Israel has ordered an urgent review of the seizure of thousands of acres of land from Palestinian farmers, who were cut off from their ancient olive groves by the separation barrier built in the West Bank.
Menachem Mazuz, Israel’s Attorney-General, admitted yesterday that the policy of seizing land in east Jerusalem from so-called "absentees" had been approved secretly by Cabinet ministers last summer without his consent. The review was made public in a letter from Mr Mazuz to a lawyer representing some of the farmers”.
Hundreds of farmers in Bethlehem have been unable to tend their olive groves and citrus orchards because of the electric fence that cuts through their land. In November they were told that the land had been seized for the expansion of Jewish settlements.
"How are we absent?" Jonny Atik, a 55-year-old farmer, asked as he surveyed his eight acres of inaccessible fields just metres away yesterday.
The "Absentees" Who Were Still Present
We're all used to hearing about Palestinian terrorist bombings and Israeli military incursions. In contrast, this type of action -- a land-grab -- doesn't kill anyone; it doesn't even affect a great many people. All that is destroyed is goodwill, if there is any left.
Book Coolie, Hobson-Jobson, and Daljit Nagra
A friend of mine (a virtual friend, I guess) from England has recently started his own blog, which he's calling Book Coolie.
It's kind of odd that the Indian book blog world is so densely populated with "Babus," "Sepoys," and "Coolies"! I am seriously considering starting an anonymous blog with a similar title to keep up with the exploding Hobson-Jobson blog scene. Maybe "The Madd Hatterr"? (A reference to the late, great G.V. Desani... This site has some quotes from Desani's All About H. Hatterr).
I haven't read all of Book Coolie's posts yet, but I wanted to pass along one of his links, about the Brit-Asian poet Daljit Nagra, whose "Look We Have Coming to Dover" alludes to Matthew Arnold's famous poem Dover Beach. Nagra's "Dover" recently won a British poetry award for best single poem.
The climax of Arnold's poem is:
In Nagra's hands, it is:
It's kind of odd that the Indian book blog world is so densely populated with "Babus," "Sepoys," and "Coolies"! I am seriously considering starting an anonymous blog with a similar title to keep up with the exploding Hobson-Jobson blog scene. Maybe "The Madd Hatterr"? (A reference to the late, great G.V. Desani... This site has some quotes from Desani's All About H. Hatterr).
I haven't read all of Book Coolie's posts yet, but I wanted to pass along one of his links, about the Brit-Asian poet Daljit Nagra, whose "Look We Have Coming to Dover" alludes to Matthew Arnold's famous poem Dover Beach. Nagra's "Dover" recently won a British poetry award for best single poem.
The climax of Arnold's poem is:
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
In Nagra's hands, it is:
Imagine my love and I,
and our sundry others, blared in the cash
of our beeswax'd cars, our crash clothes,
free, as we sip from an unparasol'd table
babbling our lingoes, flecked by the chalk of Britannia.
Tom Wolfe goes geopolitical
Tom Wolfe, most recently in the news for "award-winning" (ahem!) I Am Charlotte Simmons, compares George W. Bush's inaugural address to Teddy Roosevelt, who put forth his own corollary to the Monroe Doctrine to Congress a century ago. (In the Times)
The language in the two addresses is surprisingly similar. But most interesting are the snippets of American history Wolfe pulls out, including this bit:
From 1823 to 1904, to 2005. Of course, the Monroe Doctrine, in its specific geographic sense, ceased to be a meaningful term after the invention of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (hemispheres ceased to matter). But Wolfe cites historians who've argued that the doctrine remained alive after all through the 1950s, 70s, and 80s, as the U.S. sponsored paramilitary interventions throughout Latin America to choke the spread of anything that smelled like Communism: everything from the Bay of Pigs, to the Iran-Contra affair, to the assasination of Che Guevara.
Wolfe suggests Bush's mission in Iraq resembles yet another extension of the life of a classic bit of American political philosophy, which has now gone global. But is he right? Isn't this really something quite new, dressed up perhaps in the familiar garb of Liberty, Democracy, and the "Shining City on the Hill"?
I see an assertion of political and military dominance for its own sake, not a defensive geopolitical strategy in a world of competing colonial military powers. The U.S. no longer has competition where war is concerned...
The language in the two addresses is surprisingly similar. But most interesting are the snippets of American history Wolfe pulls out, including this bit:
Theodore Roosevelt's corollary to President James Monroe's famous doctrine of 1823 proclaimed that not only did America have the right, à la Monroe, to block European attempts to re-colonize any of the Western Hemisphere, it also had the right to take over and shape up any nation in the hemisphere guilty of "chronic wrongdoing" or uncivilized behavior that left it "impotent," powerless to defend itself against aggressors from the Other Hemisphere, meaning mainly England, France, Spain, Germany and Italy.
The immediate problem was that the Dominican Republic had just reneged on millions in European loans so flagrantly that an Italian warship had turned up just off the harbor of Santo Domingo. Roosevelt sent the Navy down to frighten off the Italians and all other snarling Europeans. Then the United States took over the Dominican customs operations and debt management and by and by the whole country, eventually sending in the military to run the place. We didn't hesitate to occupy Haiti and Nicaragua, either.
From 1823 to 1904, to 2005. Of course, the Monroe Doctrine, in its specific geographic sense, ceased to be a meaningful term after the invention of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (hemispheres ceased to matter). But Wolfe cites historians who've argued that the doctrine remained alive after all through the 1950s, 70s, and 80s, as the U.S. sponsored paramilitary interventions throughout Latin America to choke the spread of anything that smelled like Communism: everything from the Bay of Pigs, to the Iran-Contra affair, to the assasination of Che Guevara.
Wolfe suggests Bush's mission in Iraq resembles yet another extension of the life of a classic bit of American political philosophy, which has now gone global. But is he right? Isn't this really something quite new, dressed up perhaps in the familiar garb of Liberty, Democracy, and the "Shining City on the Hill"?
I see an assertion of political and military dominance for its own sake, not a defensive geopolitical strategy in a world of competing colonial military powers. The U.S. no longer has competition where war is concerned...
On Wendy Doniger
I've been away for a few days in Vieques -- a place where it was very difficult to get cell-phone reception, let alone blog.
I might write on that experience soon, and also explain why it's appropriate to take a mini-holiday in the still-overwhelming second week of the term. For now, a link from Tyler: a review of Wendy Doniger's latest book in the New York Times. Only one paragraph actually talks about the book, and that is this one:
That's it; the new book doesn't seem to elicit a lot of attention or direct interest. In fact, the reviewer devotes the remainder of the review to Wendy Doniger's encounters with the self-appointed Defender of Hinduism, Mr. Rajiv Malhotra.
(I've written on Malhotra's anti-Doniger crusade a couple of times (start here, if interested)
I might write on that experience soon, and also explain why it's appropriate to take a mini-holiday in the still-overwhelming second week of the term. For now, a link from Tyler: a review of Wendy Doniger's latest book in the New York Times. Only one paragraph actually talks about the book, and that is this one:
Such is the spirit of wry playfulness that can be found in Ms. Doniger's work, and certainly throughout this new book, which almost gleefully catalogs myths and movies and plots about characters who disguise themselves as themselves. There is Hermione in Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale," who pretends to be a dead woman pretending to be a live woman. There is Kim Novak's character in Hitchcock's "Vertigo," who is covered with so many self-reflexive masks that only at the end does James Stewart see the awful truth. And there are Indian stories of Shiva and his wife, Parvati, whose identities refract over multiple incarnations. Through it all are hints of sexuality misdirected and redirected, sexuality that tricks or reveals.
That's it; the new book doesn't seem to elicit a lot of attention or direct interest. In fact, the reviewer devotes the remainder of the review to Wendy Doniger's encounters with the self-appointed Defender of Hinduism, Mr. Rajiv Malhotra.
(I've written on Malhotra's anti-Doniger crusade a couple of times (start here, if interested)
Covering the Distance: Nilanjana Roy on South Asian writers
Via Chapati Mystery and Moorish Girl, Nilanjana Roy's column in the Business-Standard about South Asian writers. Most of her column is what I would call measured praise. She gets down to business at the end, however.
There is more than a little truth in what she's saying, but I still think her claims fall apart under close scrutiny. I'm going to take a slightly different tack than Sepoy does, however, when he defends English-language South Asian fiction from what he calls the "gallows of authenticity." (Sepoy has a way with words!)
My interest is in the overlapping question of narratorial "distance" that Roy refers to toward the end of her piece.
Yes, that's true about Bajwa and Suri (I haven't read Swarup, so I can't say). They are at some distance from their subjects. In Rupa Bajwa's The Sari Shop, it's a real problem -- one senses she has more in common with the wealthy clients in the novel than with the lower middle-class sari seller who is her protagonist. (I still rather enjoyed reading the book, except perhaps for the ill-conceived ending.)
But it's also true of every preceding generation of Indian writers, especially those who have tried to represent the perspectives of non-elite Indians. Mulk Raj Anand may have seen the humiliations of untouchability, but he was not an untouchable himself. Moreover, he himself wrote in English, was inspired by British modernism, and got started only after spending time abroad. He was as much inflicted by 'distance' as the more recent writers Roy names.
To continue:
The pidgin English in Brick Lane is troubling at first. But it quickly becomes clear that Ali isn't using it to represent a person who writes poorly in English. Rather, the character of the sister (Hasina) in the novel writes poorly in Bengali. The pidgin is not necessarily a comment on an uneducated women's command of English so much as it is an attempt to represent a character whose literacy is limited. Obviously, Ali is quite different from her character Hasina -- we wouldn't have this novel if that weren't the case -- but given the social conditions of Hasina's life in Dhaka, the use of Pidgin seems appropriate. It is in keeping with Ali's realism, and it is far from disrespectful.
In my view Roy's reference to a "deeper level" of engagement with the South Asian fiction she mentions is a red herring. There is no "deeper level"; there are merely story, characters, and language.
In a nutshell: all writers, Desi and non-desi, deal with the problem of distance from their subjects. Good writers convince us that they've crossed that distance. Less talented (or less experienced) writers leave room for us to question the gap.
There is more than a little truth in what she's saying, but I still think her claims fall apart under close scrutiny. I'm going to take a slightly different tack than Sepoy does, however, when he defends English-language South Asian fiction from what he calls the "gallows of authenticity." (Sepoy has a way with words!)
My interest is in the overlapping question of narratorial "distance" that Roy refers to toward the end of her piece.
Bajwa, Suri and Swarup appropriate the lives of people whom they do not understand; unlike Bibhutibhushan, who lived Apu’s life of deprivation in the city and the village, unlike Mulk Raj Anand, who saw at first hand what the humiliations of an untouchable encompassed, they are at a remove from their subjects.
Yes, that's true about Bajwa and Suri (I haven't read Swarup, so I can't say). They are at some distance from their subjects. In Rupa Bajwa's The Sari Shop, it's a real problem -- one senses she has more in common with the wealthy clients in the novel than with the lower middle-class sari seller who is her protagonist. (I still rather enjoyed reading the book, except perhaps for the ill-conceived ending.)
But it's also true of every preceding generation of Indian writers, especially those who have tried to represent the perspectives of non-elite Indians. Mulk Raj Anand may have seen the humiliations of untouchability, but he was not an untouchable himself. Moreover, he himself wrote in English, was inspired by British modernism, and got started only after spending time abroad. He was as much inflicted by 'distance' as the more recent writers Roy names.
To continue:
Monica Ali does a more sophisticated version of the same thing, using a journalist’s techniques and a ham playwright’s voice when she employs pidgin English to convey the pathos of a Bangladeshi woman’s letters from the village to a luckier relative abroad. This does not make their novels any less entertaining, in the cases of Bajwa and Swarup, or any less well-written, in the case of Monica Ali and Manil Suri. But it does set up a constant, low-level interference that prevents an astute reader from engaging with their novels at a deeper level.
The pidgin English in Brick Lane is troubling at first. But it quickly becomes clear that Ali isn't using it to represent a person who writes poorly in English. Rather, the character of the sister (Hasina) in the novel writes poorly in Bengali. The pidgin is not necessarily a comment on an uneducated women's command of English so much as it is an attempt to represent a character whose literacy is limited. Obviously, Ali is quite different from her character Hasina -- we wouldn't have this novel if that weren't the case -- but given the social conditions of Hasina's life in Dhaka, the use of Pidgin seems appropriate. It is in keeping with Ali's realism, and it is far from disrespectful.
In my view Roy's reference to a "deeper level" of engagement with the South Asian fiction she mentions is a red herring. There is no "deeper level"; there are merely story, characters, and language.
In a nutshell: all writers, Desi and non-desi, deal with the problem of distance from their subjects. Good writers convince us that they've crossed that distance. Less talented (or less experienced) writers leave room for us to question the gap.
Condi as Hegelian
I took some heat via email over my "grudging respect" for Condoleezza Rice's performance at her confirmation hearings last week; most of my friends & colleagues don't want to give an inch where this woman is concerned.
I can understand that. I'm bitter too -- the Democratic Party just graduated from the third to the fourth circle of Hell. But I also think one needs to keep in mind Condi's immense ambition and her talents as a political operator... At the very least, it's a matter of knowing one's enemy.
Anyway, here is yet another reading of Condi by Jeffrey Hurf in the New Republic. Hurf feels Condi's philosophy of history resembles that of Hegel, and that is troubling to him. Rice made this statement:
And Hurf argues that this is Hegelian for the following reason:
I'm much more sympathetic to Merleau-Ponty and Sartre than Hurf is, but maybe he has a point about the differential political fates of Chamberlain (whose deceptions in the House of Commons led to the downfall of his government) and Stalin (who was never held accountable for his mistakes -- or his crimes).
But the difference between George W. Bush and Neville Chamberlain is that, while it was clear at the moment that Chamberlain's policies weren't working, it's by no means been made clear to the American public that George Bush's war didn't work (and won't work). When Condoleezza Rice talks about history, she doesn't mean it the way Castro or even Hegel meant it. What she means is, "History will absolve us, because we will write it ourselves."
I can understand that. I'm bitter too -- the Democratic Party just graduated from the third to the fourth circle of Hell. But I also think one needs to keep in mind Condi's immense ambition and her talents as a political operator... At the very least, it's a matter of knowing one's enemy.
Anyway, here is yet another reading of Condi by Jeffrey Hurf in the New Republic. Hurf feels Condi's philosophy of history resembles that of Hegel, and that is troubling to him. Rice made this statement:
I said yesterday, Senator, we've made a lot of decisions in this period of time. Some of them have been very good. Some of them have not been very good. Some of them have been bad decisions, I'm sure. I know enough about history to stand back and to recognize that you judge decisions not at the moment but in how it all adds up. And that's just strongly the way I feel about big historical changes."
And Hurf argues that this is Hegelian for the following reason:
In his lectures on the philosophy of history delivered in the early nineteenth century, the German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel argued that history was a slaughter bench on which the happiness of individuals was sacrificed. (He also claimed that the course of history comprised the teleological unfolding of God's plan on earth at whose endpoint all human beings would be free, an idea that also appears to have some supporters in Washington.) The achievement of freedom, or in the case of the communists, the classless society, justified the sacrifices on the path to its perfection--as if such perfection could not, in the end, have come about without those sacrifices. In the aftermath of the Soviet victory in World War II, communist apologists, including sophisticated French intellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, argued that the victory of 1945 either justified or sent into oblivion the horrors and crimes of the Stalin years. Stalin's decision to sign the Nonaggression Pact with Hitler and his refusal to recognize the imminence of the Nazi invasion were blunders of unprecedented proportions that contributed to the capture of three million Soviet prisoners of war in 1941, two million of whom died. If the Soviet regime had been a democracy, Joseph Stalin would have been quickly ousted from office, just as Neville Chamberlain was defeated following the failure of his appeasement policy. Yet in 1945, in the glow of victory, Stalin was presented as a great genius whose wise decisions in the end worked out. Fidel Castro captured this communist faith in the redeeming power of history in one pithy phrase: "History will absolve me."
I'm much more sympathetic to Merleau-Ponty and Sartre than Hurf is, but maybe he has a point about the differential political fates of Chamberlain (whose deceptions in the House of Commons led to the downfall of his government) and Stalin (who was never held accountable for his mistakes -- or his crimes).
But the difference between George W. Bush and Neville Chamberlain is that, while it was clear at the moment that Chamberlain's policies weren't working, it's by no means been made clear to the American public that George Bush's war didn't work (and won't work). When Condoleezza Rice talks about history, she doesn't mean it the way Castro or even Hegel meant it. What she means is, "History will absolve us, because we will write it ourselves."
Music Challenge
Sutton issued me a challenge.
1. Total amount of music files on your computer.
17 Gibabytes. That's a lot, or at least it seems like it to me. I have somewhere in the range of 2000 CDs in my collection. It's an absurd amount, but I forgive myself: many of them are used (somewhat cheaper), bought cheaply from Indian music stores (definitely cheaper), or bought in India (very cheap).
2. The CD you last bought is:
I blogged it two weeks ago: Friction, Mehsopuria, Bally Sagoo. I also bought a deep house compilation called Bargrooves pretty recently, which has been getting a fair amount of play at chez Singh. And I've been planning to buy the Lascivious Biddies' Get Lucky from their website at some point soon.
3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
I had MTV on when I was getting ready this morning. The last song I remember before turning it off was Destiny's Child's, "Soldier," which is frighteningly post-feminist in outlook (lyrics), but also frighteningly catchy ("the devil has all the best tunes").
Still, what happened to "Independent Woman"? Oh well, guess that was a fad. Still, you've got to give it to Beyoncé.
4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you:
This is tough; I listen to a lot of music, and I could as easily put 50 songs here as 5. I'll pick a few songs sort of at random, cheating a little by referring to multiple versions of the same song:
Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons), and why?
No time for why, so here's three people I can think of who might be into this:
G. Zombie
Anjali Taneja
Julian Myers
1. Total amount of music files on your computer.
17 Gibabytes. That's a lot, or at least it seems like it to me. I have somewhere in the range of 2000 CDs in my collection. It's an absurd amount, but I forgive myself: many of them are used (somewhat cheaper), bought cheaply from Indian music stores (definitely cheaper), or bought in India (very cheap).
2. The CD you last bought is:
I blogged it two weeks ago: Friction, Mehsopuria, Bally Sagoo. I also bought a deep house compilation called Bargrooves pretty recently, which has been getting a fair amount of play at chez Singh. And I've been planning to buy the Lascivious Biddies' Get Lucky from their website at some point soon.
3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
I had MTV on when I was getting ready this morning. The last song I remember before turning it off was Destiny's Child's, "Soldier," which is frighteningly post-feminist in outlook (lyrics), but also frighteningly catchy ("the devil has all the best tunes").
Still, what happened to "Independent Woman"? Oh well, guess that was a fad. Still, you've got to give it to Beyoncé.
4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you:
This is tough; I listen to a lot of music, and I could as easily put 50 songs here as 5. I'll pick a few songs sort of at random, cheating a little by referring to multiple versions of the same song:
1. "Chura Liya," with Asha Bhosle singing, Bally Sagoo's reggae remix. Major Hindi film-song nostalgia. A couple of similar songs could go in this slot, but this one best represents my particular tastes and sensibilities. It doesn't take much to get me to start singing along, in or (more likely) out of tune.
2. John Cale's version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." Shameless post-Christian, negative theological melodrama. Somehow the Cale version gets me more than Cohen's version, or the Rufus Wainwright version that was used in Shrek.
3. Any version of the jazz standard "Tenderly," but especially the old Sarah Vaughn version, and the more recent jazz/deep house version by the San Francisco group Soulstice.
4. Cole Porter's "Well Did You Evah," either the old Frank Sinatra/Bing Crosby version, or the Iggy Pop/Deborah Harry version from Red, Hot + Blue. Always a good way to get a party started, even if it's just a party in one's own mind.
5. The Pixies, "Subbacultcha." I've been listening to the Pixies a bit lately. Even though I missed their reunion tour, some of my friends went to some of their shows, and they've kind of been on my mind.
Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons), and why?
No time for why, so here's three people I can think of who might be into this:
G. Zombie
Anjali Taneja
Julian Myers
Advice from a retiring Pundit
William Safire, in one of his final columns for the Times.
Most of his advice holds true for bloggers.
Goodbye William Safire. We'll miss you, en peu.
Most of his advice holds true for bloggers.
Goodbye William Safire. We'll miss you, en peu.
K-12 Literature: Girls Read, Boys Don't
Mark Bauerlein and Sandra Stotsky have a column in the Washington Post highlighting a tidbit from last year's NEH study about the nation-wide decline in the reading of books. What no one noticed is that, while there has been a marked decline amongst girls reading books, the decline for boys is phenomenal -- less than 50 percent of boys in K-12 are readers of books.
But here's their explanation for it:
Hm, I don't know... Could Sony PS2, XBOX, and GameCube might have something to do with it? And: peer-to-peer downloading, internet chat, MP3s, etc. etc.
But here's their explanation for it:
But boys prefer adventure tales, war, sports and historical nonfiction, while girls prefer stories about personal relationships and fantasy. Moreover, when given choices, boys do not choose stories that feature girls, while girls frequently select stories that appeal to boys.
Unfortunately, the textbooks and literature assigned in the elementary grades do not reflect the dispositions of male students. Few strong and active male role models can be found as lead characters. Gone are the inspiring biographies of the most important American presidents, inventors, scientists and entrepreneurs. No military valor, no high adventure. On the other hand, stories about adventurous and brave women abound. Publishers seem to be more interested in avoiding "masculine" perspectives or "stereotypes" than in getting boys to like what they are assigned to read.
Hm, I don't know... Could Sony PS2, XBOX, and GameCube might have something to do with it? And: peer-to-peer downloading, internet chat, MP3s, etc. etc.
Shauna Singh Baldwin's Latest
Kitabkhana
I had a chance to buy Shauna Singh Baldwin's The Tiger Claw a couple of months ago, when I was in Vancouver, but I flaked. Now I'm not sure it's coming out in the U.S. It's too bad, because if Babu likes it, there's probably something to it...
You may remember that I've talked about one of Baldwin's earlier novels before. In fact, I was yelled at for mentioning her name back in April.
old post
I had a chance to buy Shauna Singh Baldwin's The Tiger Claw a couple of months ago, when I was in Vancouver, but I flaked. Now I'm not sure it's coming out in the U.S. It's too bad, because if Babu likes it, there's probably something to it...
You may remember that I've talked about one of Baldwin's earlier novels before. In fact, I was yelled at for mentioning her name back in April.
old post
More on uses of literature
I've been having an ongoing dialogue with Dan Green about the uses of teaching literature. Dan's latest post on the subject is here.
Unfortunately, I am so swamped with work right now that I don't have time to respond intelligently. All I can say right now is, I find the "literary literary" way of thinking to be a bit theological. (I hope I get a chance to try and explain what I mean by that soon...)
I can point people, quickly, to Scott McLemee's mini-biography of Helen Vendler in the latest Chronicle. Dan gets a mention there for his post on Vendler's Jefferson lectures; he generally agrees with Vendler on things.
Unfortunately, I am so swamped with work right now that I don't have time to respond intelligently. All I can say right now is, I find the "literary literary" way of thinking to be a bit theological. (I hope I get a chance to try and explain what I mean by that soon...)
I can point people, quickly, to Scott McLemee's mini-biography of Helen Vendler in the latest Chronicle. Dan gets a mention there for his post on Vendler's Jefferson lectures; he generally agrees with Vendler on things.
Shakespeare's License
Via A&L Daily, a review of a book on Shakespeare's relationship with his 'players,' and the official authorization he had from both Queen Elizabeth and King James I. The reviewer reads Andrew Gurr's The Shakespeare Company as yet another twist in New Historicism:
This might be an example of the influence of "material culture" on the creation of "Shakespeare"; at least that is how the reviewer characterizes Gurr's argument.
Or, much more simply, it could just be a twist on what Indians call "Licence Raj": Shakespeare is Shakespeare because a queen and a king liked him, and gave him money and authority to do what he wanted to do.
Gurr has become the chief chronicler of the playhouse culture of Shakespeare’s age—and a key arbiter of the way Shakespeare is played today. His groundbreaking research on Shakespeare’s two playhouses, the open-air Globe and the indoor Blackfriars, has shaped the present-day reproductions of those theaters and the way the plays are staged there and elsewhere. Here he considers not the physical structures or the audiences (topics of his classic 1987 study Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London) but the team: the company who built the audiences, acted the plays, and helped create the phenomenon of Shakespeare.
Gurr explains the crafty deal that gave birth to what he calls “duopoly,” the domination of London playgoing by two companies for nearly half a century. In 1594, seeking to keep public performances out of the inns, where they’d been a source of disorder, the Lord Chamberlain gave just two companies licenses to put on plays; one, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later, under James I, the King’s Men), featured William Shakespeare as actor, writer, and partner. The stability of this arrangement (the company kept going for a quarter-century after his death in 1616) seems to have given Shakespeare the ability to develop his art, and it gave his plays the continuing production that helped entrench them in the canon.
This might be an example of the influence of "material culture" on the creation of "Shakespeare"; at least that is how the reviewer characterizes Gurr's argument.
Or, much more simply, it could just be a twist on what Indians call "Licence Raj": Shakespeare is Shakespeare because a queen and a king liked him, and gave him money and authority to do what he wanted to do.
Art: Popularity vs. Quality, Mathematically Speaking
On the one hand, evaluating art by statistical popularity seems pretty stupid -- nothing to do with the art.
But someone should go back and index these statistical popularity charts, which are based mainly on the annual number of exhibitions in major, public museums, with the relative value of the artists' works that are sold. I have a sneaking suspicion that the monetary value of an artist's best work correlates positively with popularity, even if the people who actually buy and sell very expensive works of art are about as distant from the 'masses' whose opinions are feeding these websites.
I say best work, because people like Andy Warhol and Paul Klee made lots and lots of art. Most of it isn't for sale, or it's relatively inexpensive. Their best work, however, is much more limited in quantity, and sells for lots of dinero.
The interest of thinking in this way is that it could potentially make art critics somewhat irrelevant as determiners of value. Are they already? What is the real value of their mediation? The same questions could and should be asked of literary critics and film critics. What is the value of formal, institutional literary criticism in an era of Amazon sales rankings and DIY reviews? What is the value of film criticism in an era of "Rotten Tomatoes"?
These questions suggest a tilt towards market fundamentalism. Do I really subscribe to that ethos? No, this is more of a thought-experiment. Even if the aesthetic value works of art is directly indexed to market value, there might still be ways to value the role of criticism. One such might be to think of critics as themselves market players. That is what an index like Rotten Tomatoes does -- it creates a statistical value that averages the opinions of film critics. Because those critics are pretty reliable, it represents a reliable stat. We'll have to see if the Artfacts.net index that is the inspiration for this post will be as good...
Ok, enough half-assed economics.
Surprises from the chart: Paul Klee (#3), Gerhard Richter (#5), and Joseph Beuys (#6). I like these artists (Klee and Richter moreso than Beuys), but I didn't imagine that other people liked them as much. Perhaps Klee and Richter are more popular in Europe than they are here?
Also, how is Nam June Paik so low (#89)? And Marcel Duchamp is only #27?
Art-class lesson for today -- the painting above (Richter's "Woman Descending the Staircase," 1965) is a response to the painting below (Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase," 1912). Write a 50 word (ok 25 word) compare-and-contrast essay in the comments. (Note, you might also consider another Richter painting, called "Ema, Nude on a Staircase". And a hint: it has something to do with Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction").
Major Minors, and the Quandary they Present for Culture Snobs
We've seen the emergence of a commercial art-house in the U.S. It has a pretty recognizable product, means of distribution, as well as a clearly-defined audience. It is financed by specialty wings of major studios, which actually aim to make some money, though I gather they would be just as happy winning their parent studios some Oscars each year.
All of this year's 'cool' movies were major minors: Eternal Sunshine, Before Sunset, Being Julia, Vanity Fair, Napoleon Dynamite, Garden State, Sideways, and Motorcycle Diaries, to name just a few. In the year that I've lived in New Haven (soon coming to an end, I think), those are the pretty much the kinds of movies I've been shelling out to see -- usually at one of the art-house theaters downtown. New Haven now has two competing art house theaters -- York Square and the pompously named Criterion -- that, for some reason, seem to play basically the exact same films.
A.O Scott compares the situation to the music industry. But, while that does work to an extent (most "indie rock" that you've actually heard of has backing from major labels), it seems to me it's actually a little more insidious here with the movies. That's because, outside of New York and maybe 10 other big cities, it's impossible to even see any films that aren't Fox Searchlight, Miramax, Focus, Warner Independent, etc. A serious music listener might have tastes consisting entirely of obscure musical styles and performers. A reader has infinite possibilites as well. But 'serious' movie-goers in most places are stuck choosing between Sideways and crap like Garden State for their favorite movie of the year. Taste is defined along a much narrower range than it is with the other media I mentioned. Consequently, one's own particular regime of taste is somewhat less than truly meaningful. I am sorry to say, my taste in films has gone from Eric Rohmer when I was in graduate school (good video store) to Charlie Kaufmann and Richard Linklater (the good video store is now too far away!).
The only solution for the serious movie fan in a non-major metro is to find a really good, foreign and independent-friendly video store, if there is one nearby. But even that's a bit of a sacrifice.
We're soon moving to suburban north New Jersey (for awhile), so perhaps this quandary will be a thing of the past.
All of this year's 'cool' movies were major minors: Eternal Sunshine, Before Sunset, Being Julia, Vanity Fair, Napoleon Dynamite, Garden State, Sideways, and Motorcycle Diaries, to name just a few. In the year that I've lived in New Haven (soon coming to an end, I think), those are the pretty much the kinds of movies I've been shelling out to see -- usually at one of the art-house theaters downtown. New Haven now has two competing art house theaters -- York Square and the pompously named Criterion -- that, for some reason, seem to play basically the exact same films.
A.O Scott compares the situation to the music industry. But, while that does work to an extent (most "indie rock" that you've actually heard of has backing from major labels), it seems to me it's actually a little more insidious here with the movies. That's because, outside of New York and maybe 10 other big cities, it's impossible to even see any films that aren't Fox Searchlight, Miramax, Focus, Warner Independent, etc. A serious music listener might have tastes consisting entirely of obscure musical styles and performers. A reader has infinite possibilites as well. But 'serious' movie-goers in most places are stuck choosing between Sideways and crap like Garden State for their favorite movie of the year. Taste is defined along a much narrower range than it is with the other media I mentioned. Consequently, one's own particular regime of taste is somewhat less than truly meaningful. I am sorry to say, my taste in films has gone from Eric Rohmer when I was in graduate school (good video store) to Charlie Kaufmann and Richard Linklater (the good video store is now too far away!).
The only solution for the serious movie fan in a non-major metro is to find a really good, foreign and independent-friendly video store, if there is one nearby. But even that's a bit of a sacrifice.
We're soon moving to suburban north New Jersey (for awhile), so perhaps this quandary will be a thing of the past.
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