Unité d'habitation

One always wonders about certain
maxims in architecture, not least
because of their power to arouse
precisely that angle of imagina-
tion. The man who set a pretty,
little box on slender pilotis in
the middle of a field in France,
calling it a machine for living,
struck upon the closest parallels
between the body and the building
since the Erectheion, endowing us
in his frequent style, with pro-
vocation worthy of the vocation
of life. I occupy space, he fam-
ously said, therefore I am. One
comes to appreciate such gnomic
aperçus, wryly; how they beg the
question, with the human frame. 

Here, a woman on a staircase car-
ries a bucket or a basket in one
hand and a bundle on her back, a
shawl shielding her from the sun.
Or is this a male laborer, in a 
cap, shoulders bowed beneath a 
heavy burden in both hands? Yes,
probably, one way or the other. 

The figure is captured by the

architect's loyal photographic

amanuensis, on the site of the

erection of one of the century's

most radical and influential ed-

ifices. I haven't seen the build-

ing better portrayed, in decades

of studying its image. Its asser-

ion of concrete, alone, captures

the project's audacity with its

own naïve exuberance, by a work-

ing figure occupying the space, 

entirely as an ascending shadow.

I admire the gesture. I wonder.

Lucien Hervé

Construction of the

  Unité d'Habitation,

  Marseille

Le Corbusier

  Architect

1949

  

What goes around

The lyric, ain't we got fun, can

seldom have leapt so elatedly to

the tongue, as it does on a day

when the riotously witty history

by Gore Vidal, of the stunningly

corrupted Presidential election

in America of 1876, casts a ben-

eficent light upon the collapse

of confidence in an incumbent of

a habitually horse-traded Office.

Here, we recall, is the template

for those necessary, showily fas-

tidious negotiations which will

be necessary to invoke the 25th

Amendment to the Constitution -

our little steam valve for mani-

fest incapacity. And yet, and

yet, the Republicans must strike

fast if they wish to extract com-

passion of Democrats, on the eve

of their flight out of Egypt. A

Pence in the White House is an

irony too far, for anyone on the

verge of escape from a pharaonic 

theocracy; and yet if the transi-

tion required it, what consider-

ation might check and balance it?

Merrick Garland on the Supreme

Court, for openers.

If anyone edits The Washington Post anymore

                    Send him a protocol sheet. The
                    editorial pages are in the grip
                    of hysteria so redundant, they
                    drain the language of meaning
                    and political criticism of all
                    dignity. Today, the Editorial
                    Board, itself, leads with the
                    discovery of its thousandth
                    Grotesque New Low, in one of
                    the President's epistles, and
                    senior scribe Dana Milbank
                    writes himself not just emo-
                    tionally but physically in-
                    to the exposure of a Court
                    nominee. I suppose there is
                    some consolation, in these
                    persons' willingness to be
                    identified. But explaining
                    this conduct to innocents is
                    not going to be easy, and in
                    view of the Post's circula-
                    tion, must call for an army 
                    of underpaid educators. Just
                    as the President is gaining
                    traction for a consensus on
                    his unfitness, the air itself
                    retches with the rot of pride.

                    This is a spiritual exhaustion
                    which comes a little early for
                    the Press's rôle in this crisis.
                    What will any victory be worth?

Origins of Wednesday lxxviii: Counting on time

I've had the same second thoughts

as many about one's position in a

society at tooth and nail with it-

self over the abduction of the Am-

erican republic by a horde of Vis-

igoths in Republican cloth coats -

as Richard Nixon famously defended

the marauders in mink who financed

his character-assassinating career.

But my second thoughts are swollen

with regret at the frenzy of imita-

tion dissent is exhibiting, now-a-

days, against his heirs in office.

For me the McCain funeral was the

corkscrew on a very corked vintage

of wine. It stank of hideous rec-

titude, gone mythical and popular.

I've begun to hold my powder more

closely now, for the power of the

printed word, over time. I think

more highly than ever of the his-

torical temperament in which many

of us were raised; and I know, I

cannot expect to see its judgment

on our time. But I have never had

an inclination to find a frenzy I

could join, and I'm fortunate (by

mere accident) to have read widely

in the vehemency genre which is

this continent's chronic tone of

voice. I feel the present govern-

ment should be replaced. I have

not discovered a successor that

warrants assuming its degree of

power. There, certainly, I will

always be. Not enamored of power,

and wary of its constant excuses.

In the spin

   I have a twin who bears my name;

   Bears it about with him in shame;

   Who goes a way I would not go;

   Has knowledge of things I would not know;

   When I was brave he was afraid;

   He told the truth, I lied;

   What's sweet to me tastes bitter to him;

   My friends, my friends, he doesn't love them;

   I walk the daylight in his dream;

   He breathes the air of my nightmare.

David Ferry

Of No Country I Know

  New and Selected Poems

  and Translations

  A Charm

University of 

  Chicago Press, 1999©

One could stay home

    

  There's something about the

  coincidence of encountering

  a good story on the eve of

  a national holiday (the as-

  pect of today where I live)

  that can catch one happily

  off guard. Suddenly, left-

  overs in the fridge will

  be perfectly OK, and head-

  lines learn their place. I

  didn't say, a good book,

  for that is an assertion

  vulnerable to alternative

  facts. I said a good story.

  Here's one, unless you're

  a buffalo. It's online, but

  I like the textures and the

  shadings of the page.

At least that's over

The enormous advantage of the discipline

of history, when compared with the com-

pulsions of journalism, is that no one's

picking winners and losers in the turns

of human events. Yesterday's winner, the

historian is relieved not to have to say,

was a President of the United States who

had the presence of mind to head out for

a round of golf, as the National Cathed-

ral, that ostensibly Episcopal place of

worship, was given over as Westminster

Abbey was, 21 years ago this week, to a

festival of revenge for the dead. Earl

Spencer in the pulpit, damning enemies

named and lewdly implied, did not out-

do the mourners of the man in the box;

and history records he was applauded,

in the righteous zeal with which media

critics of the President teased him for

being ostracized. As Groucho Marx re-

marked of a country club that invited

him, it obviously wasn't worth joining.

I think our perspective on the American

President is sufficiently established,

by now, to allow the plain verdict that

he certainly won that round, not to be

tainted by fainting spells of umbrage.

Her Majesty had always been right: the

occasion called for introspective grief.

Every sacred pretext for the obsequies

was smashed and trashed, and an entire,

institutionally obligated, if exploited

congregation's respects traduced, by a

festival of recrimination in the guise

of a Requiem, beneath the Cross and in

the presence of innocent servicemen, of

God and of country. Shame seems not to

live here anymore. To be a historian! 

Instead of witnessing that. Who hasn't

the President hauled down to his level?

Wiktor Sudol