"Lady in the Lake" by Raymond Chandler (1943)

A work of art is a message, from a stranger, that makes one feel not alone. In order to achieve this effect of shared humanity, art must project a personality. Personalities do not aggregate well. A crowd is an example. The challenges of aggregation is the reason why novels are typically written single-handedly, whereas science and engineering are practised in groups.

Aggregation is more likely to be successful when dominated by a strong leader projecting his own vision of humanity. Film directors create this way. Steve Jobs produced this way. Whether a gadget is art depends on whether a user when granted exclusive access to this gadget feels less lonely---without feeling less conscious. (The exclusive access rules out the effect of belonging to a community of users.)

Nature is not an artist. Art is permeated by a concern for humanity. Nature is uninterested.

Art---like pure mathematics---is a product of irrational obsession with perfection. The irrationality is in the inputs' incommensurability with the artist's rewards and, perhaps, even with the benefit to his contemporaries. The insufficiency of rewards can stem from the artist's stubborn neglect of public demands or from superior vision. (In this sense, Jobs's creative process was artistic.)

A novel approaches perfection when the novelist lives through it, instead of suspending living in order to write. Such a novelist invests his work with as much creativity as he would apply to his living. One writes instead of living when one is constrained in circumstances or time, when one wants to see actions' consequences without the fog of responsibility, when one has no audience for one's living, or when one craves for a linear narrative.

Art is a message from a stranger. So solitary living is not art (even when the messages are sent to one's future selves). Public living can be.

Java's at Gibbs St

Unframed, uncut, absent but duly made up, conversant unshaven, shaven and missing, slouching and diving and surfing distracted, attractive no more or never attractive, tuned in absent-mindedly, lacking a story.

The high cheekbones and the sharp chin balance the broad jaws, partially veiled by the waves of hair, long and fair. The expansive face, when inanimate, suggests that much of it shall remain unemployed or be abused when expression is attempted. Not so.

The forehead elevates the eyebrows in wonder. The cheeks are plump; the mouth is delicate; both conspire into a smile that compliments. The face lights up, tentatively, not unconditionally. In a conversation, each feature is attended by emotion. Youth accommodated, happiness unexamined, intelligence spontaneous, sincerity. Naïveté?

Sipping from a plastic cup and listening to a jazz band; typing an essay with one and adjusting the spectacles with the other hand; knitting out of defiance or habit, and chatting, to the syncopated beat (with elements of truth in it).

Some bellied and suited—mostly at lunch. Some tarnished and hooded—few such. Some human, some trying.

Houseboat (1958)

For some solution to exist, all problems ought not to be dismissed. Mistakes hurt less if one is considerate and well-dressed. The moments that are duller, memories censor or revive in Technicolor. Any loss in precision is offset by VistaVision. When the world slows down and reality can almost get it---art does not let it.

"Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson (2011)

A movie is complete without a manual explaining the director's choices. A movie's biography is redundant. A person's biography is not. Few shoot a picture, and hence few must know how to produce one. Each lives a life.

One reads a biography of a prominent individual, not of a representative individual, for the same reason that one seeks the correct guess for an equation's solution, not a representative guess. Most read novels; some collect experiences and write novels; the lucky ones live novels, later collected into biographies.

In order to contribute to the civilization, one must target a minority. Pleasing a majority will lead to superficial results---unless one is a genius. Woody Allen heeds the public opinion just enough to allow him to produce the movies that he wants to see. The genius of Hitchcock was in pleasing a majority while staying true to his ideals.

It is a peculiar presumption that a company can be run by someone other than a CEO passionate about its products. The concept of the portability of a CEO (or a government minister) seems implausible.

To give to charity is to dictate how the resources whose consumption one forgoes be allocated. One's entitlement to consumption emerges from the wealth amassed through labour and, occasionally, through expropriation by means of the exercise of monopoly power. The one who chooses to exercise monopoly power and to donate to charity thereby claims that he can divert resources more wisely than those whom he expropriates. Often, this is the case. That is how and why governments collect taxes. The refusal to donate to charity is an admission that one is no wiser than others at allocating resources to charitable causes.

Having once knowingly supplied an addictive substance---human attention---one is responsible for administering---or withdrawing, if that is in the recipient's long-term interest---this substance in future. To the extent that having money is a matter of choice, not giving money is no more immoral than not having money. Mostly, however, relative affluence is due to the accidents of birth and upbringing, and dispensing money is hard to disentangle from dispensing attention.

An individual is successful if he is talented and fits well into one of the existing social structures. A society is successful if it contains diverse social structures. Thriving arts is a symptom of such diversity.

An artist has an irrational compulsion. Compulsion may or may not lead to brilliance, depending on whether one has talent. Compulsive creativity is the inability to accept the civilization as it is. Artistic creativity is the expression of tastes that are shared by others, but initially unrecognised by them. By experiencing stronger and thinking harder than others do, artists teach beauty by helping others discover their preferences.

An entrepreneur can help a consumer discover what the consumer desires, or can create a want where there has been none. Both modes can be profitable. Philosophers are entrepreneurs of the former kind; they help an individual discover his desires for the objects that cannot be traded, such as various notions of equity and freedoms.

In the era of early personal computers, making them not intimidating was the primary challenge. Now, a major challenge is to make them non-addictive. With mobile gadgets, the addicts at least can move around, instead of being glued to their desktops. Moreover, conditionally on remaining addicted, it is better to be addicted to something that is good-looking and not destructive. Generation 2.0 do not drink, smoke, or take drugs---they get their fix from technology.

Latest gadgets are expensive. So is much of contemporary art, whose endurance is dubitable. In the same way as one gives the benefit of the doubt to young artists by buying their work, one supports innovation (in technology, design, and advertising) by adopting the latest gadgets. The fact that a gadget is cheap tomorrow does not mean that it is overpriced today; without the today's gadget, the tomorrow's gadget would be impossible. Intentionally or not, today's buyers (of gadgets, but not of biscuits) sponsor future generations' consumption.

The desire for a tool's simplicity is not the desire for domination. If a tool's submission pleased, well-designed tools would have a layer of illusive ergonomics, in addition to substantive ergonomics. Instead, a well-designed tool encourages respect by asking the user to make some sacrifices in order to acknowledge the tool's character. Ultimately, individuals find partnerships more gratifying than domination. In order to be successful, a tool need not pander to its user. 

Simplicity suggests that beauty and utility be combined. Some save money on a tool, used for most of the day, but splash on a little-appreciated painting, eventually deliberately neglected. Whereas the conscious mind gets accustomed to ugliness, the subconscious mind does not. In so far as some minimal level of material beauty must be enjoyed, one might as well derive this enjoyment in a parsimonious way---when using a tool.

Screws and seams distract from a tool's function. Any visible feature ought to help the user operate the tool, instead of supplying irrelevant information about the tool's construction. A visible screw cannot be simply neglected, as attention cannot be fully controlled. This limited self-control makes immersion into an activity appealing. A computer multi-tasks; a user is lucky if he tasks. The limited ability to customise a tool helps replace addictive tinkering by a productive activity, and teaches that some aspect of one's environment not only can be accepted painlessly, but also can teach something.

Marketing a lifestyle is wasteful if this marketing supplies prefabricated identities, instead of letting individuals cultivate identities based on productive activities. Marketing a lifestyle can be valuable, however, if the company's products nurture its employees' and customers' creativity. Furthermore, lifestyle advertising can be beneficial even when designed to sell bottled water, provided thus marketed identities displace the identities based on race, class, religion, or nationality.

Best open platforms resemble Manhattan. Best closed ones resemble Paris. In (early) Manhattan, a skyscraper aspires to outshine all others, disregarding the skyline. In Paris, architectural citizenship beats individual expression. The beauty of Paris gratifies, an thus indirectly promotes creativity. Manhattan directly rewards creativity, which occasionally begets beauty. The society does not have to choose among platforms, as long as individuals can. Few can choose among cities, but most can choose among operating systems. The growing relative importance of the latter choices, and the freedom with which these choices shall be made will eventually lead to the equality of material consumption---much of which will fit into the palm of ones hand.

"Romeo and Juliet" by the National Ballet of Canada

(Four Seasons Centre, 25 November 2011)

The plot of a silent film noir has been adapted for stage by Shakespeare, stripped of words by Prokofiev, animated by Ratmansky, and competently performed by the National Ballet company. An adaptation of an Oscar Wilde plot to Stravinsky or of "Le Cercle Rouge" to Berlin would be equally natural ballet projects. Nevertheless, the National Ballet have splashed on resuscitating "Romeo and Juliet."

Understatement works in life, on the screen, and in small spaces. Whether it can work also in an opera house cannot be determined by watching “Romeo and Juliet,” which does not deal in understatement. When characters are minimal, understatement is the appropriate mode to communicate the depth of their emotions, for any all-caps dancing would only reveal the shallowness of their intellect. Exuberant music, exaggerated movements and pantomime, and no variation in the intensity of the narrative prevent one from being immersed into the ballet.

It is hard to choreograph a five-minute dance. It is nearly impossible to choreograph an entire ballet. A twice-in-a-lifetime inspiration is required for that. That this inspiration would culminate in just another iteration on "Romeo and Juliet" seems improbable. The present iteration lacks class.

Some movements in the ballet seem to be stretched to the physical limit because the textbook has it so, not because the parts require it. So, there is no surprise and no relief in the discovered freedom when the dancers accomplish the superhuman. The moves' destinations are poorly marked and seem divorced from music, which is phrased clearer.

Sonia Rodriguez has a gymnast's physique and bearing, which suit well the character of the under-age Juliet. But to assume that the audience shall be interested in the character of the under-age Juliet is to stake the ballet's success on the success of its weakest element. Change the character, jazz up the music, kill the plot, un-Lego the choreography, cut, cut, and cut, and select the dancers who make for a plausible romantic duo (hint: use Elena Lobsanova and Guillaume Côté).

Often, to forget an inventor is to pay him a compliment. Best discoveries stimulate further improvements, which quickly overshadow the original. Thus, whether one believes that Shakespeare was any good, Shakespeare deserves to be improved upon and forgotten, as Aristotelian physics has been.

The bored orchestra seem outdated. In a pit, they create a barrier between the audience and the dancers. Technology amplifies individual creativity. There is no shortage of amplifiers to be compensated for by multiplying the number of resident musicians. Hiding artists in a pit is demeaning. So, use a recording. Or put the musicians on stage (they, not the dancers, are the stars of the "Dance with the Mandolins"), revise the music until the musicians enjoy being a part of it, and then make them the centrepiece of the performance.

It is a waste of dancers' talents to have four couples learn the protagonists' roles in order to perform for a fortnight. It is a waste of taxpayers' money to rehash an old ballet instead of innovating. It is a waste of classical musicians to tuck them into a pit. With patrons willing to pay for all that, the National Ballet can afford to assume some risk.

The Kingston Prize: Canada's National Portrait Competition

(Royal Ontario Museum, 25 November 2011)

The subjects in the exhibition's best paintings are artists' friends. In the paintings of William Lazos, Sean Yelland, and Richard Davis, the respect for the subjects translates into the respect for the viewer. The contemplation of friendship induces an artist to accentuate the positive in his friend and to portray him with dignity, thus producing an artistic contribution. The exhibition's worst paintings are mindless snapshots. Francis Fontaine and Michael Bayne rely on the mistaken premise that a raw emotion can be transformed into a thought without any intellectual effort.

Art scarcely needs ugliness---in part, because ugliness is ample outside art. In order to maintain a balanced outlook, an individual needs to experience a range of emotions, which art helps generate. But even when a gory image is required, the gore need not be ugly. More often than not, ugliness is the imprecision of expression. There is more art at the Bloor Street Starbucks than in some of the selected paintings.

Americans strive for an ideal and perfection---which sell well, and the market is large. The British strive for justice. Canadians strive for inclusion---or so it seems by inspecting the portraits selected by the jury, who fail to realise that their duty is to spot talent, not Canada. Besides, few included would appreciate what the chosen artists have deemed worthy of inclusion.

Partly as an unintended outcome of the portraits' selection, the gallery has the ambiance of a communal apartment, permeated by its inhabitants' routine resignation. This set-up does not do justice to individual artists. Better lighting would have brightened up the atmosphere.

An artist expresses himself in the medium in which he is most eloquent. A painter's comments on his work are bound to be inferior to his work, apart from being redundant for its appreciation. Besides, those who cannot interpret faces will come with a friend or a parent, or take a docent's tour, and will not gain from being instructed by the exhibition notes revealing whether a barmaid's countenance is glad or sad (neither, it turns out).

"Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman (2011)

In the book's first four parts, the catalogue of behavioural biases poses no intellectual challenge, in the same manner as one's inability to read a map poses no intellectual challenge. The remedy is either to educate oneself (e.g., to learn how to read the map) or to outsource some decisions (e.g., to use a GPS). It is the book's last, and the shortest, part which contains the contentious proposition that the interest of the experiencing self must have precedence over the interest of the remembering self (and, by analogy, perhaps also over the anticipating self). The proposition is tautological if one admits that memories constitute experiences, and is questionable otherwise. If one enjoys remembering stories, telling stories, and hearing stories, one may as well live in order to create stories. One aspires to a happy ending---however brief---for the same reason that one aspires to establish a possibility result, a proof of concept, a theorem, whose beneficiaries shall be anonymous future generations.

If from an individual's point of view it is ambiguous whether to favour the experiencing or the remembering self, one can appeal to the society's interest. The society may not care about the individual's experiencing self beyond that individual's own concern---in order to avoid double counting. By contrast, the society may doubly care about the individual's remembering self, whose stories may lend themselves to storage and communication better than readings off a hedonimeter do. Then, the remembering self must have precedence.

ProArteDanza

(Harbourfront Centre, 8 October 2011)

Complete, intense, not asexual, but not about sex, "Verwoben" (choreographed by Robert Glumbek) is about being human, which consists in provoking oneself to be surprised by one's errors as one strives for an ideal. One's true self is what one is at one's best, least manipulated by the environment, but not insulated; autonomy and interaction are balanced by choosing an appropriate social circle.

Glumbek's dancers live. He has summarised everything there is to say. Fortunately, the summary is beautiful.

Restricting dancers to the classical ballet vocabulary would be as absurd as making pupils use Roman numerals in multiplication competitions, or making modern playwrights comply with Shakespeare's standards of gore and flippancy. The outcomes would be neither effective nor pretty. In "Pearline" (choreographed by Kevin O'Day), unconstrained, Mami Hata and Louis Laberge-Cote achieve an effect akin to the Fred Astaire Revolution.

ProArteDanza project intelligence. The perceived intelligence is the ability to engage---a dancer with a dancer, unburdened by, but not neglectful of, music. Each dancer's each move has an origin, a destination, and a purpose, and is transmitted from one dancer to another, with comforting inevitability. (Defined as engagement, intelligence is absent from a scenic sunset, but inhabits an iPhone.)

"On What Matters" by Derek Parfit (2011), "Selected Poems" by T.S. Eliot (1964)

With his sentences short and assured, Parfit may seem clearer than his predecessors, but since there is little substance per page to be clear about, the clarity's value is dubitable. Some of his predecessors at least wrote good literature. Surely, reading Partif shall provoke a thought, but efficient that literary provocation will be not. One comes to appreciate Wittgenstein, who thought much, wrote little, had the right ideal of mathematical precision to strive for, fell short of that ideal, and---because of that failure---is still read.

(The early Wittgenstein revealed the futility of traditional philosophic discourse in the scientific age. The late Wittgenstein pursued the only aspect of traditional philosophy to have retained any merit---the collective experience encoded into linguistic patterns---anthropology.)

Physics studies what is true, or approximately predictable. Mathematics studies what is possible, or logically consistent. Short of being a formal derivation of implications from premises, moral philosophy can only survive as an empirical study of what is willed for and by whom.

What matters is discovering facts (done by arts and sciences), discovering the logical implication of these facts (done by mathematics), and discovering the rules for discovering facts and their implications (undertaken by philosophy). It is not obvious that the latter kind of discovery needs a separate discipline and cannot be left to the evolution (of arts, sciences, and mathematics).

To a layman, one of the appeals of philosophy is in its pseudo-scientific nature. Religious doctrines promise understanding without the hard work of science and logic. A kin sense of understanding is evoked by philosophy when it fails to apply a systematic method. Genuine understanding is achieved by an argument with the precision of a computer code; it either executes correctly or it fails. Successful execution requires precise definitions of the objects beyond one's sensory experience; one cannot rely on the consensus innate understanding of such objects. Too often, philosophy borrows its definitions from the vernacular.

Another reason for the layman's enjoyment of philosophy is the seeming accessibility of the minds of philosophy's geniuses. If one reads a frontier philosopher working in the verbal tradition, one understands most of it, if the philosopher is any good. If one reads a frontier mathematician, one understands nothing.

Occasionally, a philosopher would raise a question that does not merit an answer---meaning that whether a particular statement is true has no bearing on how one should live one's life, how the society should be organised, and how scientific inquiry should be structured. Such a question may be infectious, like a mystery story. The inconsequential nature of the question does not imply that it should be dismissed, only that its importance should not be overestimated. Pondering such a question may be a satisfying diversion.

Philosophy that is not a diversion is a heuristic process that, by trial and error, through analogies and introspection, identifies what matters to individuals---i.e., what they appear to be curious about (even if no utilitarian application for that curiosity is yet evident) and what important questions are (even if the framework in which these questions can be addressed is yet unavailable). Such philosophy is perpetually immature.

What distinguishes philosophy from art is that philosophy seeks to establish a common interpretation, whereas art invites individual interpretations linked by family resemblance. Art is a technique that evokes thoughts and feelings, and nudges one towards reasoning, but does not supply reasons. Art is a well-designed distributed computing system. Art's beauty can be appreciated without any formal training; one only needs to have lived or to intend to live.

T.S. Eliot's poetry is a search for meaning that may not exist, a warm-up exercise for prose, a madness's dose, a pose, an irrational book to give the world a rational look, the spectre of an obsessive thought, deflated once articulated.

"Time on the Cross" by Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman (1974)

For centuries, the abolition of slavery had seemed both politically infeasible and economically calamitous. Reason, gods, and violence had been employed by vested interests in order to defend the status quo. The present-day institutional details that may seem unjust and inefficient in a hundred years from now may be the inter-personal inequality in the consumption of material goods (apparently required to motivate heterogeneously-endowed individuals to work) and the voters' differential regard for the welfare of their compatriots and of foreign citizens.

Today, sufficient individual incentives are provided by avoiding the threats of death and hunger. In future, even better incentives could be provided if an individual's desire to differentiate himself from others is channelled into pursuits more productive than material consumption. The acknowledgement of the equal worth of domestic and foreign citizens would require deeper arguments justifying the tolerance of cross-country consumption inequality than the present-day implicit appeals to entitlement.

The book's distinction is that it focuses on correlations, not exceptions. Using exceptions, a reader can decorate his pet theory, and deceive himself and others. The cultivation of exceptions also makes it easier for a writer to differentiate himself from his competitors. An eye for correlations distinguishes a scientist.

The authors refrain from an anthropomorphic theory ascribing the qualities of an eccentric individual to a social class. Instead, they explore individual incentives. Then, at a class level, under appropriate conditions, individual eccentricities cancel out; behavioural regularities emerge.

The slaves' better-than-free-labour and better-than-freedman material conditions need not distract from the injustice of exploitation, measured by the slaves' superior productivity, but mostly unmeasured. Liberty comes from respect for individual idiosyncrasies. Even if slavery had been comfortable for most, it would have nonetheless been inadmissible because insufferable for few.

"Brandeburgs," "The Uncommitted," and "Piazzolla Caldera" by Paul Taylor

(Wadsworth Auditorium, 1 October 2011)

"Brandenburgs": solipsistic,  narcissistic, baroque, literal, routine.

"The Uncommitted": formulaic, expressive, sartorially wronged.

"Piazzolla Caldera:" well-engineered, light, musical, accordant.

The dancers, competent, play not, but are being played. Unrefined, the men cannot give class to the women, but do succeed in the same-sex duo in "Piazzolla Caldera"---the dance that most betrays the choreographer's talent.

Modern ballet resembles modernist poetry in its lack of externally imposed structure. The audience may mistake form for the promise of substance. Without reliable grammar, the choreographer may end up with an amorphous product. The talented are liberated; the mediocre are encouraged and multiply.

"The Long Goodbye" by Raymond Chandler (1953)

A deep thinker is unlikely to become a Marlowe. Thinking will expose that occupation's risks and suggest alternative opportunities. Nevertheless, in order to survive as a Marlowe (which Marlowe does), one must judge characters well and make winning choices. For that, Marlowe has moral taste, an instinct, or principles. Marlowe is attracted to others who appear to share his good taste---regardless of whether their taste has translated into accomplishments. Aware of the world's imperfections, Marlowe recognises that translation's haphazard nature.

Reading a mystery is addictive. Confronted with a good question, the mind refuses to admit that a good answer may be unavailable. The entire civilization has been built on the addiction to riddles the solutions to which may be beyond one's reach. This irrational addiction is valuable provided one chooses the object of his addiction rationally.

When the Rain Stops Falling

(Studio Theatre, 3 September 2011)

British plays excel at exploring class, American ones at rebellion, Russian ones at despair. Each subject could be regarded as a dominant trait of the corresponding national character, if there were such a thing as the national character. This Australian play explores whether a sick parent can conceive healthy progeny. Andrew Bovell, the playwright, answers in the affirmative (at least after sufficiently many generations), thereby salvaging the Australian character.

In the same way as the expression of an individual's genes is influenced by his environment, the national character is largely shaped by the rules of the game prescribed by the political and economic systems. A collection of individual characters is an inept metaphor for a country's national character in the same way as an individual's genotype is a poor protagonist for a novel. At best, an individual's character is a symptom, not a cause, of his country's condition. Being mutable, the national character is not as useful a concept as the individual character; politics and economics can be altered in ways that brain cannot be.

Occasionally grotesque, the play nevertheless leaves some room for acting. Each player finds a scene in which to excel. Donna Belleville and Peter Millard excel consistently.

The Heidelberg Project

(Heidelberg St, 20 August 2011)

Art is an exercise in control of an imagined world. Wealth diminishes the artistic urge, as it confers the powers to control the real. Art is an advertisement, an identity broadcast. Age diminishes the artistic urge; over time, one will have been discovered by sufficiently many. Art is a desperate plea to gods in whom one does not believe. Desperation wears out. The art that lasts is a conversation.

Friends with Benefits (2011)

Not quite a motion picture, but an (unintentionally) impressionist painting executed by a group of friends and acquaintances in the course of an evening. Not a manifesto, but a memento of friendships, serendipitous encounters, and the both coasts. The supporting characters (of Richard Jenkins, Jenna Elfman, and Woody Harrelson) are well conceived, but poorly integrated---in a way that is true to life, defiant of the Hollywood formula, and, perhaps, compliant with some aggregation rule for the votes collected at the test screenings.

Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are well prepared (even when directed by a committee) to star in the impending era admitting that the lives of the articulate can be, if not comprehensible, then at least gratifying to observe.

Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera

(George Eastman House, 17 July 2011)

Rockwell painted what the public wanted and what he found pleasing: friends---numerous, in safety, and in comfort. Advertisers and editors paid for the best and rejected the worst. What he thought mattered to him most, he could not paint, and so he has never lost his public.

The intensity of the contact with what matters most may overwhelm the artist unless he operates by swiftly releasing the shutter. The vitality of pictures fades faster than that of words, which evoke ever changing images in the artist's maturing mind. The consolation of Rockwell's art is not that a conflict can be resolved, but that no conflict exists; at most, there is brief misunderstanding.

Midnight in Paris (2011)

It is an insult to great minds, to wish to have lived in their times, for that wish implies that they have left little of lasting value, and have consumed more than they have produced.

"Визит Дамы"

(Ленком at Dailes Teātris, 18 June 2011)

Just as Hitchcock encouraged Diane Baker in "Marnie" to extinguish her smile instead of frowning, Александр Морфов, by the second act, tempers the first act's farce and unchecked verbosity so as to intensify the tragedy, delivered in few well-chosen words and economical moves. The first act's mediocrity (powered by all but Анна Якунина), however, is probably mostly due to the script's deficiency and the method actors' desire to conserve their strengths for the second act, which all involved must have deemed more important. The cast is at greater ease inhabiting the characters in pain than in joy.

The production takes one on an emotional journey, exploring which emotion is likely to follow which, instead of an intellectual journey, describing which action leads to which outcome.

In expectation of money, the characters get so far by barter that one wonders why they needed any money in the first place.

Future Pass: From Asia to the World

(Abbazia di San Gregorio, 7 June 2011)

Consumerism 1.0 is materialism---a short-lived, private enjoyment from using and owning rearranged physical matter. Consumerism 2.0 is a longer-lived and often intrinsically social enjoyment derived from associating with and rearranging the elements of popular culture. Both vintages of consumerism are bolstered by fads. Vintage 2.0 advances the society's interests further than vintage 1.0 does, by bringing more durable gratification, being more social, and less passive. Scarcely mediated by material goods and hence scalable, Consumerism 2.0 creates enough demand for ideas in order to make it rewarding for most to create them.

Thus emerging popular culture, to Generation 1.0, may seem deceptively asexual. Because of Generation 2.0's earlier exposure to sexuality, its adopted symbols seem immature---but are durable. Mediated by these symbols, eternal youth will begin early and last late.

At the Exhibition, while no single work excels, the entire collection conveys a vision. Traditional art observes a gratifying aspect of reality and exaggerates it. By contrast, modern art---when it aims to profit from beauty at all---does not assume that its subjects' plausibility increases enjoyment. Thus the scarcity not only of the physical matter but also of truth is overcome.

"In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote (1966)

Crime is punished in order to preëmpt the perpetrator and deter others. (Correction is unlikely to be effective and is likely to be a poor value for money; more crimes can be averted by promoting contraception, investing in childcare in poor families and by financing college---instead of army---education for bright poor kids.) Insanity invalidates deterrence, but not preëmption. Retribution is a shorthand for deterrence and preëmption, at best.

Only the perpetrator can be punished, whereas guilt many be spread broadly. If social circumstances necessitate the crime, the perpetrator can be absolved and the society left unpunished but, possibly, redesigned or, at least, altered.

The main argument against capital punishment is its corruption of the executioners: the jury, the judges,  the prosecutor, and the public. Whether a convict is better off dead or imprisoned for life, without parole, is unclear, as is unclear which of the options is cheaper, which one yields a fairer trial (the stakes are higher with capital punishment, but the opportunity for revision is greater with life imprisonment), which one will be preferred by the convict, and whether the convict can be trusted to make an informed choice (if yes, the choice must be granted). The third option, Australia, is not what it used to be. Perhaps, it can be replaced by a self-financing prison (a compact kibbutz or a monastery), in order to lift the prisoners' self esteem.

Good life adds, and concludes in death that does not subtract.

Cause Célèbre

(The Old Vic, 21 May 2011)

The text may have been appropriate for an all-forgiving classical opera, but for a play it is flat. The text takes no chances to be misunderstood, thereby excluding the audience from the creative process. The dialogues are literal. The two plot lines are poorly integrated and seem to exist only to present the playwright's, Terence Rattigan's, disparate thoughts.

The director, Thea Sharrock, fails to fill the void. The characters are generic. Social classes are type cast. The court-room drama is familiar.

The Pitmen Painters

(Cambridge Arts Theatre, 16 May 2011)

An artist captures private moments of beauty. An entertainer delivers whatever beauty pleases his public. A missionary seeks to impose his notion of beauty on others.

Commercial art expresses beauty that is easy to communicate. It is not the quest for money that turns an artist into an entertainer, but the withdrawal from life that money affords.

Art often attracts individuals eager to communicate but unable to do so by conventional means. That inability makes them ill-equipped to form a political force. Nor do successful artists need one.

"Collected Poems: 1953--1993" by John Updike (1993)

One writes a story to share a thought. One writes a novel to escape by getting lost in one's own plot. One writes a poem to relive an emotion, in slow motion, and, in a single incision with the precision of the correct word, to relieve oneself of that emotion and to pin it onto the world. Updike's service is not in the depth of individual verses, but in the fellowship of a life distributed "as is."

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

War reminds one not to accept the prevailing social hierarchy uncritically. Different hierarchies are appropriate for coping with different adversities (e.g., wars, famines, environmental catastrophes). Because one adversity cannot be said to be more just than another, one hierarchy most effective against one adversity cannot be said to be more just than another hierarchy most effective against another adversity. Justice is advanced by collectively recognising multiple adversities and ideals, and by individually acknowledging the accidental element in one's own social status.

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

A well-prepared lasagna is non-partisan. It nourishes, but does not prescribe. So does art that endures. The picture's occasionally redundant exchanges neglect the visual medium's potential, which, in best circumstances, renders horse riding about non-standard calculus more effective than talking about it.

Even though no one has ever said "can't sing; can't act; balding; can dance a little" about Fred Astaire, the myth is perpetuated on-line. That the Internet functions at all is a miracle commensurate with a functional democracy's functioning, which is brought about by loners, whose condition is an outcome, not a cause, of their brilliance.

The Diary of a Madman

(BAM, 5 March 2011)

Aspirations differ across individuals. Therefore, one should refrain from imposing one's preferences on others---individually or as a society. Doing so is easy in most cases. One exception is the diagnosis of insanity, which can potentially lead to extreme censorship, second only to murder and torture. (Bringing up a child amounts to guessing his preferences, not suppressing them.) The utmost respect for the freedoms of thus diagnosed helps avoid the slippery slope (mistaken judgements and abuse) that can promote tyranny and that is also the main argument against capital punishment and torture.

A freedom much conducive to sanity is the control over one's position in the social hierarchy. This freedom is best served in the society in which one's position is least dependent on the accident of birth. Hierarchies are indispensable for satisfactory governance. Their multiplicity can help an individual experience being at the top of the hierarchy that that he deems to be most important.

In the Received Pronunciation, the Australian Geoffrey Rush delivers the lines of the character who is as Russian as the Ukrainian Nikolai Gogol intended him to be. Rush's portrayal of Aksentii Poprishchin is playful, but not grotesque. By not having subordinated the character study to a political  slogan, the adaptation will have reached timelessness. It is hard to disentangle the contribution of the director, Neil Armfield, from that of the rest of the team. At the least, Armfield can be credited for having led the team that has engineered the product whose components one is afraid to take apart for the fear that their collective brilliance would be compromised.

"Speaking in Tongues" and "Esplanade" by Paul Taylor

(City Center, 4 March 2011)

Appreciation of beauty comes naturally. By contrast, creation of beauty is either outside one's control or requires hard work. (A perfect sphere is easy to appreciate, but hard to build.) A feature associated with an infrequently encountered desirable quality is perceived as beautiful. That quality is often inborn, in which case the appreciation of beauty amounts to the appreciation of a superior endowment. By exercising effort, one can deceive others into a more favourable assessment of one's endowment. Glamourising beauty runs the risk of fetishising endowment at the expense of achievement.

The limited vocabulary of the classical ballet makes it easy to turn it into a fetish. The modern ballet celebrates achievement over endowment by seeking beauty in dancers' humanity (fallibility, diversity, aspiration), not in an external ideal modelled on a bird or a dragon. The modern ballet admits multiple tongues and a narrative more substantial than an excuse for wearing revealing clothes.

"Speaking in Tongues" is concerned with injustice. When one sees individual misery (in art, signalled by ugliness), one can often contrive a story justifying that misery as a means for assuring a satisfactory outcome for the society. Such a story shall not excuse misery. No law of nature assures that institutions evolve to select the best means for attaining a certain goal, even if one were to accept the goal favoured by evolution.

Those ideas are most prevalent that are most infectious, not those that are best for humanity. Interpreting an idea's prevalence as its merit amounts to attending to the well-being of ideas, not individuals.

"Esplanade" administers beauty. Beauty does not blind. Pornography does. Beauty soothes. Its soothing quality makes it hard to overlook in deprivation. Perceived ugliness often reflects a prejudice, in which case ugliness is harmless. What is harmful is the long-term deprivation from beauty.

"Esplanade" is more aesthetically pleasing than "Speaking in Tongues." A dance excels when its protagonist transcends the sum of the individual dancers' characters. This effect is easiest to achieve when choreographing couples, who are the focus of "Esplanade."

"The Triumph of the City" by Edward Glaeser (2011)

Not every store should be a Walmart; not every city should be a Houston. Hugo Boss and Club Monaco are acceptable, as are Paris and San Francisco. Boutique stores sell services and limited memberships in clubs valued in excess of the goods' costs. Similarly, an apartment priced at several times its construction cost need not betray a poor policy or a market failure. The mark-up may reflect panoramic views and the company of self-selected neighbours.

Advances in transportation technology make it unnecessary to build cities next to scarce natural transportation hubs. Instead of being rebuilt, cities can follow the life cycle of youth and fast growth culminating in boutique retirement or irreversible dilapidation, or anything in between. For the life cycle to be aligned with the humanity's interests, however, urban development must not be constricted by myopic zoning laws, not less damaging than labour-union regulations.

Societies thrive through their members' specialisation, mediated by markets and democratic delegation. A society matures when delegation is either immune to the capture by narrow interests (the European dream) or, in recognition of that potential capture, is minimal (the American dream). Cities must either be governed so as to attend to the joint welfare of their suburbs, exurbs, and down-towns, or not be governed at all---and certainly not governed by warring neighbourhoods, each advocating its parochial version of conservation. City planning ensures that development is not aborted by vested interests when property rights are neither absent not clearly defined.

Suburbs are not evil. Most individuals face trade-offs. Most prefer suburban hibernation to urban deprivation. The former is made more affordable and the latter is made more prevalent by haphazard regulations, which inter-city competition shall help correct. 

Edward Glaeser's policy prescriptions are guided by his socially inclusive perspective and respect for individual choices. These choices are prejudiced by regulations. Furthermore, many underestimate the city because of their environmental ignorance, neglect of urban serendipity, and unawareness that socialising is indispensable for becoming human. That the online intercourse cannot replace physical socialising is Mr Glaeser's premise. If this replacement occurs, individuals will become less human, which need not imply less happy.

All the President's Men (1976)

The professional press will not perish, even though only the sedentary rich will care to subscribe to paper editions. Had Deep Throat blogged, his conspiracy theory would have been lost among many. Wikileaked he could have. But much of what is worth uncovering is not packaged for leaking. Investigative journalism requires as much dedicated research as police investigations, scientific studies, and film productions do.

In addressing strangers, the credential "I am a reporter for the Washington Post" reassures more than "I am a blogger" does---which rather resembles a confession, akin to "I talk to myself" or "I have imaginary friends." Reporting requires exuberance that a collegial environment incites, and the critical judgement that a detached editor exercises. Passion, censorship, and a long-term outlook rarely combine in a lonely investigator.

"The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler (1939)

Rain drops break against the canvas top. Tires press the gravel. A spread-out, anonymous, automobile-mediated metropolis hums and rains. Consistency of one's character carries one through the daily routine.

Philip Marlowe has an artist's compulsion to guard beauty. His instrument is integrity. (An artist, in contrast to an artisan, is not discouraged by the scarcity of paying customers. An entrepreneur combines an artist's compulsion to create with an artisan's belief in marketability as the measure of merit.)

Sternwood sisters are unforgiving of unrequited purchases. Too rich to be grateful for being purchased themselves, the sisters negotiate the vacuum sustained by their inherited wealth and made attractive by the prevailing social norms, which esteem a female as but an accessory.

Blue Valentine (2010)

It would have been out of character for Hollywood to implicate beautiful people in an unhappy ending. Instead, two dispensable characters take a short-cut to a void that none---except the audience, trained to detect the magic designed to last, and cued by the director if all else fails---anticipated. And the suburbia is not to blame.

Lest one glamorise the ambiguous, the picture deals in sharp, almost telephoto frames. The dream is cropped, not blurred. Mediocrity is not airbrushed. The carefully constructed encroachment of the mundane advocates an evolutionary road taken by the conflict. The evolution feeds on the clash of characters, not on a handful of mistaken actions. Poverty magnifies the collateral damage from personal misery.

More positive scientific results are published than negative ones. Textbooks collects rules, not common mistakes. Paradoxes are intermediate goods that are useless to most. A boring mumblecore with unhappy people need not be redundant, though. It can help one correct for the cinematic bias towards fortuitous events befalling handsome people. It can help one diagnose one's condition. It can pose a sharp question. It can also be improved, however, in at least two ways: it can entertain, and it can give hope, which is but foresight.

"The Idea of Justice" by Amartya Sen (2009)

In a wager similar to Pascal's, Amartya Sen bets on reason---as opposed to emotion and tradition. The ultimate virtue is in the ultimate reason. A merely better reasoner need not be more virtuous, however. This nonmonotonicity's undesirable consequences are mitigated if reasoning advances fast and uniformly across disciplines. Sen's book advocates a shortcut towards such an advancement. The shortcut is in the distributed computing power of democracy.

Stripped of science, short of literature, and shy of data, philosophy is a quaint after-dinner exercise in democracy that inspires after-breakfast progress. Now derivative, philosophy survives as an interdisciplinary conversation.