Saturday commute cxlvii: Sense and recompense

There are all kinds of love

in the world, but never the

same love twice.

The building down the avenue

is a hotel, and used to keep

rooms at a discount for under-

graduates in those days. I saw

this remark from one such fel-

low, in a story entitled, The

Sensible Choice; and it seemed

to fit to perfection a time, so

many years later, when we were

still suspended in the fantasy

of seemingly advancing beauty.

Now we find, this was not so.

But what was true, was a pas-

sion for that aspiration, em-

bodied in the second edifice: 

the one exemplification of it,

rising over every imitation -

that love we would have once.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
1924

Ezra Stoller, photography
Waldorf-Astoria and the
  Seagram Building, 375
  Park Avenue, New York
1960

And everything had been going so well

It was Friday last, when I found my-
self in a bustling port city, south
of Washington - the very harbor, now
that I think of it, where the Monitor
met the Merrimack, and also many Af-
ricans their new terrain. Yet all of
that seemed well washed away, in the
copious splashing of hooch upon the
wharves, where eddies of Mercedes al-
so swirled, of romance by injection.

To a corner doorway, then, I ventured
for reflection in a glass. As with so
many chances taken in this region -
the American South, that is - the im-
manence of God is not slow to be re-
revealed. Not in just any of the de-
tails, as Mies had once implied, but
exquisitely in the mistakes. 

So pleased by the impressions of my
cocktail, I found myself asking the
barkeep to divulge its secrets. And
this he did with such meticulous care
in every dimension, even in penman-
ship, that one could find the hand
of our Lord drawing one's own, down
his roster of ingredients and tech-
niques, to that very blaze of rev-
elation for which the region is so
celebrated. 

                       Bombay Sapphire, 2.0 oz.

                       Dolin vermouth, 0.75 oz.

                       Saint-Germain, 0.25 oz.

                       orange bitters, 2 dashes

                       stir for 30 seconds

                       strain into chilled glass

                       garish w/lemon peel

                       

Origins of Wednesday lviii: Social media we don't need

The managers of Russia's internet
access have been generous in open-
ing their sea cocks to rmbl since
we announced Anne Applebaum's new
book, and Ukrainian readership hit
new highs. Now, the Russians' bold
attention to this page cannot have
been triggered by another ornament
in the English language, but rather,
by a likely arousal of interest in
the direction of Russian internet
aggression. For our part, we wish 
there were a way to enable access
for Russian residents, without the
nasty little robots in their govern-
ment's employ. It is an interesting-
ly unfree market: sometimes, Russian
interest outweighs that of America
and France, combined - this page's
default audience; at other times,
it is absolutely zeroed out for days
on end -- weeks, months. Has anyone
else noticed, there is no such thing
as a Russian reading market: only a
valve operated by the State, to ad-
vance one of its furtive interests?

Has anyone else noticed, this is ex-
actly the game plan and wish list of 
the new American government, in its
saturation of society with delusion,
division, dysfunction, and decay? It
is as hard to imagine, America voted
for this, as it is to say Russia did.
The monsters don't need to censor the
speaker, if they isolate the listener.

What is left of any such distinction?

Robbie Wadge

Tonight we would go

"A blithe heart makes a blooming visage."

This evening at the Whitney

the exuberant exhibition of

sculptural works by Alexan-

der Calder, Hypermobility, 

will be brought to a close

with a reception in honor

of the publication of his

authorized biography, it-

self a blooming visage of 

the blithe art of seeing.

Jed Perl

Citing the student yearbook

at Stevens Institute of Tech-

nology, ca 1917, captioning

a snapshot of Sandy Calder

Calder

  The Conquest of Time

    Volume I: The Early

    Years, 1898 - 1940

Alfred A. Knopf, 2017©