"The Bicycle Thief" (1948) and "Play it Again, Sam" (1972)

Most motion pictures have a narrative, characters, and the illusion that the characters control the narrative. The formula entertains and encourages. In "The Bicycle Thief," circumstances---without forming a narrative---control the characters, who conform without the luxury to dissent. The picture articulates no lesson, but supplies a reading of a society's condition in the pre-sweatpants era. It reminds one to care about those whose lives do not add up to a poem, and whose interests are best served by a non-parochial community whose optimal design is still an open question.

The lucky able to be unable to conform have the option of advertising their deviation as the norm. Doing his own jokes and others' jokes, his own acting but without undoing that of the others (the film is directed by Herbert Ross), Woody Allen broadcasts a character who cannot be unless he sees himself reflected against the minds and bodies of others. He speculates in jokes to reap immediate returns (or embarrassments) instead of investing in ideas. His activity, however, helps his fellow characters appreciate their long-term goals.

"A Disappearing Number" by Simon McBurney (2007)

What makes the primeness of number 7 so real (to some) as to be comforting (to some) is the absolute and shared confidence in the law that 7 is a prime. Absolute confidence in a law is attainable when external consistency (i.e., applicability across time and space) is replaced by internal logical consistency, as occurs in mathematics. What constitutes the logical is a matter of instinct, and is perceived as the beautiful. By pursuing the beautiful one pursues knowledge---in addition to gratification---as the concepts of the logical and the beautiful share their aesthetic origins. In creative work, the acute sense of beauty can replace the foresight of the relevance of one's creations.

Individuals will acknowledge proved mathematical laws to be true as long as the individuals' inborn concepts of beauty are similar. The mathematical truth is a property of the brain in the same way as the physical truth is a property of the outside world. An individual has the sense of control over experiments in mathematics that does not apply to experiments in physics---which justifies the distinction between mathematics and physics, for now.

"The Finkler Question" by Howard Jacobson (2010)

One island, one city, one employer, one way to succeed, and one way to perish leave only private ruminations to differentiate one failure from another. The novel's one-liners are funny at first, but wear off as they subordinate the narrative and substitute for substance, instead of being the inevitable expressions of wit. Jacobson's novel is as repetitive as its endorsement by Safran Foer, on the front cover. By page 107, the novel ceases to exist.

Death of a Salesman

(Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 30 October 2010)

The Salesman mistakes the symptoms of others' successes (e.g., connections and popularity) for causes (e.g., perseverance, talent, and specialisation). He passes today's opportunities for tomorrow's deceptively certain uncertainties. His main accomplishment is in having raised a question. The search for an answer may require more than a single generation. One should recognise the significance of having raised the question enough so as not to kill oneself for a wrong reason.

What an odd habit of taking pride in one's children, instead of enjoying their companionship, when applicable, or, otherwise, discarding them, if legal. What an odd habit of looking up to one's parents instead of exercising one's own judgement. The main virtue of the state's social welfare system is in disengaging families and freeing individuals to develop their talents in the company of strangers.

How much like robots humans are. And yet, having appreciated that fact, one cares about them even more.

The players are uniformly competent. Joseph Ziegler does not invest his character, the "small man" salesman Willy, with excessive substance (e.g., an inkling of an answer). Ari Cohen has the versatility required for portraying Biff, who cannot be copied off a catalogued type.

Social Network, The (2010)

There is no greater impetus for creativity than anger, attests the latest picture from the land where all the women are good looking, all the men are accomplished, all the children are over eighteen, and all the animals contribute to human well-being without sustaining injuries. Nor is there a surer recipe for success than persevering, retaining friends, and remaining a gentleman.

"Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics" by Nick Herbert (1987)

One shall believe not that which is most comforting and not that which is most probable, but that which is most likely to generate those testable hypotheses that will facilitate the eventual discovery of truth. Believing otherwise is myopia and selfishness at the expense of posterity.

ProArteDanza

(Harbourfront Centre, 9 October 2010)

Roberto Campanella and Robert Glumbek study ideas, expressed in the form whose beauty humans are best capable of appreciating---that of bodies, perceived as individuals, given meaning by their environment. Ideas migrate, individuals meet; ideas spread, groups form; ideas clash, individuals suffer the collateral damage. Ideas do not survive in a single individual for long; they are harnessed in competition with others' ideas.

Broadcasting ideas without an audience is the last resort in desperation, sad and ugly. Instead, the choreographers respectfully let their dancers listen to each other. The bodies realise that each of them is enslaved by an itinerant idea. An efficient carrier of ideas, an individual sometimes supports others only in order to crash them with greater glory in future. Mostly, however, an individual supports others when not recognising the difference between the others and himself. The dancers' bodies forgive and care for each other, as if conscious of each other's transience (humbled by the potential immortality of the ideas that they carry) and cherishing their moments of capacity. They respect by giving each other's ideas a chance.

Maa: A Ballet by Kaija Saariaho

(Miller Theatre, 25 September 2010)

The prevailing laws of physics, which make life possible, are highly improbable. Even though any other, potential, universe would seem unrecognisable to us, statistically it may deviate minimally from ours. Often, contemporary art represents such potential notions of beauty, plausible and minimally different from the received notion---but ugly. Ugly art helps one understand the native by portraying the foreign. Such art is akin to a poem submitted for publication by a skilful alien, unaware that his language resembles C++ more than English. Such an inhuman work makes a human appreciate the human---as Luca Veggetti's ballet does.

The dancers' movements are strained and serve no purpose. Why move at all? Perhaps, the bodies do not move by their own volition. The characters are absently self-absorbed. They move and touch out of habit, betraying no emotion. Their bodies are vacant. The sadness of the characters' situation is in their inability and unwillingness to fully utilise their bodies (the dancers' skill and effort notwithstanding).

When faced with such an alien production, one can try to appreciate the alien artist; one can even grant him  the benefit of the doubt by supposing that he finds the work beautiful, and, then, try to appreciate that beauty; or one can seek the missing component that is necessary for beauty. The attraction of the first and second alternatives in encounters with contemporary art is less than in encounters with foreign cultures; a culture has its constituency, a piece of art may not.

"Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality" by Manjit Kumar (2008)

Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Bohr, and Einstein each, with near-religious conviction, believed in his own version of reality, despite no experimental evidence could discriminate among them. The physicists' debate was not futile, however. Even though the application of existing knowledge is unaffected by the fiction behind equations, the advancement of future science is. Speculations about the unobserved reality help generate new hypotheses and prioritise pending experiments. Furthermore, even if, say, Heisenberg were unsure about the verity of his vision (which he, a scientist, must have been), the society would nonetheless want him to passionately advocate that vision, thereby encouraging others to harness their arguments.

"Red Plenty" by Francis Spufford (2010)

Many things in a society can go wrong; most do. It is a theory of why something ever goes right that is wanting---a theory without the air of Jane Austenesque inevitability to it. "Red Plenty" tells how coercion, intimidation, and delusion can dress, feed, educate, and house. The employed centralised control is liable to manipulation by all, including those lacking pro-social disposition. Hence, the requisite coördination should better be achieved by a minimally centralised system. Instead of being itself centrally imposed, the system must spread by contagion, through revolution or---most reliably---evolution.

Individual liberty not only prevents the wrong but also nourishes the right, as is best described in Chapter "Midsummer Night, 1962." Liberty enables the like-minded to identify and inspire each other.

Colorama

(George Eastman House, 18 September 2010)

"Alps Skiers with Airplane, Near the Matterphorn in Switzerland" (January 27--February 17, 1964). In her beskied husband's plain view, a beskied woman shoots her husband's best friend (skies erect), posing in front of a  smooth red-and-white aeroplane aiming at the woman and positioned at a slight angle to the barely spoilt sheets of snow below, creased in the background to form the pillows of a mountain range---Alps, apparently. All four involved maintain a gentlemanly distance and leave it to the redness of their fuselages to convey the intensity of their encounter. "Couple in Blossoms at Bronx Botanical Gardens" (February 19--March 11, 1968). A woman---a kodak in her hands---rests her eyes on a flower bed. A man seeks to relive the woman's emotion by gazing at the spot just exposed on her kodak's film. "Portuguese Fishing Village, Nazare, Portugal" (August 9--August 30, 1965). Soaked in a setting sun's warmth that only a glass of wine can furnish, an American couple, installed on a balcony overlooking the sea, frame the shared memories of what later will be identified as the footage of their designated dream.

When one would have kissed before, one has been stepping ten feet away and taking a picture since then. When one would have diverted the eyes and looked down before, one has been boldly aiming the camera and taking a picture since then. When one would have used a drink to appreciate the world in all its over-saturated tones before, one has been loading a film and releasing the shutter since then. One was in no obligation to live a dream any more, it was enough to look a dream when cued by a photographer.

Then, the over-saturated colours, elaborate hairdos, and grow-ups' clothes went out of style. Broadcasting oneself---free from one's dream---took over amateur photography.

Robin and the 7 Hoods

(The Old Globe Theatre, 12 August 2010)

The plot celebrates the twentieth century Robin Hoods---the independent media, especially television. The musical does not innovate. It reliably entertains with the traditional. The first act is saturated with songs sung too closely and with one-liners spoken too quickly---often leaving no room for acting. When present, acting betrays Broadway training. The musical numbers are contrived, but mostly one delights in how cleverly contrived they are.

As soon as the first words of "Come Fly with Me" are sung by Little John Dante (played by Will Chase), the audience senses the irony, suspends its breath, and hopes that John's fiancee (played by Amy Spanger) will not detect the insencerety betrayed by his employment of the off-the-shelf standard. John recognises the precariousness of his situation, and realises that the audience does so (and, possibly, that the audience realises that he realises). The song's salsa segment is expertly done. So is the scene on the plane; the flight attendants' moaning approaches the grotesque but never trespasses it.

"Endpoint" by John Updike (2009)

Poetry produces intensity from precision, parsimony, and sometimes rhyme. Forced rhyme compromises sincerity. Absent rhyme often signals self-obsessed ramblings of a feeble mind---unlike Updike's. Rhyme slipped nonchalantly---mid-sentence, mid-stanza---punctuates thought the way only the spoken word can, thus giving thoughts physical expression. Broken lines and split sentences are spurious pauses. They discourage the reader from racing through the seamless verse. A poem is akin to a music score; it must be spoken to be appreciated fully.

When one is receptive of confession, Updike's poetry infects one with the capacity for the thought-soaked feeling. The poems' intensity (the better ones', at any rate), however, prevents them from captivating a distracted mind. Prose, with its more nuanced intensity, is better at winning the reader's confidence and nurturing his pensive mood.

Yves Saint Laurent: Rétrospective

(Petit Palais, 17 July 2010)

An individual is remembered for an impeccable final product---not a concept, not a prototype. It takes talent to see the possible. It takes genius to recognise the indispensable in the possible, and to see it through. Yves Saint Laurent recognised as indispensable the trouser suit known possible at least since Marlene Dietrich. He introduced dresses animated by women, instead of designing dresses defining women, who, in turn, would hope that no one else would be able to afford the same definition. Yves Saint Laurent's dress is a vocabulary, bound with dignity.

With the emergence of mass production, individual creativity replaces purchased creativity. It is not enough to hang art. To distinguish oneself, one must be art. Inhabiting an elegant dress is a helpful induction.

On mannequins, dresses tell more than they do on photographs or screen. One can see them in low light (uncharitable to cameras) as they are intended to be seen---at a ball, at night. One can see them close-up, in three dimensions, appreciate their texture and volume. Only then dresses, as sculptures, come to life.

Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève

(Palais Royal, 16 August 2010)

It has taken Alfred Hitchcock twelve hours to set up the scene in the flower shop in "Vertigo." The scene is less than a minute of the film. This is all one must know about the creation of art in order to appreciate it. "Jours étranges" insists on telling substantially more. It puts the creation of art into the perspective of life. The result is neither art nor life, but fundamental science---as opposed to engineering. The result is a model, not a final product. The model's value is in teaching the audience to recognise art and to avoid artless life.

"So schnell" subtracts from the conventional art form element after element: music, grace, narrative. The exercise helps the viewer define his own boundaries of art and of beauty. Beauty is economy, purpose, and communication. When intentional, beauty is art. A dance without music (as a poem without rhyme) can be art---liberated, uncompromisingly precise, and direct.

Often, however, a choreographer benefits from the discipline imposed by music. Music reminds dancers to coördinate with each other because they must coördinate with music. Harmony in music (as rhyme in poetry) enables the viewer to anticipate imminent moves, thus turning the viewer into a collaborator. Anticipation amplifies movement by making it seem inevitable. The inevitability distinguishes dance from sport.

All My Sons

(Apollo Theatre, 26 June 2010)

Each aspires to dignity, none is obviously mistaken, each treats others unequally. All are human, which is unacceptable to some characters.

Not knowing or unable to practice the second-best strategy in life, one can resort to the safest strategy, integrity. (Which is also the first-best one.) Integrity requires constrained selflessness, which is unconstrained selfishness.

It is hard to forgive a friend's or a relative's offence, as such an offence is aggravated by the concomitant deception, without which the offence would have been anticipated. It is harder still to forgive one's own self-deception, which exposes the disturbing lack of control over one's own life, not just the lives of others.

An ideal society is not that which creates no temptation, but that which allows for temptation but teaches individuals to overcome it when they would benefit from doing so. Teaching requires forgiveness. Because individuals differ, for some, freedoms will be excessive and punishments too harsh, and their lives' value will lie in the lessons to others. The society evolves as its members learn---through arts, education, and lucky encounters.

The actors convey the passion without forcing the characters to appear extrovert. Voices are raised only infrequently, to emphasise an idea, never to broadcast an emotion. The assumed accents, consistent across players, emerge from characters, not from actors.

For two hours, the actors live on stage. It is hard to live the life of a bad man (unless this is the live of one's own). Hence, out of necessity, each actor has crafted a good, rich life to portray. When these lives clash, no amplification is required.

A character must be more subtle than the audience expects him to be. Subtlety creates suspense, makes the audience think and thus contribute to the play. In the Arthur Miller's minimalist play, much of the subtlety is created by the actors (David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker) and the director (Howard Davies).

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1926)

Gatsby—the man that he thought the woman he loved thought he was—was mistaken, owing to his not-yet “thinning briefcase of enthusiasm’’ (unlike that of the novel’s narrator), the flourishes of New York, and the insufficiency of his five-months’ overseas education.

The novel reads as a movie script waiting to be animated. The characters engage neither individually nor as a class. They are no class. Foreigners to the East, they are attracted to New York by its conspicuous features, which often are its most superficial ones. The characters' failings point not at a class, but at the lack of due diligence in the era of National newspapers, large-scale frauds, and affordable travel.

Singing on the River

(Trinity College Cambridge, 6 June 2010)

Melancholy shuns neither misery nor comfort. In misery, it inspires despair; in comfort, it inspires beauty. Despair is forgotten, beauty is immortal. He who finds comfort may live on through beauty, in songs centuries old, in voices young and happy.

The White Guard

(The National Theatre, 22 May 2010)

The play lacks character---not just Russian or Ukrainian one, but any. Russian pensiveness is replaced by verbosity. Familial and friendship relationships appear shallow, hence arbitrary. Protagonists have been assigned accents (English, Scottish, Swiss) that do not help delineate the play's geographic or social divisions, if any. Instead of illustrating past concerns that remain relevant today, the production imputes present anxieties to past characters.

The play is a warning against the intoxicating, addictive simplicity of war. The play's civil war is dispensable; it could have been replaced by an election. Even though some wars are indispensable (given the prevailing institutions), the damage inflicted by all wars on witnesses and their descendants has never been fully accounted for when deciding whether to war. The distinction between desertion and voting is blurred.

The Habit of Art

(The National Theatre, 14 May 2010)

The tragedy of being able to speak, having nothing to say, and yet being listened to---it afflicts the play's characters and implicates its playwright. Death, the protagonist, is gradual; it bares life, but does not corrupt it---for the lives of the dying have long been appropriated by the living. Even if others---living or dead---are not what one wishes they were, they deserve credit for being what makes one wish they were what they are not.

"Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Truman Capote (1958)

Open-mindedness enriches routine, in Truman Capote's book. In Blake Edwards's insipid film, mindlessness exaggerates luck. Life's complexity disappoints those exhilarated by cinematic short-cuts. Yet, the disappointed rarely blame movies for their condition.

A theatre production or a movie, made and watched collectively, is designed to synchronously evoke shared emotions---typically, uplifting ones, as individuals seek company in joy and seclusion in grief. The requisite commonality degrades the production of an incapable director. A book, received in solitude, welcomes the nuance, which would wane at a séance.

A good book, too, misrepresents, as no intelligent author of good taste can bear late nights of exploring the mind of an unintelligent protagonist of poor taste. Misrepresentation advances art. Truman Capote's misrepresentations are consistent and intelligent.

Capote captures the essence of the traveller's attitude. Keep moving until you feel at home. ("I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together.") Recognise friends in strangers. ("For I was in love with her. Just as I'd once been in love with my mother's elderly coloured cook and a postman who let me follow him on his rounds and a whole family named McKendrick.") Be true to a goal. ("That's how your stories sound. As though you'd written them without knowing the end.")

"A Mathematician's Apology" by G.H. Hardy (1940)

In mathematics, there is no political correctness, just correctness. A mistake is unlikely to offend or mislead many and for long. Hardy writes as one states mathematical conjectures: clearly, confidently, irreverently.

Mathematics is a young men's game. Most games are. But the ageing of one's mind need not entail an abrupt withdrawal from creation, and hence from life. Even if having practised mathematics has initiated a now retired mathematician into the beauty that is unmatched in other pursuits, he can still devote the remainder of his life to cultivating beauty in the non-mathematical world. Literature differs from mathematics only in degree, not substance. Flaws in the argument are easier to detect in mathematics. Literature's value resembles that of a mathematical conjecture with a proof sketch: possibly false, definitely incomplete, but inspiring. (Poetry is a conjecture without a proof sketch.)

Hardy denies to pure mathematics any utility other than its aesthetic pleasure, shared with art. Even though once-pure mathematics eventually finds practical applications, these unforeseen applications do not motivate pure mathematicians. Beauty, escapism, and competition do. A beautiful theorem is beautiful in its statement and in its proof, which link simply hitherto disparate ideas. An escape into mathematics is more credible than an escape into art. In art, one invents a world. In mathematics, one dreams of a world and then proves its existence.

The lucid minds who seek inapplicable beauty are not wasted. One would not wish to arrest the mutation of genes just because the natural selection were not forward-looking. Similarly, one should not arrest the work of a pure mathematician just because he is unable to foresee its applications. Insistence on applications will discourage him, instead of convincing him to change his topic or occupation.

"The noblest ambition is that of leaving behind one something of permanent value." Hardy believes that one can leave something of value only by associating one's name with a discovery. But name-recognition is not necessary for immortality. One can contribute to a civilization by enriching the lives of others in trite, anonymous ways, which will enable others to discover.

Hardy derides expositors and critics. Yet, a mathematical proof is the exposition of a theorem's statement. Intuition for a proof is its criticism, which can be viewed unfavourably, as the proof's corruption for the sake of the illusion of understanding, or favourably, as a puzzle explaining some steps in the proof and leaving intermediate steps to the reader. Even if criticism is the work of second-rate minds, it enables third-rate minds glimpse the beauty that would have otherwise been restricted to first-rate minds.

The Glass Menagerie

(Cambridge Arts Theatre, 17 April 2010)

The comfort of resignation is deceptive. The emotionally fragile but sane should not be housed together, in order not to aggravate their condition. The housing prescription must be observed most forcefully in families, where the shared melancholy disposition and the distrust for the outside world lead to the preservation of the streak that otherwise would have either killed or made its lonely bearer stronger---which is the risk worth taking.

"Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth" by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou (2009)

Madness is perseverance misapplied. Necessary to discover logical insights, perseverance—when applied to emotions and not moderated by reason—magnifies the emotions into madness. Madness is also in holding the outside world to the standards of certitude satisfied only by the world of one's imagination (e.g., mathematics, literature, music). Madness is the inability to accept ambiguity. The fear of madness is the fear of getting discouraged by the chasm between the desired and the attainable.

Knowledge progresses in two directions. Logic derives new implications of existing axioms. Logic also deduces the existing axioms from more elementary ones---or challenges their appeal. In social matters, axioms are tastes, selected by assessing the appeal of their implications, by introspection, and by analysing the lives of others.

Education consists in alerting individuals to axioms' malleability, in teaching to derive inferences from axioms, and in showing the limit of these inferences by pointing out that even a well-defined language can generate truths unprovable in that language. The existence of unprovable truths invites one to live, not just derive, one's life. If even mathematics must be an experimental science (i.e., computer science), so must be every intellectual pursuit.

"The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger (1951)

Money helps one economise on thinking just as it spares one from housework. The poor learn to distinguish the nuances of a good's quality and to analyse their own tastes so as to identify a bargain. By contrast, the rich exploit the association between higher prices and higher quality, and channel thus conserved mental exertion into more rewarding pursuits. The habit of relying on that association, however, can leave transactions insufficiently examined when prices are dominated by social conventions and status, which may be irrelevant for many. Holden Caulfield is benevolently neglected by his parents, who buy him expensive education without trying it on first and then overlook the inflicted blisters.

The importance of wealth in helping isolate oneself from disagreeable strangers must not be underestimated. The wealth of the Western world accounts for its peace, which prevails not only because wealth educates and raises the losses from conflicts, but also because wealth makes it easier to be tolerant---by having insulated oneself from the tolerable.

For Caulfield, however, family wealth is a poor point of departure. His wealth compels to conform, expands choices but does not inform of their consequences, suggests anarchy as the sole cure where a less wealthy would apply hard work. Ascending the social ladder confers the responsibilities that can be overlooked by those born at the top. Caulfield squanders money in order to descend to the position from which he would feel comfortable starting.

Intelligent, perceptive, and immature, Caulfield is a critic who has not yet become an artist, which would require kindness, in addition to his tolerance of bores and beauties. He lacks kindness to those who are kind to him---whatever their motivation: politeness, unrequited love, or the expectation of profit. He needs the society of multiple generations and social classes---not just his peers---in order to motivate his creativity. His character requires nurturing that is informed by more than just the prices of various boarding schools.

The adult Caulfield would think as the teenage Caulfield does, but more abstractly. The task of a successful civilization is not to break a rebel, but to accommodate him profitably.

It takes maturity to appreciate the division of individual efforts contributing to the civilization and to realise that often one can help more individuals in more substantial ways by acting indirectly, sometimes impersonally. Mr Antolini, Caulfield's teacher: "But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they're brilliant and creative to begin with---which, unfortunately, is rarely the case---tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And---most important---nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker."

"Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction" by John Polkinghorne (2002)

John Polkinghorne asserts that the realism---as opposed to positivism---of science must be true because many talented researchers presumably must believe in it, or else they would not be motivated to do science. But the theories' realism, an ontological notion, must be unaffected by the researchers' beliefs. Besides, the largely universal demise of the derogatory view of positivism---the view that much pre-dated positivism---is responsible for providing many with the living conditions above the subsistence level. Technological and social progress must surely suffice to motivate researchers to perfect their ability to predict correlation.

Correlation is reality. To predict is to understand. Ontological questions not only do not merit answers---they do not exist.

Why must there be greater pleasure in discovering what "is" (suppose "is" were meaningful) than in discovering correlations? When one wins a lottery, one delights in having correlated his prediction with the lottery's realization. One's delight would not be amplified if one understood the mechanism of this correlation (here, a mere chance). One's enjoyment of music is unaffected by the knowledge of the physics of sound. (The knowledge of physics, however, can be a separate source of enjoyment, perhaps, because one has an intrinsic taste for predicting the future and deducing the past.)

The stories behind equations are mnemonics, not reality. The stories are elected pagan gods, employed by scientists to animate measurements and to amuse.

At any rate, the reality imputed to quantum physics is not of the most attractive kind. "An electron does not all the time possess a definite position or a definite momentum, but rather possesses the potentiality for exhibiting one or other of these if a measurement turns the potentiality into actuality." This is too of an anthropocentric reality to be appealing. According to another interpretation, "one should acknowledge that everything that can happen does happen." (The emphasis is in the original.) This reality's observer is not self-effacing either; he multiplies with the reality in order to observe the electron in each of its possible states. Richard Feynman's interpretation is least unattractive: "one should picture a quantum particle as moving from A to B along all possible paths, direct or wriggly, fast or slow." (The emphasis is in the original.)

Believing in reality, however, is a harmless habit. If the belief pleases the scientist and makes him work free, then it should be disturbed only with the greatest of respects.

"The Man Who Was Thursday" by G.K. Chesterton (1908)

The novel postulates an inherent merit in suffering, as if suffering entitles one to happiness, as if a universal law of the conservation of suffering holds. If such a law held, then the systematic (though not uniform) increase in the well-being of the world's poor would forebode the attrition of happiness reserved for the after-world---to the chagrin of the novel's characters.

If suffering earns one respect in the eyes of one's enemies---as the novel suggests---then why do not the pursuits of pleasure or of sin do so as well? Whence the asymmetry? Self-inflicted suffering is only excusable if it is an unwelcome by-product of aspiring to happiness or of an error. Otherwise, self-inflicted suffering is cowardice.

Luckily, the novel's characters appear to be more entertained than suffering---which is, perhaps, because the novel has been designed to be approved for all audiences.

New York Philharmonic New Year’s Eve Concert with Thomas Hampson

(Avery Fisher Hall, 31 December 2009)

The soloist, Thomas Hampson, keeps a distance between himself, a baritone opera singer, and the characters that he voices. Even when the distance is minimal (as in Cole Porter's "Where is the Life that Late I Led?"), the voice comes across foremost as a musical instrument, only then as an individual.

In symphony orchestras, in contrast to jazz bands, players take no visible initiative in creating the mood; only the conductor innovates. Furthermore, bound by tradition, the conductor innovates minimally, without changing the arrangement. Hence, it may be too much to expect Alan Gilbert to improvise and swing it in every work, but more passion in his interpretations would be admissible. Adherence to the tradition was entirely appropriate, however, in the Yuletide hymn, conducted by Gilbert and sung by all present to conclude the night.

Porter and Gershwin, two of the three featured composers, have become most American by trying not to be such and failing at it. In the programme, their work outshines most of Copeland's, except his song "Simple Gifts."

Chris Botti

(Blue Note, 1 January 2010)

Excessive percussions often dominate the piano. Intimacy is disturbed by amplification. The last song, "One for My Baby," benefits from being performed by just a piano and a trumpet, without amplification. The evening, however, is redeemed by Chris Botti's gentlemanly solos and duos.

Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans

(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2 January 2010)

Robert Frank’s “The Americans” is photography of a family man content not to seek beauty, which no longer must be conquered, and capable of pondering ugliness, amid which he does not have to live. It is instructive to see homely faces populate the 1950s. Most other images of that era come from Hollywood, where stars were bred carefully, and extras were aspiring starlets.

The faces of Frank’s subjects, aware of the photographer, reflect as much the photographer’s personality as the subjects’. Photography, like staring, intrudes. In the 1950s—when a typical photographer would have been a middle-aged moustached man with a camera that few could afford, not a teenage Asian girl with an indestructible cell phone—unsolicited photography must have been a greater affront than it is today.

Frank’s photographs do not reveal what is unique about each photographed subject. Perhaps nothing is, consistent with the travelogue’s message of uniform misery. Or perhaps individuality, whose elicitation is an art, has been intentionally omitted from Frank’s photojournalism in order to document what is common to Americans and to understate that which differentiates them.

Most disturbing in Robert Frank’s photographs is neither the poverty nor the estrangement of his subjects, but rather their apparent lack of purpose. Religious symbols do not engage. Funerals, marriages, and family life appear to be more influenced by the past experiences of others than by the freshness of one’s own experience.