but a reality in an of itself. In other words in the case of "Autumn Rhythm:30, 1950," it's not the abstraction of a seasonal day, but rather paint on canvas that's the theme. One reason why much abstraction is two-dimensional lies in its relinquishing of perspective and volume. "A new form will always seem more or less an absence of form at all, since it is unconsciously judged by reference to consecrated forms" said Robbe-Grillet. On the other hand not all of abstraction is necessarily aleatory or ineffable. In fact most 50s abstraction whether de Kooning, Klein or Rothko hardly conforms to  the Lautreamont's famous definition of surrealism being "as beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table." In his essay, The American Action Painters (1952), Harold Rosenberg famously described the work of Pollock and others abstractionists as creating "an area in which to act," "an event."  McLuhan said it even more succinctly  "the medium is the message (1964)."

Past Continuous

"Autumn Rhythm: Number 30, November 1950)

The Night Watch (1642)

Jackson Pollock's "Autumn Rhythm: Number 30, November 1950 and "Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)" are shown back to back in the current "Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous" show at the Met. There has already been a great deal written about the way in which the show foregrounds Krasner and gives her her due (Holland Carter's "A Knockout Show Resets the Record with Krasner and Pollock" (NYT,  9/29/26 is noteworthy). There are naturally many discussions to be had. Pollock for instance is likely part of your psychohistory and sensory vocabulary. Do you remember the first time you saw "Autumn Rhythm: Number 30" at the Met? Perhaps by now you may comment to your partner, "I get it, but don't ask me to explain why." Sure you can bring in The New Yorker's Harold Rosenberg with his iconic musings on abstract expressionism, or even lower yourself to exhuming the tyrannically brilliant Clement Greenberg, but why? Why must you explain yourself? Is this a trial? Are you still arguing for the defense? Perhaps you find yourself making an almost inane remark about being drawn to the edges? Abstract art begets a lot of commentary to the extent of the need to justify its very existence. Or is the painting just like "The Night Watch," something so great, so emblazoned on the unconscious that it defies, well one is not sure what it defies. But here's a notion. Abstractionism is realism. Conversely realism is abstract, the latter being a construct which is a product of the language cortex. "Autumn Rhythm Number 30" is in this manner of thinking or rather viewing, closer to the bone. Pollock's dancing a la the famous Hans Namuth movie produces sentences of mind speak with their own subjects, verbs and objects. Phenomenologists say a painting, being an object, has no agency. "Number 30" and" Number 1" are exceptions.

Breaking Away

 

One usually associates breaking up with adolescence. Disillusion follows a romanticized perfection. Actually one sign of a certain degree of maturity is being able to tolerate the gray zone. Fifty Shades was a play on the wrong word. Imagine Fifty Shakes of Gray rather than Grey. Later in life and particularly in old age human beings become cranky. That’s not a term in the lexicon of most gerontologists, but there's literally no other word for it. Most people with their secret pipe dreams are jerks. Who wants to spend another evening with the so-called friend who only talks about their self? It can be a problem since everybody is increasingly in their own world. On this last point about which there are no age limits, one wonders if it isn’t the Russians. Have they put something in the water which makes people jammer on?

Read "The Great Bonac Footrace of '83" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Sy

Sy Simms 

DJT wants to change AI to SI. But let's say you inhabit the cyberspace equivalent of the LHC operated by CERN. Is an SI just another SSN or possibly SSRI in the crowd? SI used to be a common Jewish name only is was spelled Sy. You had, for instance, Sy Simms aka Seymour Merinsky, the clothier. For the sake of argument let's say SI looked like George Reeves, the first Superman. You could suggest Nietzsche who, like our current Secretary of War, had an obsession with the Ubermensch. Super intelligences think of everything. That's why one can't help mentioning Kryptonite.