Monthly Archives: February 2009

Andy Warhol

I was reading this interesting post over at Sometrajectories about postmodernism and modernism; they reference an article by Menand about Donald Barthelme in this week’s New Yorker, but I’d like to say a few words about their characterization of modernism and postmodernism, more specifically their interpretation of Warhol (borrowed from Michael Kramer): Pictured in multiple forms [...]
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it only took this long.

for me to give up my resolve to write a post every day. I’m overcome with work related to my thesis, so the daily trickle is going to have to run dry for a few more days. I should have more time in a little more than a week. I’ll try and post a few [...]
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being vs becoming

A friend of mine made passing mention of the “debate” about being versus becoming in philosophy. As a student of language philosophy, I don’t think I can speak to the deep metaphysical considerations such an uncertainty raises; the natural tendency of modern language philosophy has been to try and defuse such problems by demonstrating their [...]
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dearth of the earth.

No post until tomorrow afternoon, probably. This picture will have to tide you over:
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velasquez

how does he so manage to blend abstraction with exactitude in his portraits? We are to think of abstraction as a necessary clearing-away of information to further emphasize more important points; his whole painting is abstract, but not in the universal sense that later artists make use of–he scrubs over the inessential elements of a [...]
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the day’s reading

Today’s reading: Popmatters reviews “Stuff White People Like” The Economist on Financial Globalization’s Death Knells The Weekly Standard on the new “Killjoy” political economy The American on India’s Railway Czar Lalu Yadev Thierry Chervel believes the islamisation of Europe is a foregone conclusion Some of these may show up with this week’s review, but most likely not.
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hip books and altruistic art.

If you’re interested in staying abreast of new criticism online, there’s probably no better place to start than bookforum.com. Every day 15-20 new articles are linked on the homepage, most of which are engaging. Sifting is the chief predicament of bookforum. They provide an invaluable service to people like me by sorting through the daily [...]
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Sunday Reading

“Such, Such was Eric Blair,” by Julian Barnes in the NY Review of Books Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Communitarianism Italian Documentary on Brian Eno on ArtSpace.it Economist on the Oscars (they afford themselves a little populism when it comes to culture) The American Conservative on British Inspiration (or its lack thereof) The Random Beauty of Facebook’s “25 things [...]
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the platitudes of woody allen.

Vicky Christina Barcelona is a good film. Some of the Woody Allen purists I know reject it just like almost every other recent work in his oevre. Their criticism is fair for a film like Curse of the Jade Scorpion, but doesn’t really hold water with this film. It has the atmosphere of Manhattan and [...]
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you can judge a band by its covers.

It's easier to judge a band by its look than it is by its actual music.
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