Letter From An Unknown Woman

If you remember back to high school, equations with two unknowns led to the notion of graphs and coordinates. Speaking of unknowns, think about Sargent’s mysterious "Madame X" in her majestic black gown or Max Ophul's classic romance Letter From an Unknown Woman. Part of the mystery of the algebra itself derived from the fact that the math became visual, numbers created lines. Mirrors and the notion of the virtual image would soon be introduced in physics. Actually the notion of "x" and "y" are hard to swallow at first. It's easy to disregard their mystery and cachet. You have to get on with your life, so you mechanically finish the assignment. However, without knowing it, you have been introduced to the world of math. 

read "En Plein Air" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

The Trial

Everybody needs a witness at their trial, someone who can testify to their character but also, in a world of indifference, a judge,a person who keeps a close eye, perhaps even a closer eye than they themselves can about their motives. Joseph K is actually your average Joe. No one who has his back. There's no Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers) who stops George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) from jumping to his death.

read "En Plein Air" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

No Exit

Hubert Selby: "I was sitting at home and had a profound experience. I experienced, in all of my Being, that someday I was going to die, and it wouldn't be like it had been happening, almost dying but somehow staying alive, but I would just die! And two things would happen right before I died: I would regret my entire life; I would want to live it over again. This terrified me. The thought that I would live my entire life, look at it and realize I blew it forced me to do something with my life."

Among the numerous other indignities of the present war between good and evil is the attack on interiority. 

Thank God for Howard Jacobson whose most recent broadsheet/novel about "the war" (aka chthonic battle between medieval notions of good and evil) is titled Howl.

read "En Plein Air" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

The Man Who Couldn't Feel Anything

CIP, Congenital Insensitivity to Pain is life-threatening. How many time can you pound your head into a brick wall? The Man Who Couldn’t Feel Anything sounds just like another super hero until you realize that the strength hides a weakness. The Kryptonite in this case is a neurological condition which allows one the ability to painlessly self-destruct.Such a fictional character is also a metaphor for the institutionalization of forgetting. People don't realize they're time bombs. What goes around comes around. It’s the law of the conservation of energy. One of the chief methods of beheading a population is by convincing them that some atrocity is life as usual. Atrocity can be normalized. You can comvince humans of anything. Evil is truly banal. Like Kafka’s Hungerkunstler, it's the genius, the proclivity that's also is the undoing.

read "En Plein Air" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Civilization

 Kohneh Square, Isfahan (photo: Franco Pecchio)

Is the destruction of a civilization not too high a price to pay to turn attention away from the Epstein files? But from a world historical point of view, the real question is: who is the greatest authoritarian? The field is tight with KimJong-un, Recep Erdogan, MBS, Xi Jinping and Donald Trump all in the running. A Quinnipiac poll indicates most Americans feel Kim Jomg-un is most repressive with his ceremonial displays of strength in Kim II Sung Square. But fascism is on the upswing with Trump’s goon squad of masked agents bringing back the glory days of Kristallnacht when Black Shirts roamed freely through the streets of Berlin.

read "En Plein Air" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Half-Lives

"Half-life" is an odd term since it emanates from the elements. Humans have short half-lives. Here today gone tomorrow. It's stunning how quickly people pickup their things and leave the consciousness of other human beings forever. What’s the rush? Sorry to inform you, life goes on very nicely without you. No need to fret, thank you. One good thing is that most people are like Miss Havisham, cloaked in clutter. However, a quick exit from the stage, enables the minions to get rid of remains. Oh yes, now and then you will come to mind,  say when the word “soup” is mentioned. You like your soup "hot!"

read "En Plein Air" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Fountain

"Fountain" by Marcel Duchamp (1917)

You have the found object or “objet Trouvé” epitomized most famously by Duchamp’s "Fountain." Then there are the the lost objects that people try to recover. Are you someone who is always crying out “where’s my phone?” There are those who would lose their heads if they weren't attached to their necks and some who routinely lose their minds. There are valued items that are stolen as is the case with the bike in De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves. But what about those things that disappear of their own volition? You can’t find  them anywhere. If you leave your cellphone in your freezer, you may want to discuss it in therapy. Are the things that refuse to show up part of an unconscious deaccessioning project that has yet to reveal itself. No sooner had you purchased Dan Simmon’s Hyperion at the advice of a friend than that piece of sci-fi went into outer space, into an orbit comprising space/time coordinates that were no longer part of your universe.

read "En Plein Air" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star