Suppose it were Friday clxx: Or Kashmir

Now and again, at various hours 

of a day, it can be entirely pos-

sible for an active mind to won-

der what it's doing in Virginia.

We remark on this as lightly as

we can, who hold any equity in

our residence, but you can read

it, where our trousers wrinkle

and in the occasional irregular

nail. Friday focuses the matter.

The problem of Pakistan-envy, a

not unprevalent risk of Fridays,

is every bit as delicate to dis-

cuss. Merely to envision a soci-

ety where sectarian prejudices

are not only indulged, but pos-

itively fellated, and ethnic di-

versity the very stuff of target

practice by every practicable

means, is to restore the innoc-

uous traditionalist in Everyman

to the full, upright position.

What could be more natural, to

propose, in exchange for one

nicely armed afternoon in Kash-

mir, the transfer of one black-

face Governor and incorrigibly

belligerent Lt Governor, inde-

finitely? We could even sweet-

en the deal with our HQ offices

of the NRA, intractable heroic

statuary, and Falwellian "uni-

versity," without overpaying.

But then the spell is broken,

and the Virginian realizes he

has nothing to be anxious for,

no basis for Pakistan envy, af-

ter all. There are some 1,200

Methodist Churches in Virginia.

Charlie Heaton

West of Sunset

The capacity of a photograph to stir

instant recognition of time and place

isn't specific to photography and, to

hear many tell it, isn't even worthy.

Possibly the photograph allows time

and place to escape into permission

elsewhere to be valued. This lenity

is also not specific to photography.

So, it's the low coastal range in a

classic melting haze, the ample ten-

nis whites, and the molded chair by

Charles Eames that lift the seal of

memory for refreshment to be taken.

                  All it lacked, really, were the

                  reminding bells from countless

                  steeples at dawn and at sunset,

                  and at moments throughout the 

                  day. On the other hand, at the

                  age which he had managed to reach

                  in comparative comfort, he was

                  perfectly happy not to be remind-

                  ed, that time, his time, was pass-

                  ing. Uncomfortably quickly.

                   

Criterion has refurbished Visconti's

film of Death in Venice, in time for

permissions to extend to its escape.

Charles Eames

Chair in bent wood

Los Angeles, ca 1950

Dirk Bogarde

West of Sunset

Penguin Books, 1984©

Sunday nibbled sleeve v: Machine for living?

     

I probably would have answered,
language, if Le Corbusier hadn't
claimed that title for architec-
ture - possibly even more narrow-
ly, for residence. Frank Gehry's
going to be 90 this week, and it
feels as if music is exerting a
claim upon that linkage between
mechanism and being, if only be-
cause of his identification with
buildings of concert performance. 

A remarkable collaboration between
musicians and linguists, perform-
ers and builders, Berlin's Boulez
Saal is Gehry's most dynamically
adaptable concert hall, and here
is where the celebration will be.
One does like to think it could
be anywhere, but architecture is
the machine for being in place.
American schoolboys will recall
the duality celebrated in Henry
Adams at Chartres, of the Virgin
and the Dynamo. This is building.
The subject will still be music.

Daniel Barenboim
  & Martha Argerich
Boulezsaal, Berlin

St Paul's School library
Druries House links

Cameron Dallas
  x Fabien Kruszelnicki

Mindfulness? Wellness? Seamanship?

Playing fair.

Valéry Lorenzo

Voilier

2013

Exclusive sighting of Bottom in Executive Time

How Bottom, in Executive Time, holes up in his manse in contemplation of his foxy Queen Titania and friends, brooding upon his Fate at the hands of the Faux Monnayeurs of their dreamworld, has become a staple of the world's curiosity, for the kinky reason that he has a twitchy thumb. It was with relief, therefore, that they heard he was no longer especially concerned about the nuclear proliferation he so excited the world about on the Korean peninsula, and indeed was entirely content about it on the Arabian one. That left, miraculously, only pesky Counterfeiters of news, and un-nuclear horror for his pet zealot to conjure.

What news of Bottom, and his anxious lower border?

  Who can dream of making light of

  Fox News' pixie dust, after trans-

  forming our endearing Bottom into

  an Ass for all to see, reduced to

  striking menacing postures to the

  delight of their viewership, even

  to the disquiet of their nemesis,

  the undistracted gaze of history;

  how shall his Queen Titania still

  find reason to tickle his ears?

Queensland Ballet
2016

Origins of Wednesday lxxxviii: Consent or custom?

The intriguing defense of Virginia's

Lt Gov (the office doesn't really use 

the orthographic space it occupies),

to a couple of pressing complaints of

sexual assault, is that the encounters

were "consensual." To have any experi-

ence with life is to possess enough ex-

perience with assault to blow that re-

tort out of the water with one simple

question: how the heck would you know?

I give you the circumstance, of submit-

ting to the custom of the towel snap

on the fanny in the locker room, the

mussing of one's hair before class,

even (hypothetically) the tummy grab

from behind, as yielding to horseplay

as good-naturedly as the setting seems

to demand. But setting and submitting

aren't consenting, and the Lt Gov is

not any likelier to forge that equation

in his pending testimony, than a jury

is to lack experience of assault. Dis-

tinguishing volition from consequence

is akin to counting a ballot without

gerrymandering its frame. He'll learn.

Stella Tennant x Cathleen Naundor

2013

John Koch

1909 - 1978

After the Sitting

Sunday nibbled sleeve iv: Governor Northam's therapy campaign

Briefly to recapitulate, for readers

blessed to have been comatose last

week, the Governor of Virginia, hav-

ing been publicly convulsed in con-

trition for posing in a group port-

rait favoring Ku Klux Klan violence

and minstrel show standards of equal

protection, recanted on the following

news cycle, and denied that he had

any idea where the picture came from.

With that, he announced he would ig-

nore the interests of Virginians, his

Party, and his own ostensible prin-

ciples, and cling to his Office with

the tenacity of the tick he may be.

The subsequent exposure, within hours,

of his successor as a serial sexual

assailant, and of his successor as an-

other racially confused vessel of e-

quality (if not in marital rights),

has somewhat reinforced the Governor's

barricading of himself in Office, much

to the 24/7 employment of poll-takers,

to quantify the damage before it hits.

The interval has emboldened Mr Northam

to attain a new level of ridiculousness,

and sink to an unimagined low of divis-

iveness, by vowing as unctuously as any

caricature of Uriah Heap to commit him-

self to what he wouldn't know if it hit

him in the solar plexus, racial equity,

for the rest of his livelong daze as Gov-

ernor. Seldom has the chaos of a politi-

cian's contrition so spontaneously ren-

ovated the urgent priorities of policy

in his domain, to suit a program of ef-

facing a sordid, sodden sense of guilt,

which his resignation could do for free.

And yet, who can forget the example of

Brutus' funeral oration for Caesar, re-

vealing a glittering upside to grief?

But even Brutus didn't blame the State.

According to Ralph Northam, it is more

urgent for Virginians to be conscript-

ed in his crusade for himself, than it

is for them to redress with their legis-

lators' sobriety and balance, the many

pressing opportunities and problems of

public policy in the Commonwealth. What

a dauntless idiot. As if repulsive in-

anity in his underlying conduct had not

made Virginians feel deceived enough, 

he offers the cure of heedless vanity.