Sacred and Profane: Violence, Vision and the Waco Disaster

More than 2 decades after the stand off at the Waco Branch Davidian compound which led to what appears to have been the avoidable deaths of 74 including 25 children, it remains a subject that continues to resurface as secular mainstream American society continues to attempt to come to terms - or not- with outlying religious groups. In this week's New Yorker Malcolm Gladwell looks at the (mis-) understandings on the part of US federal ATF and FBI officials that contributed to the failure of negotiations to end the standoff and resulted in further violence and death.

Mr Gladwell's article here 

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/03/31/140331fa_fact_gladwell

More Details from the James Tabor blog on religion and religious freedom here http://jamestabor.com/

--Anthony Napoli

When Gravity Fails: Inflation and the Birth of the Universe

Alan Guth was one of the first physicists to hypothesize the existence of inflation, which explains how the universe expanded so uniformly and so quickly in the instant after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. Now the evidence may be in.

Front page NY Times story here http://nyti.ms/1ivEk8k

Symbol and Substance: The Semiotics of Governing in NYC

It seems both the City at large, the administration and the media are in a state of flux as the BdB mayoralty moves from the transition to the Real Thing.The gaseous promissory emanations of the end of campaign/early post inaugural moments rise and fall, seeking to move to the solid state and avoid bloviating into a noxious and bilious cloud of disappointment. But that is not unique; it is true of any new administration, at any level and in any place in American politics.

Here in NYC, that scene on the steps of city hall was amusing and a little lame all around -- the reporters who are dogging him squeezing in for a mayoral selfie.. clearly Bloomberg was so inaccessible because of his personal wealth and the powerful political and media minions around to shield him .. Giuliani had his prosecutor's personality and "i dont care/you are the idiot" arrogance..

The fact is BdB "don't got" either of those approaches and he is just going to have to weather these early storms and battles of his administration until hopefully for him  a solid more effective "mayoral" style emerges in his dealing with and image in the media..of course if he has legislative wins and policy successes then the media will know that his admin's seeming "life in a blender" alternately affable/chaotic style is the BdB brand for his way of getting things done. Hopefully that is not overly optimistic.

The 2014 Armory Show: Visual Feasts and Cultural Landscapes

Under Heaven 20121020, Xu Zhen, 2012. FOCUS: China




Flowers, Andy Warhol, 1970. Sims Reed Gallery

 


Capri Batteries Joseph Beuys 1985 Galerie Thomas


The Armory Show, New York’s leading fair for contemporary and modern art, hosting over 200 leading galleries from 29 countries, opens today. Despite the frigid March temperatures, the Armory Show, which for the first time this year the fair coincides with the opening of the Whitney Biennial, once again serves as an exciting visual and cultural "Spring" and further establishes March in New York as a must-see moment in its annual arts calendar and a cornerstone of the American art market. For the 2014 edition The Armory Show has devoted Armory Focus, the specially curated section of Pier 94 to the contemporary cultural landscape in China, presenting an exciting selection of galleries from the Mainland and Hong Kong. The fair will also launch the inaugural edition of Armory Presents, dedicated to dual and single artist presentations exhibited by galleries under ten years old. The Armory Show–Modern has established a formal Selection Committee of leading dealers and will present its first ever curated exhibition, featuring seminal drawings by female artists of the twentieth century.

Armory Focus: China, the fair’s specially curated section will explore artists working in Chinese contemporary art today. Curated by Philip Tinari, it showcases a selection of 17 established and emerging galleries, providing access to a wide array of contemporary practice in China. Xu Zhen, whose Under Heaven is pictured above, is one such artist worknig in a variety of media nd disciplines, from installation, photography, video to performance and painting. More here and here and here The Armory Focus: China is a fine example of The Armory Show's exploration of new areas, perspectives, sensibilities and forms of contemporary art today.

New York City is Art. Art is New York City. And The Armory Show is New York's annual home to visual feasts and international cultural landscapes of the contemporary art scene and the world of modern art collectors and exhibitors.

For information on tickets, visit The Armory Show website here

Top of the World

Time Magazine's dramatic cover photo of the top of the new 1 World Trade Center/td>

"The Less I Say About It The Better"

http://youtu.be/IoEIzkpa0P0

St Vincent and David Byrne perform This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) live 2013

 

Two very courageous artists at work

Banks at HRA: The deBlasio Administration Selects its Leadership

http://nyti.ms/1csPqWf

Like Johnny Caspar the mob boss says in millers crossing "running things, kid, it ain't easy"... Managing and leading is the challenge it will be interesting to see how well Steve Banks does at HR A or if he would have better served on the outside keeping the city's policy In Line and helping to shape it.. One can only hope this is a sincere move, an experiment, on the administration's part and not a cynical effort to coopt potential critics

--Anthony Napoli

Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

'The Mighty Storm'

"The Mighty Storm" by Peter Bradley Adams recorded in Nashville

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1aLcubTtju8

http://albumstreams.com/s/peter-bradley-adams/the-mighty-storm

 The album of the same name is available for live stream listening at album streams 

http://albumstreams.com/s/peter-bradley-adams/the-mighty-storm

The "Mirror Man": Art Spiegelman Retrospective

The Jewish Museum's presentation of Co-Mix: An Art Spiegelman Retrospective presents an exceptionally detailed summary of the life and work to date of the artist best known for his groundbreaking graphic novel, Maus.

The exhibit presents work from his high school days through the present with exhaustive coverage of Maus and remarkable ephemera including the typescript letter used by the Nazi's to document the arrest and deportation of his parents to Auschwitz as well as a stuffed mouse that served as a reference tool for the author. 

From The New Yorker: Maurice Sendak and Art Spiegelman discuss literature and childhood.

The exhibit is decidedly small scale, the largest works are those that are the basis for his famous New Yorker covers. If you have followed Mr Spiegelman's work much of this will already be familiar. But the opportunity to observe many of the original sketches and finished drawings, to admire his creativity and the vision that  brought about the Pulitzer Prize winning Maus, and the personal history behind it all, is something not to be missed.

Museum link here http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/art-spiegelman

Through March 23.

--Anthony Napoli

Deep in the Heart ofBrooklyn 

My Roman Ruminations: "The Persian Drunkard Follows Me"

"Got the fever/down in my pocket,
The Persian drunkard follows me/
You can take me to your gate but I can't unlock it/
You see you forgot to leave me with your key/
But where are you tonight Sweet Marie"

Absolutely Sweet Marie by Bob Dylan from Blonde on Blonde

http://m.izlesene.com/video/5146239#

Ai WeiWei Art Destroyed by Protester at Miami Museum

Part of a work by artist Ai Weiwei was destroyed at the Perez Museum in Miami  by a Miami-based artist as a protest against what was termed the lack of representation of local artists in Miami Museums. Ai Weiwei's work has itself featured the repurposing and sometimes destruction of Chinese antiquities.

Full story here http://nyti.ms/1e2DVEw

"Colored Vases" by Ai Weiwei

Whistle blowing, Big Data and the Left

Slavoj Zizek on Snowden, Julian Assange, the N. S.A., cloud computing, the Leftist imagination and whistle blowing link here from The Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/03/snowden-manning-assange-new-heroes

Steve Fuller on Zizek on Snowden, the N. S.A., cloud computing, the Leftist imagination, and SZ's "fetishism of BIg Data" link here http://sociologicalimagination.org/archives/13940

'Thistle and the Drone': US Dials Down Dronefare to Explore Peace Talks with Taliban

In Akbar Ahmed's 2013 volume The Thistle and the Drone, the American University scholar explores the deep cultural divides that exist between traditional tribal peoples throughout the world, but especially in Muslim inhabited regions, and the globalized technocratic cultures that are impacting the world of traditional tribal peoples - the thorny thistle of the title. 

Perhaps evincing access to  Prof. Amed's interesting book, subtitled 'How. America's War on Terror became a Global War on Tribal Islam',  the US military has dialed back drone attacks as the Pakistani government attempts to wage peace with the Taliban, story here http://m.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-curtails-drone-strikes-in-pakistan-as-officials-there-seek-peace-talks-with-taliban/2014/02/04/1d63f52a-8dd8-11e3-833c-33098f9e5267_story.html?wpisrc=al_national

More on Dr Ahmed's book and work here's http://www.brookings.edu/experts/ahmeda

A Super Bowl Query: What's More American than America? Duh.

Alexandra Petri in the Washington Post has the last word on the Super Bowl and --more importantly-- the Super Bowl commercials. Roll over, Slavoj Zizek

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2014/02/03/is-there-anything-more-american-than-america-the-answer-in-8-super-bowl-commercials/

The "Dalton" Gang vs. C.S.A.

DITHOB has discussed the troubling, visionary statement of what might have been had the Confederate States of America succeded and defeated the United States of America in the Civil War:
Kevin Wilmott's brilliant "alternative history"and faux documentary film, produced by Spike Lee, C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America.

In the NY Times, an article about the showing of the film by the Dalton School which resulted in confusion and apologies to Parents in what clearly is a misunderstanding of the tone and scope of the film. Far from a satire, CSA looks at race in America in unflinching and painful terms, through the lens of alternative history, and compels viewers to consider how far we have come and how far we have to go in coming to mutual understanding and acceptance of a multicultural Ameruca. That the Dalton incident would occur the same week that business media discusses the release of the next Cheerios commercial during the Super Bowl, which features a biracial cast, and on the same day the NYT reports on Mayor deBlasio's intent to settle stop and frisk cases and address the policy, only serves to underscore Mr Wilmott's epigraph to CSA: he quotes George Bernard Shaw -"if you are going to tell people the truth, better make them laugh. Otherwise they will kill you."

--Anthony Napoli, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn