(Bajo Circuito, 6 August 2015)
Brutalism in art first petrifies objects---buildings, sculptures, clothes---and then comes to suck out the soul out of the bodies. This latter stage, a suicide by art, responds to the disappointment with the perceived human inability to accommodate each other. As is the case with most pursuits, this act of resignation is compulsive, contagious.
Brutalism has not touched the bodies under the circuit. Indeed, the venue converts the elements of brutalism without into a mat that sets off the humanity within---to the beat of the bass, to the flip of the frames, to the race of the phrase off the signer's fierce face, to the sigh of the thigh to the musical phrase, to the sway of the hip set in a tight silky frame, to the tearing of tires, to the squishing of shoes, in the highlights by headlights, to the hum of the horns, to the ding of the doorknobs of the day done. Then night.
10 August 2015
1 August 2015
"The Festival of Insignificance" by Milan Kundera (2013)
The appeal of philosophy is akin to the appeal of dance. Both pursuits dare grown-ups to play, unashamedly. A philosopher will entertain any question that lends itself to a grammatically coherent formulation. He will obsess over questions of little or no practical significance.
Novelists write for the same reason some pray. A novelist wishes to believe that a narrative holds a lesson, and that one's lifetime efforts will eventually pay off. A novelist creates an illusion of his own when the illusions of others he finds wanting.
Literature moulds the past. Science drafts the future. Dance affirms the present.
Novelists write for the same reason some pray. A novelist wishes to believe that a narrative holds a lesson, and that one's lifetime efforts will eventually pay off. A novelist creates an illusion of his own when the illusions of others he finds wanting.
Literature moulds the past. Science drafts the future. Dance affirms the present.
25 July 2015
Matthew Bourne’s "The Car Man"
(Sadler’s Wells, 24 July 2015)
The ballet opens with an idyllic scene of car mechanics, waitresses, and girls of unknown provenance labouring, lounging, conversing, and copulating on a sizzling Arizona afternoon. The ensuing scenes augment this idyll with violence and murder. The production does well by eschewing the 1940s Hollywood Code; there is more to noir than film noir. The narrative is gritty in places, thereby challenging one to detect beauty in or between the episodes of the tragic or the mundane.
Vitality seduces.
The line between the sensual and the pornographic is fine. This demarcation need not be observed for art to retain its integrity. The dances' eroticism derives from their context, the implied relationships, and playfulness, which deals in uncertainty and suspense. Art layers uncertainty and suspense.
One need not come to possess beauty in order to savour it. Even the contemplation of nature may evoke eroticism. It may suffice to merely know that beauty exists and to be touched by this beauty (to ascertain one's own existence).
The ballet opens with an idyllic scene of car mechanics, waitresses, and girls of unknown provenance labouring, lounging, conversing, and copulating on a sizzling Arizona afternoon. The ensuing scenes augment this idyll with violence and murder. The production does well by eschewing the 1940s Hollywood Code; there is more to noir than film noir. The narrative is gritty in places, thereby challenging one to detect beauty in or between the episodes of the tragic or the mundane.
Vitality seduces.
The line between the sensual and the pornographic is fine. This demarcation need not be observed for art to retain its integrity. The dances' eroticism derives from their context, the implied relationships, and playfulness, which deals in uncertainty and suspense. Art layers uncertainty and suspense.
One need not come to possess beauty in order to savour it. Even the contemplation of nature may evoke eroticism. It may suffice to merely know that beauty exists and to be touched by this beauty (to ascertain one's own existence).
22 July 2015
DUMMY lab
(Chamäleon, 19 July 2015)
The city is suspended, waiting for the world to end. Work takes the mind off the wait. Work provides for weekend amusements, to while the wait away. Conformism blunts anxiety. Conformism gorges on the grim attire, beer, and the semblance of uniform thought. The numbed emotions do not court art, but are pervious to the kind of engineering that can smuggle in art---circus, for example. Engineering delivers the promise of order and hence hope.
In circus, the audience enjoys violence by proxy. Contortion looks risky, painful. (In ballet, by contrast, extreme movement looks natural, relaxing.) Enter technology and the artist's technique, and with them, the promise of insurance against the risks, maybe even against the world's end.
The warm summer breeze bounces against the walls of Hackeschen Höfen, brushes against the diners' cheeks and ruffles their hair, penetrates the open window of the dressing room, and envelops the glowing skin of a dancer aroused by the exhilaration of the just-concluded performance and the colleague's ambiguous embrace and stripped down to her black underwear and a cigarette. This is all there is to it.
The city is suspended, waiting for the world to end. Work takes the mind off the wait. Work provides for weekend amusements, to while the wait away. Conformism blunts anxiety. Conformism gorges on the grim attire, beer, and the semblance of uniform thought. The numbed emotions do not court art, but are pervious to the kind of engineering that can smuggle in art---circus, for example. Engineering delivers the promise of order and hence hope.
In circus, the audience enjoys violence by proxy. Contortion looks risky, painful. (In ballet, by contrast, extreme movement looks natural, relaxing.) Enter technology and the artist's technique, and with them, the promise of insurance against the risks, maybe even against the world's end.
The warm summer breeze bounces against the walls of Hackeschen Höfen, brushes against the diners' cheeks and ruffles their hair, penetrates the open window of the dressing room, and envelops the glowing skin of a dancer aroused by the exhilaration of the just-concluded performance and the colleague's ambiguous embrace and stripped down to her black underwear and a cigarette. This is all there is to it.
5 July 2015
"The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman" by Richard P. Feynman (2005)
Science, democracy, and the market economy have a principle in common. Various things are to be tried out and those that work best are to be favoured. So question the status quo and question the authority. Explore and exploit.
Scientific progress, democracy, and markets are often observed together because, once one has come to appreciate the common principle, it is hard to justify applying it selectively. No inherent complementarity between markets and democracy need exist.
In a liberal society, everyone runs his own experiment, his life. Everyone is a scientist, invested in his own method and respectful, or at least tolerant, of others' methods. Humility dictates that one share the equipment. Integrity dictates that one truthfully disclose the outcome of one's own investigations. Humility and integrity are devoid of their moral imperative in a society in which exercising them is suboptimal (if such a society exists).
What is commonly regarded as virtue is the recognition of a deep insight about one's optimal behaviour. Of two otherwise identical societies, that is juster which makes a given insight about optimal behaviour more obvious. That behaviour is moral which is in best agreement with one's preferences. Because both the discovery of preferences and of their logical implications are tasks most formidable, the society confers moral status on the outcome of this discovery.
Feynman further envisages a society organised so that humility and integrity are optimal and are the optimal habits in the pursuit of truth.
Feynman's approach to teaching is the artist's approach: Indulge your urges and expose the product to the public. If the public appreciates the product, you prosper. Otherwise, you fail as an artist. But by second-guessing the public, you can still excel as a craftsman. Feynman's is the artist's way.
Scientific progress, democracy, and markets are often observed together because, once one has come to appreciate the common principle, it is hard to justify applying it selectively. No inherent complementarity between markets and democracy need exist.
In a liberal society, everyone runs his own experiment, his life. Everyone is a scientist, invested in his own method and respectful, or at least tolerant, of others' methods. Humility dictates that one share the equipment. Integrity dictates that one truthfully disclose the outcome of one's own investigations. Humility and integrity are devoid of their moral imperative in a society in which exercising them is suboptimal (if such a society exists).
What is commonly regarded as virtue is the recognition of a deep insight about one's optimal behaviour. Of two otherwise identical societies, that is juster which makes a given insight about optimal behaviour more obvious. That behaviour is moral which is in best agreement with one's preferences. Because both the discovery of preferences and of their logical implications are tasks most formidable, the society confers moral status on the outcome of this discovery.
Feynman further envisages a society organised so that humility and integrity are optimal and are the optimal habits in the pursuit of truth.
Feynman's approach to teaching is the artist's approach: Indulge your urges and expose the product to the public. If the public appreciates the product, you prosper. Otherwise, you fail as an artist. But by second-guessing the public, you can still excel as a craftsman. Feynman's is the artist's way.
22 June 2015
"109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos" by Jennet Conant (2005) [Abridged Audiobook]
The question is not whether to invent, but whether to invent first. One may claim credit for an invention, but not for the future which the invention has helped shape. If one wishes to have a say in the future, one should keep inventing first. If the good guys fail to invent first, those who invent first go down in history as the good guys.
Oppenheimer expected personal dedication. In the eyes of others, he was the project. Such a dedication confers responsibility. It is irresponsible to suddenly personify an impasse, after having personified the solution for so long.
Oppenheimer was a gentleman philosopher. Some governments heed philosophers (France), others do not (US)---be it because they have too many disparate ones or because democratic values cultivate skepticism towards self-proclaimed superior minds. Oppenheimer had one great paper, led one great project, shaped great many people, and has thus lived many great lives.
There is no moral discontinuity in the adoption of drone warfare. Most advancements in arms technology distance the perpetrator from his victims.
Some would deem it immoral to sacrifice civilians to save five times as many military men. This judgement rests on the premise that the loser in a “fair” contest deserves to die more than a civilian does. It is dubitable, however, that notions of fairness invoked in the military context resemble the notions of fairness on which peaceful societies are built. One could claim that the fallen in combat have the consolation of dying as heroes, but by claiming so, one contaminates the moral calculus with military propaganda.
Oppenheimer expected personal dedication. In the eyes of others, he was the project. Such a dedication confers responsibility. It is irresponsible to suddenly personify an impasse, after having personified the solution for so long.
Oppenheimer was a gentleman philosopher. Some governments heed philosophers (France), others do not (US)---be it because they have too many disparate ones or because democratic values cultivate skepticism towards self-proclaimed superior minds. Oppenheimer had one great paper, led one great project, shaped great many people, and has thus lived many great lives.
There is no moral discontinuity in the adoption of drone warfare. Most advancements in arms technology distance the perpetrator from his victims.
Some would deem it immoral to sacrifice civilians to save five times as many military men. This judgement rests on the premise that the loser in a “fair” contest deserves to die more than a civilian does. It is dubitable, however, that notions of fairness invoked in the military context resemble the notions of fairness on which peaceful societies are built. One could claim that the fallen in combat have the consolation of dying as heroes, but by claiming so, one contaminates the moral calculus with military propaganda.
21 June 2015
The Bell Tower Bar at La Fonda and Starbucks, in San Francisco St
Sunset. Fellow travellers spill onto the deck, watch the sun go down, sip their drinks, chat. Strangers talk as if they know each other so well as not to know each other. Everyone is coming from somewhere and going somewhere else. The patrons are rich one way or another, confident, and relaxed. Those who are lost look for themselves by simultaneously abandoning themselves in two or three ventures.
Nature speaks here, so one learns how to listen. After having accentuated each landmark and highlighted the patrons’ faces, the lights are dimmed. The night breeze takes over from the sun, now screened off by the mountains. The breeze clears the tables of plastic menus by sending them four floors down in an impromptu slice-your-face marketing campaign, which preys on wandering terrestrials. The patrons dissipate soon thereafter, to prepare for the next scene.
As Jacqueline pours steamed milk into a short paper cup, her exposed biceps reads: "Maybe it’s not about the happy ending. Maybe it’s about the story.” She is an instantiation of the concept of beauty as a whole that exceeds the sum of its components: oversized mouth, uneven teeth, squinting eyes. Yet the hair is done impeccably, and, framed by it, all the seemingly imperfect components are revealed as intentional, inevitable, and in fine taste.
There is nothing happy about an ending. Endings are not inevitable, however, and can often be replaced by breaks and bridges. The story need not end as long as one is not possessive about it.
The customers share their travel notes, exchange encouragements, learn from, and are inspired by, each other. While the branch may subsidise the homeless and the itinerant, the brand soaks in the magic that delights globally.
Nature speaks here, so one learns how to listen. After having accentuated each landmark and highlighted the patrons’ faces, the lights are dimmed. The night breeze takes over from the sun, now screened off by the mountains. The breeze clears the tables of plastic menus by sending them four floors down in an impromptu slice-your-face marketing campaign, which preys on wandering terrestrials. The patrons dissipate soon thereafter, to prepare for the next scene.
As Jacqueline pours steamed milk into a short paper cup, her exposed biceps reads: "Maybe it’s not about the happy ending. Maybe it’s about the story.” She is an instantiation of the concept of beauty as a whole that exceeds the sum of its components: oversized mouth, uneven teeth, squinting eyes. Yet the hair is done impeccably, and, framed by it, all the seemingly imperfect components are revealed as intentional, inevitable, and in fine taste.
There is nothing happy about an ending. Endings are not inevitable, however, and can often be replaced by breaks and bridges. The story need not end as long as one is not possessive about it.
The customers share their travel notes, exchange encouragements, learn from, and are inspired by, each other. While the branch may subsidise the homeless and the itinerant, the brand soaks in the magic that delights globally.
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