"Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways" in America by David Hackett Fischer (1989)

There is much to be admired about each of the four tribes that migrated to America. There is much to be admired about their mutual suspicion and incomprehension. There is much to be admired about their offspring's ability to eventually agree on building a new country together. A substantial degree of conflict is certainly a feature, not a bug, of American politics. 

“One is occasionally tempted to abandon the role of the historian and to frame what social scientists call a theory,” remarks David Hackett Fischer. And yet he does not succumb to this temptation. As a result, there is nothing to disagree with in the book. A fact is a fact.

Joker: Folie à Deux

In this instalment, the system takes revenge on freedom. 

Freedom is the plurality of stories: the human stories that run in parallel in society, the stories that one man is capable of living concurrently, and the stories that are capable of coexisting in one man's head. Identity is the inability to be free.

Am I Racist? (2024)

The theatrical release and the smashing commercial success (by documentary standards) of this motion picture are testaments to the fact that the fabric of American society is more intricate, and the society itself is more harmonious, than legacy media and common news aggregators would make one believe from a distance.

"Benjamin Franklin: An American Life" by Walter Isaacson (2004)

Many ways in which Benjamin Franklin is claimed to have set the tone for America is a reflection of the fact that America was already America and preset when Franlkin was coming of age. America was also setting the tone for him, a curious young man growing up in a society that was open to being free.

Franklin and his peers were the counterparts of today's tech entrepreneurs. Instead of shaping designing apps and ecosystems, Franklin's peers were designing societies and the Republic.

Isaacson observes that, among other things, Franklin was the father of this American trait that is self-deprecating humour. It is hard to tell what the counterfactual would have been. The bar seems low; Americans are not particularly known for self deprecation even post-Franklin. Franklin's far greater contribution to the American character is best captured by Edmund Burke's adage “Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.” 

It may be hard to re-assess the wisdom of the forefathers, for their wisdom has been stress-tested in the environment that is quite different from ours. The fact that the environment was different from ours does not mean it can never come to pass again. So, we should not discard the institutions of the ancients on a whim.

He Soñado Hormigas Negras

(23 August 2024, Un Teatro)

Words are actions. Movements are actions. In this production, both are directed inwards, towards the character, and outwards, towards the public. Neither is refined through characters' collisions with one another. Collisions must occur elsewhere, in the audience's mind. The concluding dance is a tribute to the timelessness and the universality of the struggle one elects for oneself.

World Press Photo 2024

(Museo Franz Mayer, 10 August 2024)

A good photographer seeks beauty. A war photographer is no exception. That is why many a war photographer (e.g., the Turnley twins) has settled in Paris to photograph beautiful people and things (see also Greg Williams).

The war photographs at the World Press Photo exhibition are ugly and staged. When everyone has a camera and an X account, most photojournalists are redundant. They are rarely in the right place at the right time. The smartphone-brandishing crowd always is. Or that is the impression the exhibition conveys.

To make a living, a photojournalist must differentiate his product from that of the crowd and must search for a paying audience beyond X. Exhibition juries are one such audience, hungry for photographs that would indulge their political agenda du jour. The same goes for journalism. It is harder to make a living as a competent reporter than a partisan columnist. Or that is the impression the press conveys.

Damien Hirst Vivir Para Siempre Por Un Momento

(Museo Jumex, 18 August 2024)

Damien Hirst's is a study of beauty. Beauty is that which facilitates survival. Is a medicine cabinet beautiful because it helps one survive? Is a shark ugly because it is a threat to life? What if it is sliced into two parts? Is beauty skin-deep? Is tobacco ugly because it kills? Do butterflies remain beautiful once dead?

Hirst's work is appreciated. People come see it. They find it beautiful. Beauty must be deeper than skin-deep.