Damon Winter, Childe Hassam, and this cavalcade

Events trigger interpretations,

not only musings drawn by mem-

ory, but observations properly

facilitated by preparedness. We

watch a parade prepared by lem-

mings, from resentments and raw

ignorance, which tasks the mind

to breathe as it was built to

do, ever conscious of a vacuum

at the core of what it sees. If

this readiness had a camera, it

would be called Damon Winter.

Now the passenger in the gaud-

iest coach in this procession

of last Friday passes an ob-

struction at First and Pennsyl-

vania, whose impertinence must

enrage him if he knew its der-

ivation. There is the memorial

to James Garfield, a President

shot for greater respect for

Civil Service than the passen-

ger could acquire in any decade

of the penance to which the

Laws cry out to deliver him,

his despotic, nepotistic cron-

ies trailing after him.

There is the memorial to Ulys-

ses S. Grant, corruption's pat-

ron saint until the passenger's

own rise transcended imagina-

tion, itself; but who had such

uncanny literary honesty as to

leave Memoirs of which we know

we can't deny two things: the

passenger hasn't read them and

will not, and they convey to 

posterity a confession every

sensate mind must mourn, of

his negligent squandering of

loyalty to rank and country 

at Cold Harbor. For that, we

have obstruction to remember,

a fortified concentration of

remorseless rebellious power.

But what Damon Winter captures

of this monumental island are

the figures, Grief and History.

The one, a sense the passenger

cannot master, the other, just

a context he condemns. Winter

expected this photograph, he

was ready for this photograph,

and this weekend The New York

Times let us see it online. We

felt it coming, long ago. We

saw what they were doing and 

they did it, but not by honest

dealing. That is not their way.

And their losing will go on.

On this morning, January 23,

around this corner in down-

town Manhattan, the first of

what must surely be a torrent

of lawsuits against the pas-

senger, personally, is being

brought in Federal Court for 

the Southern District of New

York, one of the most awesome

sites of jurisprudence in our

history. The passenger will

be hauled to the bar of jus-

tice for being in breach of

the United States Constitu-

tion's prohibition of his ac-

ceptance of any form of pres-

ent from foreign governments.

How seamlessly the strands of

memory converge to snare the

gift of reason, we know too

well. Yet how idle to deny,

this cavalcade's not new, and

not immune to its provenance.

Damon Winter
The Peace Monument
January 20, 2017
The New York Times©


Childe Hassam
Wall and Broad
Johnson Museum of Art
Cornell University
1907

Casey Jackson