House of the Future

All Dignity Lost

I decided to go to law school for a number of reasons: I knew I wanted a postgraduate degree, and a JD seemed the most useful and interesting; I saw law as a career that would challenge me intellectually on a daily basis; I liked the idea of a guild-like atmosphere, of becoming a part of a stratum of society; finally, I imagined lawyering as a kind of dignified redoubt in an increasingly manic and slapdash world, a place where respectable adults come together either to make civil battle or to find all possible ways to avoid such battles.

This little vignette on gay.com (I read it for the articles!) has proved to me that the latter of my treasured reasons has since been discarded to the ash-heap of history.

Denby on "The Passion"

From his New Yorker review:

The despair of the movie is hard to shrug off, and Gibson’s timing couldn’t be more unfortunate: another dose of death-haunted religious fanaticism is the last thing we need.

Overall Denby pans it. He makes some mention of the strict technical beauty of the film but says that any artistic grace is overshadowed by Gibson's revelry in the violence and physical agony of Christ's betrayal, trial and crucifixion.

Who's Sex Obsessed?

From a letter to Sullivan:

Your hunger for anal intercourse and official state affirmation of it -- even to the point of deeming your sexual behavior a reason to "marry"! -- trumps your respect for fundamental American values. Your perverse sexual ethics have led inevitably to perverse and destructive political ethics.

Why is it that these bigots (again with this word, but I feel it merited today) can imagine nothing but our sexual acts? Why are they so obsessed with it? Anal sex has nothing to do with my rights as an individual. Anal sex has nothing to do with gay marriage -- and it most definitely has nothing to do with lesbian marriage. I don't want state affirmation of anal sex. I want the state to stop playing arbiter to my and the rest of America's personal lives.

Anyone but Bush

I liked him at one time. I like him no more. He's a pandering bigot. Sullivan is covering the ape-boy's vileness like crazy. Go check it out. Guess I'm going to squander my vote on the Libertarian candidate - again.

Copley, Watson, and The Sopranos

One of my favorite paintings is by a man named John Singleton Copley, and it is called "Watson and the Shark" (viewable here). The drama in the moment, as captured by Copley, leaves me speechless. His talent as a re-creator of reality is beyond doubt. It is an amazing feat. It is hard for me to conjure much respect for nonrepresentational art, e.g., Miro, Pollock, et al.. Even if I concede that their work evokes some emotion in the viewer, I see no skill in what they create -- or, worse, I see skill squandered on tortured visions and ephemeral trends. I see no comparison between abstract art and work such as Copley's.

Imagine my surprise when I see the enormous billboard on Sunset, just east of Doheny, advertising the HBO drama The Sopranos. (View a version of it here, on the HBO website.) The influence of Copley's masterpiece is evident. The composition of figures in a boat, with a tumultuous sky above, a harbor behind, and writhing, agonized figures below, is a wonderful homage to "Watson and the Shark". I am pleased that the power of the painting retains influence -- even here in Los Angeles.

Naomi Wolf, Victim Poet

That funtime party gal Naomi Wolf has accused Harold Bloom of sexual harrassment while at Yale over 20 years ago. I greet such claims with de rigueur incredulity. I am willing in fact to lump it with this famous claim of sexual assault.

But the purpose of this post is to highlight the poetic tone and stylistic trope that Wolf employs in describing the incident in her book Promiscuities from 1997:

My whole body, my whole self-image, once again, again, burned with culpability," she wrote. "It felt so familiar: this sense of being exposed as if in a slow-moving dream of shame. I could practically hear my own pulse: What had I done, done, done?

Ah the power of reiteration. It's moving, moving.

She's a stupid cow, stupid cow.

And I thought Harold Bloom was a, um, member of the family anyway.

(From the NY Observer)

Yup, That'll Do It

The recording industry brings to bear the totemic power of the FBI in order to prevent music piracy. This is as pointless as both the surgeon general's warning on cigarettes and the irritating FBI/Interpol warnings on DVDs and videotapes.

Ah New Mexico

There could be a thirty victim gangland shooting in some portions of Los Angeles, and if it were otherwise a busy news day, the local broadcasts might not even deign to carry it. But let something like this happen in Albuquerque, and it merits a mention on the website's front page. It's charming, really.

Wouldn't It Be Nice?

Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true
Baby then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do
We could be married
And then we'd be happy

Wouldn't it be nice?

You know it seems the more we talk about it
It only makes it worse to live without it
But lets talk about it
Wouldn't it be nice?

(Lyrics: Wilson/Asher; Photo: SF Chronicle, Paul Chinn)

I Love America

Jeff Jarvis has started a great conversation on what makes this country the greatest in the world.