Knocking At The Gate

Okay, so it works like this: There are actual halos, the glowing rings of celestial light that surround holy people in old paintings. The beauty, radiance, and elegance of the halo reflects some combination of (a) how often the person has done something good for someone else, (b) how important those good works were, and (c) how recent the good works were. Neglect a dog? Then your halo is nasty-looking. Tutor a child? Then your halo gets spiffy and grand. The halos can't be faked, can't be rigged, and can't be Photoshopped. What you do is what we see. Everyone has a halo, it's just that some are drab and some really glow. This would really change dating and job interviews and court proceedings and elections and so on. – J.F. "Jeff" McCullers * * * * * Image: Fresco of S. Benedict by Fra Angelico. (1441). Convento di San Marco, Florence

When our technology-powered economy collided with the pandemic economy, it created a space where a completely imaginary company with an imaginary office building and imaginary senior leadership could hire unwitting professionals to work for six months without anyone ever getting paid. It's quite a story of our times. Full article by Leo Sands, Catrin Nye, Divya Talwar and Benjamin Lister at BBC, with video features.

In Literary Review , Jane O'Grady reviews Stuart Jeffries' Everything, All the Time, Everywhere: How We Became Post-Modern: Everything, All the Time, Everywhere conveys the essence of postmodernism (or lack of it) through an appropriately postmodern bricolage – a patchwork of events, buildings, photographic and enacted artworks, philosophies, films, technologies and video games. Three examples are allocated to each of the ten chapters, which are ordered chronologically and cover the period from 1971 to 2001. The Sex Pistols, Margaret Thatcher and Lyotard co-feature as punk icons in the third chapter, ‘No Future’; in the seventh, which focuses on 1989, when the Soviet bloc collapsed, Jeffries juxtaposes Francis Fukuyama’s notion of ‘the end of history’ with Judith Butler’s 1990 Gender Trouble (which marked the rise of queer theory) and the fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie for his novel The Satanic Verses . Full review here .

  Ivan Turetsky. (2019). "Fiery Touch." Oil and acrylic on canvas. 145 x 128 cm (57⅛ x 50⅜ in.) Acquired directly from the artist, Lviv, Ukraine Offered by James Butterwick Gallery, London. https://www.jamesbutterwick.com/artworks/fiery-touch/

Annie Applebaum writes in The Atlantic on how history can catch up with us: Ukraine is now under brutal attack, with tens of thousands of Russian troops moving through its eastern provinces, along its northern border and its southern coast. For like the Russian czars before him—like Stalin, like Lenin—Putin also perceives Ukrainianness as a threat. Not a military threat, but an ideological threat.  Full essay here.

Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas, how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took questions on how not to feel lost in the dark. Full poem by Brad Aaron Modlin here.

From a YouTube account named "Sesame Swap," here is a pivotal scene from Denis Villeneuve's Dune in which Paul Atreides (played by Timothée Chalamet ) faces the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Mohiam (played by Charlotte Rampling). In this version, however, Paul is played by Elmo.

I've been doing some reading. Catching up on the last four decades, really. So when I read Cormac McCarthy, his writing looks like a sledgehammer and feels like a sledgehammer when it hits you square in the face. His hammers have been forged with such heft that nothing can withstand them. When I read his stuff, I never want to write anything because what else can possibly be said over the unmarked graves of all of these other fallen writers? When I read Toni Morrison, her writing looks like writing from anyone but feels like a sledgehammer when it hits you square in the heart. Her hammers aren't built for heft, though, so as much for speed and dexterity, and they always hit the soft spot, the place where the most damage can be done. When I read her stuff, I never want to write anything because I can't do anything like what she does and besides I'm bleeding out. When I read Jeff VanderMeer, his writing looks like writing from anyone else and it feels like normal writing

Cover art by Anne Rothenstein  William Davies in The London Review of Books considers the multiple pressures on the humanities and on all other learning for rising generations who are digital natives, who have always been accustomed to sifting and sorting overwhelming quantities of content, who have been raised in schools powerfully shaped by EdTech's mechanistic view of education, who now face a pandemic-dominated world where face-to-face instruction might not be the norm. It's quite a read. In the utopia sold by the EdTech industry (the companies that provide platforms and software for online learning), pupils are guided and assessed continuously. When one task is completed correctly, the next begins, as in a computer game; meanwhile the platform providers are scraping and analysing data from the actions of millions of children. In this behaviourist set-up, teachers become more like coaches: they assist and motivate individual ‘learners’, but are no longer so importan

Ted Gioia writes in The Honest Broker about early guitar hero Link Wray and about his song "Rumble": Bob Dylan, who was inspired by Wray as a youngster, allegedly told him over dinner that he was better than Hendrix. Pete Townshend of the Who once claimed that "If it hadn't been for Link Wray and 'Rumble,' I never would have picked up a guitar." Bruce Springsteen has played “Rumble” in concert. Other ardent Link Wray fans include Jimmy Page, Neil Young, and Iggy Pop. But film directors have done even more than the music establishment to ensure Wray’s lasting renown. Quentin Tarantino featured two of his songs, “Rumble” and “Ace of Spades,” in Pulp Fiction. Wray’s “Jack the Ripper” shows up in Robert Rodriguez's Desperado, as well as the 2019 Oscar Best Picture nominee Ford v. Ferrari. I recently heard “La De Da” on the TV show Barry. Filmmakers especially love “Rumble,” which has also appeared everywhere from Independence Day to The Sopranos. If you

Okay, let's break this down. I just came across a trailer for a Baz Luhrmann movie about Elvis that is supposed to come out this summer. Other than this trailer, I have not heard a single thing about this. 1. The world does not need one more minute of filmed entertainment or documentary about Elvis Presley. Nobody asked for this. Why is this here? Even so, now that a genius has proposed it, attention must be paid. 2. Baz Luhrmann is a genius the same way that people like Syd Barrett or Bob Fosse were geniuses: when it doesn't work out, you can't imagine what they were thinking but when it does work out, you can't imagine how the universe existed without them. 3. Tom Hanks is probably the most-loved American actor alive right now. He's proven himself every which way a dozen times already, even with risky roles. This might be the time in his career when he brushes past risky or edgy and begins taking on reckless roles. Based on these few seconds, that makeup and accen

In the Los Angeles Review of Books, Michael Meranze reviews Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age by Paul Reitter and Chad Wellmon: "Instead of seeing the current moment as an unprecedented crisis in a mode of learning centuries old, they want to shift our attention to the long history of crisis thinking itself. As they tell it, proponents of the humanities have told a story of its crisis forever; indeed, this sensibility lies at the heart of the modern humanities."

Wednesday night in our house means (a) I take a poetry class on Zoom and (b) since I’m not cooking dinner, we order Subway. This has become our way of life at least for the semester but I might be pushing my luck tonight. – J.F. "Jeff" McCullers

Matt Burgess in Wired explains how bad things are with Mozilla and why that's a problem. Take this as Just a loving reminder that y'all need to be using Firefox instead of all that other mess. It's good for you and it's good for the health of the entire Web. Also, since I'm already grumpy, mobile apps are pure evil on a stick. It is my intention to use Firefox on a desktop until the kingdom come, and I invite you to join me. The metaversal clampdown is coming but we can still go out in a blaze of extensible open-standards glory like Butch and Sundance.

AI-powered deep fake technology is improving rapidly. A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that existing software generates artificial faces that are so convincing that viewers can't distinguish them from real people. Moreover, these artificial faces tend to be regarded as appearing to be more trustworthy than actual human faces. This finding may have enormous interest to those who use the technology for commercial or political purposes, and which of course may have enormous impact on all of society. The UK/US team of researchers who reported this startling finding included a set of recommendations to respond to this immensely powerful tool. They wrote: "We, therefore, encourage those developing these technologies to consider whether the associated risks are greater than their benefits. If so, then we discourage the development of technology simply because it is possible." Link to full-text versions of the study in HTML and in PDF:

My first magazine subscription when I was a kid was for Mad magazine, followed in short order by National Lampoon . It was in National Lampoon that I first read writing that both made me laugh out loud and but was also so stylish that I wanted to learn how to write myself. Those hilariously raunchy, absurd, and punchy articles and stories were written by this man. One of the only times I ever got in trouble at school was when I smuggled in a National Lampoon magazine, which I then loaned to a friend, who then busted out laughing when he read the O'Rourke article I had pointed out to him. We both got reprimanded but we both agreed it was worth it. That stuff was funny as hell.  O'Rourke then went on to appear in nearly every other funny or politically-charged or literary or hip magazine that a voracious young reader like me was able to find in my rural Florida hometown. No matter which magazine I picked up next, he seemed to be in it: The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fai

Valentine's Day is for lovers, and love is perhaps the greatest of all topics in poetry. In celebration and for your consideration, then: "Aubade" by Amber Flora Thomas   "American Smooth" by Rita Dove "The Quiet World" by Jeffrey McDaniel "Sonnet XXIX" by William Shakespeare "Life Story" by Tennessee Williams

Michael McFaul writes in Foreign Affairs : " A fixation on nonstarters—such as Putin’s demands for a NATO expansion moratorium, or the West’s insistence that Russia withdraw from Crimea—will make reaching a new security agreement impossible. But negotiators could make progress by focusing on other issues and then embedding intractable problems into a larger deal. Widening the aperture of the negotiations could create opportunities for deals that are currently not available. "

  Jessica Hagy is writer, illustrator, and concept director who also admits that "I draw quite a bit." Her long-running series of pithy charts may (and should) be enjoyed at Indexed . 

  Nikky Finney writes in The Bitter Southerner : There are women who wait at the door until you arrive like you said you would. Women who stand at the screen with their elbows poking in at the wire like original tuning knobs made of fossilized walrus bone. There are women who wait at the door until your car rolls up in the yard, the engine cut, the headlights shut, the driver’s door cracking the air into two slices of brown bread... Excerpted from Finney, Nikky. (2020. Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry: Poems & Artifacts. Evanston, Illinois, USA: TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press. Photograph by Forrest Clonts

I mentioned to a competent, courteous, and hard-working call center customer service representative this morning that one of her company's policies was "psychotic." I acknowledged, of course, that I was aware she did not create the policy nor have any discretion about enforcing it. My statement was objectively a factual one, and I stand by it. Moreover, it was clearly relevant to our conversation. Looking back on it now, however, I regret saying it and I feel bad. She was doing her job and doing it conscientiously, and I did not improve the speed or quality of our transaction by using truthful but inflammatory language. I shall strengthen my resolve to not make life harder for the other victims of the clampdown. Until the revolution comes, we must all serve our algorithmic overlords. — J.F. "Jeff" McCullers * * *   Image: John William Waterhouse, (1878). "The Remorse of Nero After the Murder of His Mother." Oil on canvas.

Will Butler of the indie rock band Arcade Fire writes in The Atlantic about what Spotify is and what it isn't — and what the Joe Rogan affair reveals about a central problem in the music business.   "Complaints against bloodless businessmen are hardly new. But what’s happening in music today feels less like individual acts of exploitation and more like the razing of an ecosystem."

The Oscar nominations are out , and despite all the well-deserved doubt about the useuflness of such things, I'm eager for the chance to pretend that something is still normal. I have a few immediate responses: (1) As has been the case in recent years, I haven't seen a good many of the leading nominees. I must resolve to do better. (2) My man Denis Villeneuve directed the completely magnificent Dune , an epic crowd-pleaser that was evidently good enough to earn 10 nominations but not good enough to earn a nomination for Best Directing. I'm not sore yet since I haven't seen the other films, but I ready to be sore once I see them. (3) I have only seen one of the Best Actress performances and it was a doozy. In The Lost Daughter , Olivia Colman delivered what is now her trademark: a non-showy yet somehow cracklingly vivid look inside a hard-to-define character. Coleman is supported by a cast all doing exactly the same thing, so the effect is powerful. This was a super

Dan Piepenbring on what to make of Nicolas Cage in Harper's : "There’s something stalwart, commendable, even comforting about Cage’s presence, something that reaches past entertainment toward tangled questions of talent and excess. His acting is too much, not just in tenor but in sheer volume. Since 1986, he has appeared in at least one film a year and sometimes up to six, bringing his total to well over one hundred. This ubiquity, combined with his trademark intensity, can make him seem like a permanently erupting volcano. At this point, it would be more disturbing if he went dormant. His increased output has brought what’s often called a cult audience, a euphemism suggesting that his fans are mere ironists, feigning love for the objectively unlovable."

    Fil of Wings of Pegasus provides a detailed analysis of the vocal techniques used by seventeen-year-old Judy Garland in the recording of this classic song.

In the span of seconds, Paul McCartney connects the work of Jerry Lee Lewis, Eddie Cochran, John Lennon, and John Legend in a basic piano lesson. The student is producer Rick Rubin. Clearly relishing this demonstration of musical giftedness, Rubin just smiles, nods, and lets it happen. A lovely moment from McCartney 3, 2, 1 .

Harold James in Foreign Affairs : "The persistent supply chain crisis poses serious threats to societies everywhere, but the solution to this problem is not for governments to intervene more forcefully in the interest of securing resources, or to wind back globalization. It is instead to build resilient and diverse supply networks that don’t depend on one source and seek more—not fewer—connections throughout the world."

Catherine Nixey in 1843 Magazine : "While the key workers of the world actually kept everything running by going out to work, many of us have likened our privileged isolation to that of a monk confined in a monastery, world at bay."

George Thomas in The Atlantic : During oral argument at the Supreme Court in December over Mississippi’s abortion ban, Justice Sonia Sotomayor laid bare a fundamental truth: “There’s so much that’s not in the Constitution.”

Groundhog Day has always baffled me in that it seems to be a holiday without any social purpose whatsoever. There is nothing to say or buy or do, nothing to decorate, nothing to give or sing, no one in whose honor one could hold a storewide clearance sale. It follows then, that of even less usefulness is today, February 1, which was described to me by my children in a pre-dawn encounter this morning as "Groundhog Day Eve." Apart perhaps from this specious distinction, this Groundhog Day Eve was fairly unremarkable-following the festive Groundhog Day Eve greeting from my kids, I awoke, annoying at having to do so, but somehow finding fortitude in a shower and some fierce coffee; I drove to work, annoyed at having to survive the deadly inattention of drivers putting on eye makeup at ninety miles an hour in a dense fog, but somehow finding my balance in the mellow and modulated voices of those oh-so-calm commentators on National Public Radio; I did my job for the prescribed