The Lonely Man of Faith

Underneath compulsion and regression, lies a black hole of cosmic indifference. Compulsion is a regression to an earlier state of dependence. It posits a feeding mechanism that must constantly be satisfied. Addiction in some senses is like the minimization function on a computer screen. It shields the sufferer from having to confront their own limits and ultimate solitude. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the Jewish philospher, wrote The Lonely Man of Faith which deals with a spiritual condition which is not even mollified by religion. Says Soloveitchick, "I am surrounded by comrades and acquaintances. And yet, companionship and friendship do not alleviate the passional experience of loneliness which trails me constantly. I am lonely because I feel rejected and thrust away by everybody." The submissive character in Pauline Reage’s Story of O is actually freed from the responsibility of her being, the Fear and Trembling and Sickness Unto Death, which Kierkegaard describes. On a more quotidian level many people complain about the abuses inflicted on them by employers or partners, without realizing that they themselves are complicit.They're spared the weight of being by the intervention of the domineeriing personality. Human beings develop all manner of strategies to face their own truths. A psychoanalytic narrative expressing the depredations of a parent avoids the question of agency. What's worse? Being told what to do or nothing at all? That's why the end of a course of therapeutic treatment often leads to a condition which may not provide much in the way of comfort or solace, despite the truth it reveals.

Read "Knausgaard or Kierkegaard?" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

Is God Created in Man's Image?

"The Creation of Adam" by Michelangelo

Egotism and spiritualism are opposites. In fact, the locution "my spiritual life" contains an oxymoron since it posits a world view that's self-centered. Having the beginnings of a spiritual life is a little like the Copernican Revolution. Galileo and Copernicus both propagated the heretical notion there was a "solar" system with the sun not the earth as center. When you look at how easily the will can rise up in any particular situation, it’s not hard to understand how and why there was so much pushback to those then revolutionary astronomical notions. In another sense it’s tantamount to  anthropomorphizing God and looking at whatever that force or higher power is as a reflection of the palette of human wishes and desire. Theodicy, theocracy, theology all preoccupy themselves with questions of teleology and eschatology, but if you investigate many religious tomes, you find a God created in the image of man, which is not far from the Old Testament concept of man created in the image of God. The god = man or man = god is where the buck has to stop. If there is a God then why would it be within human comprehension? Why would it be, for instance, a moral arbiter or punishing parent? Like the biblical Jews, mankind is left wandering in a desert of uncertainty--with the hope of a Promised Land which ultimately remains elusive. Devising life-sized answers to divine questions is hell on earth.

Read "God Redux" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

Respect

If everyone has someone they want to impress, who never gave them attention, way back when, what's going to happen? There are certain logistics problems. For example, if you make it late in life, then many of those you want to impress are going to be dead? Part of the impetus in impressing someone is to get back at them. You want them to see your name in lights so they can drown in envy, hopefully just when their ship is about to capsize. “Don’t kick a man when he’s down” doesn’t apply here. The person who never gave you the right time of day can be on their dying bed and it’s still permitted to wave the flag of victory in their face. You’d better do it, before they aren’t there to suffer anymore. But this very problem does bring up the real issue. Who the fuck cares whether you succeed or fail since oblivion and the infinity of time and space is the great leveler? Still hope springs eternal. It’s hard to help oneself. There are always the phalanx of doubters who populate your dreams, looking at you askance or not looking at you at all. The indifference of the universe, the cosmic yawn is often the real problem. What to do about impressing the individual who simply pushed you to the margins of their consciousness or never knew you existed at all? You could win the Nobel, but it wouldn’t count since they didn’t know you in that other life, before you became a contender.

Read "What is the Antidote to or Antonym for Schadenfreude" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

States of Mind

Newsweek, November 13, 1995

Civil War America and post-war Germany are two examples of once divided countries that eventually reunited. Irredentism is the term for reunification of formerly fragmented nations. You might say that Putin has a very strong irredentist tendency in his desire to reconstitute the Imperial Russia of Peter the Great or at the very least the old U.S.S.R with its may satellites. After the fall of Tito, Yugoslavia fragmented into the warring factions that made for grueling Bosnian conflict. When you look at history the prospects for Israel are challenging. The Serbs and Bosnians were carrying literally hundreds of years of historical baggage to the table. In the case of the Palestinians and Israelis literally biblical periods of time, with their consequent legends of grievance, are represented. Since the time of the Oslo accords, two states has seemed like the logical solution, but now it’s beginning to look like something more creative is called for ("I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State" by Peter Beinart, NYT, July 8, 2021). The question is what? Numbers seem abstract but they're at the core of the issue when you deal with the question of according equal rights and full citizenship to all. In the United States you can win the popular vote, but not win an election as was evident in 2016 and famously during the tightly contested Bush Gore race in 2000. The electoral college titrates the notion of a democratic majority as do the senatorial elections in which California with a population of 39 million is allotted the same 2 senators as Wyoming which has a population of 579,000. These disparities are unfair. But can they provide the template for a discussion of how to deal with radically different constituencies with radically differing agendas? Perhaps mathematicians with specialties in imaginary numbers should be added to the negotiating teams when Israelis and Palestinians return to the table. 

Read "Iraquistan" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

David Hockney: Drawing from Life

 

Hockney iPad selfie

“A photograph cannot really have layers of time in it, the way a painting can which is why drawn and painted portraits are much more interesting,” David Hockney is quoted as saying at the start of the current "David Hockney: Drawing from Life" show at the Morgan. The question of what constitutes a portrait and especially a self-portrait is one of the many things that's up for discussion in the current exhibit. It can be a lover like Gregory Evans, a muse like the textile designer Celia Birtwell, his mother--as well as a pair of shoes or an ashtray with cigarette butts--both of which images exude the intimate quality of selfies. Hockney was influenced by the eclecticism of Picasso and Rembrandt. And he demonstrates both in the broad approach to drawing which includes watercolor, pencil, Rapidograph (which conforms the width of the line) and even iPad. In terms of content the exhibit  also illustrates the Catholic nature of the artist's interests which run from Hogarth’s "A Rake's Progress” (1735) as the model for his coming to New York in the summer of l961, the homoeroticism of Whitman, the vegetarianism of Gandhi and the poetry Cavafy which is the basis for his “IIlustrations for Fourteen Poems from C.P. Cavafy” done with the printmaker Maurice Payne. Says Hockney: "Drawing makes you see things clear and clearer and clearer still, until your eyes ache."

Read "Inventing Abstraction" by Francis Levy, The Screaming Pope

La Piscine

Jacques Deray’s La Piscine (l969), currently in revival at Film Forum is distinguished by its total lack of irony. Jean-Paul (Alan Delon) is an alcoholic writer, “who always wants what he doesn’t have.” Having temporarily given up his dreams, he's on the wagon. He’s taken a prosaic job at an advertising agency, but finds himself the miraculous beneficiary of a luxury villa on the Riviera which he occupies with his sexy girlfriend, Marianne (Romy Schneider) who proclaims “when I’m with you it’s all I need.” If opposites attract Jean-Paul and Marianne perfectly complement each other. BTW,  it was Romy Schneider not Alan Delon who was the alcoholic in real life. It’s a stereotype party with Delon in his sunglasses and cigarette dangling out of the side of his mouth and Schneider’s wardrobe changes limited mostly to slipping out of a bikini and into a one piece. Bodies bodies everywhere. These two can't keep their hands off each other, though each actual sexual encounter involves scratching and in one case whipping with a branch. Enter Harry (Maurice Ronet), the wealthy record producer driving a revved up sports car he affectionately calls “his monster," his sullen daughter Penelope (played by Jane Birkin of Blow-Up fame) in tow. The predictable cocktail of emotions with the ubiquitous and totemic bottle of Johnny Walker produces a drama which is basically interesting from anthropological point of view--like a survey of  some extinct civilization or ancien regime.The 60s fruggers fresh off the beach at St. Tropez add to the ebullient predictability. Hard to believe Jean-Claude Carriere, famous for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, wrote this leaden screenplay. Delon and Schneider are filmic examples of planned obsolescence. The bored writer in the strained relationship is at first reminiscent of Godard’s Contempt; the decadence recall L’Avventura (1961) minus the philosophy. The pool of the title does take on a mythological significance to the extent that one of the characters drowns in his own reflection—albeit with a little help from his friend(s).

Read Francis Levy's review of Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Screaming Pope

Pornosophy: Kissing

Porn traffics in forbidden orifices and acts. Fellatio and cunnilingus are the most famous and commonplace but you’re unlikely to find a film in the annals of erotica entitled simply “Kissing.” What's the difference between kissing someone’s ass, the pejorative for trying to court favor from the powerful, and kissing their lips. In fact, a full kiss on the lips is one of the most erotic and yes dirty acts known to humankind. Just because the lips aren’t hidden by underwear doesn’t mean they aren’t perhaps the most sensual entry doors to the body. Showing the labia another form of lips is looked at as nudity, yet having a conversation in which sometimes painted lips chatter happily away as Billie Whitelaw's do famously in Beckett's Not I is so commonplace as to fall under the radar. Islam recognizes how triggering lips can be by having women cover their faces with the hajib. A so-called French kiss far exceeds most acts of cunnilingus at least to the extent that the tongue is likely to survey far deeper into the mouth than it does the vulva. Kissing on the lips also is unlimited. Fellatio generally leads to ejaculation when it is not simply foreplay, but there's no time limit on kissing. In theory you can kiss ad nauseam or until one of the partners has to leave for a therapy appointment or yoga.

Read "The Interpretation of Vladimir Nabokov's Dreams" by Francis Levy, HuffPost