Breakfast at the Palazzo Sangiorgio

Breakfast is served in the courtyard of the hotel. An Italian woman in a white shift talks on her phone, as she brings her plate of food from the breakfast buffet to the table. She's classically attractive and used to sashaying through existence, impervious to the world around her--or perhaps not. Perhaps this is a fantasy indulged by an impertinent observer. You never know what's in another human being's peripheral vision. The breakfast service is almost over and the tables are being cleared. Construction workers are loudly firing back at each other, the words echoing through a nearby site. Now as the alcove is finally cleared two American couples continue to talk about Sy Newhouse, Condé Nast and American publishing during the '80s.

The Crying Game

Animals recuse themselves as they prepare for death. You may reach down looking for the furry top of your dog's head which has always been such a source of comfort only to find yourself reaching and reaching until you open your eyes and realize your pet wants to be alone. It's that way with some old people. Rather than closing ranks to create their own supportive little community, they often find themselves in an isolation that's exacerbated by diminishing numbers of their cohort. With less to choose from, you often end up choosing less.

Delta One

Delta One JFK (photo: FLevy)

Some people prefer the journey. Go to an airport lounge, especially the bar. There's a self-satisfied look on  the faces of passengers en route and one that is likely to leave, once the reality of the lives awaiting them smacks them right in the face. This applies even to so called "happy people." The in between is filled with possibility while the end is just what was expected. The end of most journeys brings travelers home, a place of familiarity that's also filled with its own angst and the subliminal, that ebb and flow, hi and low tide, of life and change. How long will this last? When will it be over? How can anything be enjoyable when it will one day be over?

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

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)."