Politics – Page 16 – the coffee philosopher

Posted on July 29, 2014July 30, 2014 by the coffee philosopher

Detroit Institute Of Art

With the seemingly constant threat of Rick Snyder’s appointed lackey selling off the collection of the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA) in order to fund a new stadium for the Red Wings (and I’m not kidding – the more than $200 million cut to employee pensions is almost exactly the amount that is being given to pay for a new hockey stadium – and they’re still talking about selling of the DIA collection in order to… well, I assume in order to give away more money to Rick Snyder donors), I had to go view the museum before this part of the city’s heritage is irreparably broken.

We learned some things about personal tastes. First of all, while I understand the art of the Dutch Golden Age is amazing… it’s just not for me. The ones I liked the most, the ones that really spoke to me, where those that most resembled Italianate landscapes from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

We also learned that I love Art Nouveau. I especially loved a great little painting but Odilon Redon and this painting of the girls on the couch (also – kind of erotic, isn’t it?).

The DIA is probably best known for its collection of enormous Diego Rivera murals. They are breathtaking and overwhelming, but the space they are in, though cavernous, still feels too cramped for such massive and powerful pieces. I was too overwhelmed to appreciate them.

Finally, Detroit’s clearly got some cool art going, so I’ve added some pics of just cool stuff from around town.

Posted on July 24, 2014July 24, 2014 by the coffee philosopher

Netroots Nation & John K King Used Books

From July 17 through July 20, I was at Netroots Nation in Detroit. I don’t think that I’d been since it was called YearlyKos (and, in all honestly, I don’t intend to go back for another couple of years, without some compelling reason; it’s a great event – great speakers, great networking and catching up with old colleagues, good panelists, etc., but time and tide waits for no man).

I wasn’t about to not explore a once (and future?) great American city, with an interesting and problematic story of renewal (hipster/techie/artist gentrification which, while great in many ways, can also leave long standing communities of color behind, or worse, pushed out). I’ll write about some of my explorations later, but for now, I want to focus on one super awesome place: John K King Used Books.

An enormous, four story high used bookstore in an old glove factory. The shelves are packed inside, as tight as possible without forcing the fire marshal to take corrective action. Suitably cluttered and confusing (let’s just say that the answer to my question, ‘where can I find the poetry section,’ did not have a simple, geographic answer).

I went twice, the first time, purchasing two books of poetry. One was slim volume of Ben Jonson’s verse, the other a collection of poetry for some long gone high school syllabus (we certainly never read Rime of the Ancient Mariner when I was in high school), which I bought solely because it had Thomas Babington Macaulay’s The Lays of Ancient Rome.

The second time, I picked up John Ruskin’s collection of lectures/essays entitled Sesame and Lilies. You may remember that I read a great collection of essays and excerpts by Ruskin and was happy to find some more.

Anyway… check out the pictures of this huge and incredible bookstore. If you look closely, you can see the books piled up in the windows.

Posted on July 18, 2014July 16, 2014 by the coffee philosopher

Weekend Reading – Animal Metaphors

I like hedgehog novels. I think. I don’t know. This is confusing.

The year of living Kantically.

‘The liberal state is in crisis, basically, because its regulatory, legal, and political institutions have either been captured, or have been laid siege to, by the economic interests they were created to control. While the liberal state was never intended to enforce distributive equality, it was always supposed to keep the power of big money from suffocating competition and corrupting the political system. This is the task it struggles to perform today and must recover fully if it is to regain the confidence and support of the broad mass of its citizens.’

Posted on July 16, 2014July 15, 2014 by the coffee philosopher

Midweek Staff Meeting – Old School

The original avant-garde.

Philosopher Anthony Gottlieb is not a philosopher. Or something like that.

Go ahead – be wrong.

Class poetry.

Posted on July 13, 2014July 10, 2014 by the coffee philosopher

Posted on July 4, 2014July 2, 2014 by the coffee philosopher

Weekend Reading – Patriotic Edition

500x327xFrom-left-Ford-Madox-Ford-009_jpg_pagespeed_ic_LzJe_rwvBb — Doesn’t Ezra Pound (third from the left) look badass in this picture?

You’re darn right, it’s vital!

Take back the word.

It forgot to add that David Brooks is a monumental douche.

Lost classics of literary criticism.

Posted on July 3, 2014July 2, 2014 by the coffee philosopher

Listening To Beethoven

The other weekend, we went to Wolf Trap for a performance of Beethoven’s Egmont Overture and Ninth Symphony and also of Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes (from Peter Grimes).

The pieces by Britten were pretty Britten-y. Not to knock him, because, I mean, c’mon – he wrote The War Requiem which is an amazing, mindblowing work. But he’s a sentimental sort of composer and these were small, sentimental works.

The Egmont Overture was new to me. It was composed for a production of a tragedy by Goethe named… Egmont. A political play about resistance to oppressive authority, it was right up the alley of the man who composed the Eroica Symphony. And what a great piece. So absolutely moving. And yes, it was very, very political. You didn’t need to know anything about the play or the background to know that this work was making a political statement.

Maybe it was because I was reading Geoffrey Hill’s A Treatise on Civil Power that I wondered if the best lens through which to view Beethoven’s works was political. Is Beethoven a primarily political artist?

Also, I thought about a line from a movie starring the late River Phoenix, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, entitled Running on Empty. It’s a good movie, blah, blah. But what came to me was a line where River Phoenix’s character, to answer his music teacher’s question as to the difference between Beethoven and some piece of popular music (the Beatles or someone like that). ‘You can’t dance to Beethoven,’ he said.

But that’s not really true is it? Because you can’t help but dance to Beethoven. Yes, yes, I understand the whole issue of rhythm, but when Beethoven is played, watch your body and watch the bodies around you. Everyone will start attempting to tap and sway with the music. They’ll fail, of course, but they will try. And so will you. Beethoven makes you want to dance!

During the Ninth, everyone tries to become a conductor, gesticulating in the air because it impels you towards motion, towards action! (political action?) It is more than merely hopeful. It is a rejection of hopelessness in the face of valid reason for despair, and in that, it is inherently religious.