Death

Making a Death Mask (1908)

It's hard to digest finality. If you've ever been with someone who's going through the dying process, it can be almost incomprehensible. At one moment, they display signs of life. Whether there's any sentience in the death rattle state when the body fuel is almost spent is up for grabs. The personality recedes until it crosses the event horizon of the black hole. You may find yourself hovering over a loved one, as they take their last breath, but like Eurydice they're being pulled to the underworld, with neither their goodbyes reaching you, nor yours finding them. The only other part of the life process that similarly defies explanation is birth. The first cry and the last breath—lend credence to the existence of a soul. The human arrives for a finite stay and then, at the end, is gone forever, their essence irretrievably lost, the conversation ended sometimes in mid-sentence. 

Read "Died Young," by Francis Levy, The Brooklyn Rail

and listen to "Our Day Will Come" by Ruby and the Romantics

More Flicks Than Pricks

The question is, do you want to throw caution to the winds and watch the final episode of Broadchurch? Will you be up Schitt’s Creek if you watch another Bridgerton? You’re in the fourth season of The Americans, the second of Call My Agent and just beginning the long march through The Bureau. Let’s not forget where it all began with Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Homeland and The Wire. You once watched a series or two, now and then. There was Alistair Cooke introducing Masterpiece Theater and series like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Brideshead Revisited and The Jewel and the Crown on PBS. Speaking of which you must be getting past Diana’s eating disorder on The Crown, but let’s not forget old favorites like Fleabag, Babylon Berlin, Fauda, Lupin and The Queen’s Gambit! Is there a price to be paid for Succession? Does The White Lotus produce a nauseating feeling of déjà vu--especially if you've ever been dissatisfeied with your accommodations? And what about Madame Claude? Did you really think it was going to be about a restaurant?

Read "Diasporic Dining: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen to Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly"

Candid

Candid or CAN DID could be Candide, Voltaire’s hero who's forced to contend with the hyperbolic Dr. Pangloss, who claims “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” The modern interpretation of Leibnitz’s maxim might be the far less portentous though equally impervious “I can’t complain.” Really? You might not be able to complain, but there are a lot of people who can and did or will. In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut’s hero intones “so it goes” which is a far more ironic form of the stoic contempt for reality. In Voltaire the overly optimistic prognostications of his character are made more damning by the advent of the earthquake of 1755 which destroyed Lisbon and is the background against which the novel unfolds. "Satisfied customer" is another meme employed by smugly self-satisfied pundits. But who could possibly adhere to such a rosy prognosis in the face of the multi-faceted morbidities which afflict the race: vast economic inequality, a raging pandemic and seemingly irresolvable political unrest leading to the prospect of civil war in a number of countries, most notably the United States? To be "candid," no one.

Read "Dr. Pangloss" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen to Luciano Pavarotti and James Brown singing, "It's a Man's Man's World"

Heart of Darkness

Couples sometimes split up when one or another realizes the person they’re with is a stranger. It’s great to see someone or something in a new light. That’s one definition of art. All of a sudden, a previously latent element of personality becomes apparent. It’s something which enriches a relationship and ultimately makes it more dynamic. But finding you don’t know the person next to you in bed is a form of horror. Capgras Syndrome is a neurological disorder in which a familiar face masks an imposter. What’s disconcerting is the delusion, the discovery that you have, for whatever reasons, willingly refused to see what was right before your eyes. It may be frightening to realize someone you thought you loved is not what or who you thought them to be. However, it’s ultimately not their fault. The real monster, that has allowed you to perpetuate a distorted view of reality, lies within. Maybe that was what Conrad was alluding to in Kurtz's iconic, "the horror, the horror."

Read "Pet Buddha" by Francis Levy, Vol.1 Brooklyn

and listen to Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, "If You Don't Know Me By Now"

Philip Guston 1969-1979

Phillip Guston, "The Studio" (1969)

Philip Guston (1913-1980) courted controversy two times in his life. The first was on the occasion of his 1970 show at the Marlborough Gallery when he introduced figuration into his work. The second occurred long after his death, when his figures of Klansman created a backlash causing an exensive four museum retrospective "Philip Guston Now" to be postponed (it's now scheduled to open in 2022). At first it was Guston's style that was challenged. Later it would be the subject matter. In the current show at Hauser & Wirth, "Philip Guston l969-1979," Klansmen are presented in everyday poses, performing disconcertingly ordinary, "banal" (a la Hannah Arendt) activities, as if they were just normal people going about their business And the artist is careful not to exclude himself. One of the paintings depicts a Klansman as artist with a brush in one hand and a cigarette in the other. In later works from l973-1979, Guston uses images of legs, shoes and trash that recall the photos of the piles of corpses discovered in the Nazi concentration camps. These paintings are imbued with anxiety. In "Pittore" (1973), Guston is depicted lying in bed with a cigarette in his mouth, the clock above reading 10:40. It's disappointing that that the Klan images, in particular, have been a source of concern since, however disturbing, they make a powerful argument for the moral imperative in art. In addition, their cartoon like quality adds another layer to the emotional palette they comprise.  “When the l960s came along I was feeling split, schizophrenic,” Guston once explained, “The war, what was happening to America, the brutality of the world. What kind of man was I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into frustrated fury about everything and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?”

Read "Unreliable Narrative" by Francis Levy, The Screaming Pope

and listen to "Sympathy for the Devil" by The Rolling Stones

 

Cover Patrol

When you think about it, even the most everyday activities can be the subject of Netflix series. The demand is so great that the company will soon be running shows like Bar Mitzvah which is, you guessed it, a series photographed exclusively with iPhones, like Soderbergh’s Unsane, but all at Temple Israel. However, let’s broaden the umbrella and include some basic everyday activities. How about Cover Patrol, modelled on the 50s Highway Patrol which starred Broderick Crawford. No squad car will be required. Cover Patrol will be a low budget affair which requires nothing more than a comforter and a married couple out of central casting who thrash around in bed.The Super Hero who comes to the rescue is, of course, simply the partner who wakes up first, but to heighten the drama the character will be played by Eugene Levy whose up Schitt's Creek anyways. You always need a recognizable name to sell a series, even those with catchy titles like Carpet Sweeper, modelled on the hit show, Fleabag, starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge. While many series struggle to create new episodes that hold the audience’s interest Cover Patrol will run into no problems generating new material since there are so many  people who get cold at night.

Read AZ Quotes by Francis Levy

and listen to the Bee Gees, "Night Fever"

Bannon Shrugged

Errol Morris' American Dharma was Steve Bannon, light. Bannon is portrayed as an intellectual and film buff who employs Milton’s “better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,” as his mantra. The film was criticized, in fact, for lily-coating the former Trump White House strategist, by underscoring the mad scientist with his unruly head of hair while playing down Bannon's media ubermensch aspirations. Is the Breitbart alumnus, Citizen Kane? If so, what's his “Rosebud,” “The Big Lie?” Or does, in fact, his persona derive from the hyper-individualism of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and the history of fascist propagandists like Joseph Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl. Rather than the Buddhist sounding title of Morris’ film shouldn’t the latest chapter of the Bannon story, with the refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena be titled Triumph of the Will or better yet Bannon Shrugged?

Read "Why Big German Words Like Vergangenbangenheit Carry Weight" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen to Laurie Anderson, "O Superman"