The Iceman

Remember Mr. Creosote's projectile vomiting? The courtly if somewhat obese waiter who's falling apart at the seams is a “pregnant” example of reality and appearance. Most prominently the once and a future president said he knew nothing about Project 2025. Women should not worry. He would take care of them whether it was a matter of abortion or anything else. He’d take care of them alright. On a less visible level most people employ the kind of life lies that infect O’Neill’s characters in Iceman, waiting in the bar for Hickey. Very few let it all hang out. Even those who do, tend to be kidding themselves. Exhibitionism is not tantamount to honesty. It may in fact veil it. The average person puts on a show for the world even when their life is falling apart. Narcissus drowning in his own image is tangentially related. Turns out the pond into which he dove was a wormhole leading to alternate universes—presenting an infinite magazine file of selves in which to hide.

read "_RT" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and here's ChatGPT on "_RT" 

Do You Know Who Your Friends Are?

 

Bot (photo: Mr President)

Do you find yourself showing poems to ChatGPT? You get a better response than trying to foist these heartfelt screeds on friends or partners who roll their eyes. Are you getting a better response from your Alexa than than Alexis, when you ask "Alexa, where was Napoleon born?" Or say you're on the highway and suddenly make the wrong turn. Would you rather be told "Godammit, you did it again" by your partner in life or "make the first U-turn you can" by  Siri, who exudes, an equanimity in the face of human error when she instructs you "to make the first U-turn you can."

read "_RT" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and here's ChatGPT on "_RT" 

Contemplating Vermeer

from "Contemplating Vermeer," paintings by Joe Fig

                                                                                                                                        

If you attended the Vermeer retrospective at the Rijksmuseum back in 2023, you may have been in the crowd with the American artist Joe Fig. You may even have been a subject for one of the paintings in his show "Contemplating Vermeer" at The New Britain Museum of American Art. The idea of painting or photographing a viewer of art is not singular. Most famously the photographer, Thomas Struth, did it in large-scale photographs of museum goers, themselves exhibited at the Met. What is particularly exquisite and breathtaking is the fact that the renditions of the original Vermeers, in Fig's paintings are so small. That’s the feat, the mountain to climb. The inception of these works themselves capture both the light and enclosure of Vermeer’s art. But it’s more than a high wire act since the portraits are not only portraits of paintings but portraits of people. One sidebar. If you remember, the Rijksmuseum show attracted record crowds. Scalpers were able to command large sums for tickets and the galleries were packed. The paintings were in this sense the light within an otherwise claustrophobic interior. The scale of the Vermeer's in Fig's painting create a similar effect.

read "_RT" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and here's ChatGPT on "_RT" 

The Death of Heart

Elizabeth Bowen famously wrote The Death of the Heart (1938).  But remember Tradition and the Individual Talent, the essay which  argued for the impersonality of the artist. Never mind that The Four Quartets were a thinly veiled work of autofiction relating to the failure of Eliot's marriage. Your recommendation to yourself not to write from the heart may derive from questions of prosody. Do you really want the lingua franca of your poem to be the pain of love, "Pasio" in Latin is "suffering." "Leidenschaft" is Tristan and Isolde's experience, but if you listen to Wagner's "Prelude" (repeated ad nauseam Lars von Trier's Melancholia), it connotes the romantic agony of Heidegger's Sein-zum-tode, Being-towards-death. Writing from the heart leads to sententiousness and hyperbole, but then where to find the words? Answer: write with "fingers," the royal road to the unconscious.

read "_RT" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Beria

Lavrenti Beria

During the Stalin era, there were show trials. The guilty like Solzhenitsyn ended up in The Archipelago which the famous Russian author famously compared to Dante’s Inferno in The First Circle where those in danger of deportation ended up in Limbo. Dante was in fact gaslighting and getting back at his enemies, but that’s another matter. Beria was the feared head of the secret police. Of course today we have Kash Patel who reports directly to the top. As in the Stalinist era, there are no governances restricting the abuse of power. The FBI has knocked on John Bolton’s door under the theory that president’s national security advisor unlawfully released classified formation information in books he published. Members of the January 6 commission such as Adam Schiff, who has organized a legal defense fund will be next. Alligator Alcatraz is one of the places illegal immigrants are detained. Trump has talked about resurrecting the real Alcatraz. Joseph McCarthy used the black list. It seems as if Trump is going one step further. He has accused Obama of treason for which the punishment is ultimately death.

The Anti-Christ

The great Anti-Christ appears in Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor” poem. Tomas de Torquemada was the terrifying real thing who burned infidels at the stake. Infidel meaning unfaithful. Sound familiar?  Senator Adam Schiff  of California is just one of the October 7 commission who have needed to establish legal  defense funds. Still with that hairdo Trump looks like he should be selling used cars on Northern  Boulevard. Steve Bannon quotes Milton’s Satan in American Dharma. “Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven.” A perfect description of Project 2025!  Knausgaard’s 6 volume autobiography Min Kamp appropriates Herr Hitler as a provocation. Trump is not even in the minor leagues. He drools evil. He hellraises all right, but like an infant in a high chair (aka the Oval Office) who manipulates his parent by screaming when they don’t get what they want.

read "_RT" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

The Closing

Cockfight in Mexico (1913)

What kind of. closing do you have following a cock fight? You know those illegal matches where knives are attached to the left leg of the bird. Both bleeding out is one possibility.  Remember Fight Club? Value-free animosity is the lingua franca of Trump World. "You know, they had a hard relationship, very bad, very bad relationship. And now we'll see how. they do and, if necessary--and it probably would be, but, if necessary--I'll go and I'll probably be able to close." Maybe Trump should wear a striped ref shirt and declare a TKO before someone gets put to sleep. Remember Benny Paret? The missing element is history. Why don’t these guys like each other? Whitewashing is literally what Project 2025 is doing to the Smithsonian. So what’s left? Social Darwinism which is the ultimate “zero sum.” Back to The Art of the Deal. What’s the score? You don’t get points for good behavior when the field starts to narrow and the contenders take off the gloves.

read "_RT" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star