Classive Storytelling Perhaps you notice that we live in a story of our creation. That all we see is borne of human imagination. Cities are our stage sets. Nations our cast. And each we all is the star, a villain, a hero, a fool. Well, not so much our own story, Homer’s story, Luke’s…
Colloquies: A Review of Civilization in Little Songs Nations come and nations go, kingdoms are mostly gone, China intends empire, not certain its people do, though they are hungry for wealth, and are willing to consume the world’s resources, including yours. Our nation will be gone, sooner or later; all nations fade away in…
Paideia, Book I of Colloquies, A Review of Civilization in Little Songs Wonder what Isocrates might have made of me. A Greek, I suppose. As ipso facto he did, just as he made you, Greek. We are who we are by how we know of what we are, universally, biologically, creatures who can know…
Classical Poets and Expansive Poetry When you come to be my age (God willing, you do) patterns reveal themselves, show themselves more real than real, mutable things. But then, alike you, I have always seen patterns, and this the cause, I suppose, that we are classical poets. Something about the pattern patterning, God’s universe, the…
The Barbarity Renewed Stanza Each day upon waking the progressive pisses, snarls, reads her New York Times or watches his CNN, renews fury, and ventures into civilization to destroy it. Or sometimes families tune their collective consciousness to NPR and disappear into fog, never to awaken. Each new day barbarity is renewed in anger…
Picturing Realism What is real, the painting of the bowl of fruit, or the bowl of fruit. Is the mountain more real than the painting of the mountain? Is the man real, or is the painting of the man real, or are both real, or neither? If you guessed, “neither”, you might be correct….
Beautiful Living, Considered Having never been to Heaven, as far as I remember, I cannot speak of heavenly beauty, of life in the eternal divine. And yet, I have read accounts of those who have visited Heaven, some few of the thousands who relate near-death experiences, and I have read and have considered Swedenborg’s…
Do you recognize your neighbors, I wonder. Neighbors who I have known for months, years, decades are changing into a people I do not recognize. No, not merely the bandit masks that disguise faces, nor the isolated eye that shows fear or anger, even unto the strange attitude of the knotted brow, but that deeper…
The Screen Novella Likely, you have not heard the phrase, “screen novella”, few have, being as it is a new term for a new literary form, a form of my invention, a combination of screenplay and novella. I am certain you know the novel, that form of prose fiction developed for common readers, readers challenged…
Modern Art: An Exhibition in CriticismModern Art is antique.Modern Art is old.Modern Art is so last century.Modern Art is an oxymoron, neither modern nor art. Modern Art: An Exhibition is Criticism is a book ofinvective,satire,mudslinging,ridicule,and other devices of respectable pedigree. Modern Art: An Exhibition in Criticism isa jokebook,a critique,a history,a biography,a gem of the poet’s…
Awarding Tradition Is there a heaven? Is there reward for good behavior? Why merit the good? For goodness’ sake, I suppose. And for no other cause? Not even for the cause of enriching civilization by inspiring to good behavior. Awarding tradition. . . . Perhaps you gray-cloth-coat-Republicans have noticed that a corrupting progression of…
ARCHITECTURAL .ART Architecture is an art, a craft, a practical necessity. Sometimes, architecture is man’s grandeur writ large: Saint Peter’s Basilica, The Parthenon, Taj Mahal, Le Mont-Saint-Michel, The Pantheon. Sometimes architecture is foolishness scribbled everywhere: The Guggenheim, Dancing House, Niterói Contemporary, Le Centre Pompidou, The Gherkin. Lately, the art of architecture has been an absurdity…
You will notice the all-to-obvious differences between the Classive stacked-stone of Athens’ Acropolis and the Progressive stone-stacks teetering all around us. The one is permanent, ennobling, difficult, the other is transient, degrading, all-too-easy and ethically squishy. Picture, if you will, the intelligence of Athens’ Propylaea, the idea in stone, the divine geometries, the artistry in…
Summerhouse is the second site of the first chapter of The Classive Tradition, a personal consideration of civilization as revealed in the monuments and memorials, objects and sites of Washington, The District of Columbia. The book is two-thirds complete, and ready for sharing. Hope you enjoy this quaint preview. * * * Trees, bushes, flowers,…
As for myself, I cannot imagine the Mid-Century Modern sans steel and glass. Steel, glass, and technology is the sine qua non of the old-fashioned “Modern“. And, steel and glass, and energy-efficiency is the sine qua non of the new modern.* Trouble is, the old steel and glass are expensive, mostly energy consuming … ever…
Equity Diversity Inclusion: Firmness, Commodity, and Slight of Phrase “Equity diversity inclusion” is a pretty little phrase, quaint, nice and polite, well suited to swimsuit contests, campus riots, and advertising campaigns. We find this fawning phrase graphicly projected on smart boardroom screens, carelessly taped to smudgy coffeehouse windows, and boldly italicized upon preachy university…
Civic Art: The Progressive or the Classive Remarks Delivered at the Cosmos, Club, Washington, D.C., 14 September, 2021: Progressive, or Classive Civic Art? When asked to join this panel, I wondered: “What might I, an old craftsman, contribute to a discussion of architecture and urbanism. Yes, I’ve tinkered with civic planning, designed some little…
Fire and Ice (detail) Adam & Eve, and Willie (detail) Bacchus and Ariadne (detail) the theoretical period Professionally, Girard was growing away from the civilized cocoon of his fatherly patron into the wild flights of America’s ill-advised social liberations. Too, by notice of Sarkis Sarkisian, with assistance from Abramson, Girard in 1968 secured a…
The National Gallery of Art Petting Zoo Here we are in the picture gallery, the Pinakotheke, looking from the Propylaea to John Russell Pope’s National Gallery of Art, and what a view, 5,125 miles and even farther in time, 2,500 years, the distance between Phidias, Pericles, Plato and you. What a view. Over the…
Perhaps your school-desk was alike my school-desk covered edge-to-edge in sketches. The desk surface, as you know, is an almost perfect blank canvas, a clean slate, a tabula rasa*, of sorts, where knowledge acquired might be reflected eye to mind to hand, to nun who might correct wayward drawing knuckles with a smart, wood-ruler, snap,…
From, “The Classive Tradition” (one among several books now being composed), an essay concerning the Thaddeus Kosciuszko Statue, slavery, and Liberty in its three, distinct forms, National, Political, Personal. Pleased we all are at liberty to speak and to act within the realm of reason. Was not always so, you know. The Spartans owned the…
Perhaps you assume, which, if you did, you would be mistaken, that Progressive decline is inevitable, that Classive ascendence is impossible, so very loud are the screams of maddened youth, so very droning are the innuendo of obsequious newsreaders, so very disheartened are you that all you honor, all you love, all you believe is…
Self-Singing Rainbow People Recently, following nearly a year’s absence from television, I had the opportunity to witness one of those common flatteries, television commercials, vehicles to sell some frivolity by appealing to typical vanities, pride, lust, sloth, et cetera. You have seen them, I am sure, rainbow people, proud, self-selfing, posing by not posing, assuming…
The story of the American home is the story of the American Dream, and each home tells a story, stories being filmed for a five-episode television pilot whose sizzle-reel (the long, inside industry commercial) will be seen here, and many other places, soon. … “Home” is a big story, a story told in part in…
This, below, the preamble to an old book of notes, chapters, really, 40 chapters that considered American history in entire, every art, every craft, every variation. The thing is cumbersome, not likely to be published in its present form, if at all. Yet, opening statements, because brief, would like sharing for the introduction of a…
The God of War; May 1, International Workers Day, and Other Considerations When next you float down Yangtze River through Jingzhou City, likely you will notice Guan Yu, God of War, looking rather ambitious, rather restless; at 190 feet in height, a bit imposing, at 1,320 tons, quite a bit threatening, a person out-of-place at…
The story of the American home is the story of the “American Dream”, beautiful, abiding, good: “The Beautiful Home” tells this story. INTRODUCTION The story of the American home is the story of the American Dream, our story, the story of us, a people beautiful, good, true, and sometimes, silly. The Beautiful Home, introduced today,…
I do, and I can’t stand it. So, friends,I have composed a book for your amusement, for your understanding, a book to tell the truth on those who lied to you, MODERN ART: A Critique in Rhyme Here, examined: the lives of the knuckle-headed artists, their splattered pictures, crooked statues, bumbled books, collapsing buildings, and…
Here we are at circus, you and me and all the others, facing each and every way in The Age of Absurdity. Rather alike some Swiftian satire, some Aesopian consequence, some Seussian phantasmagoria where all the world is upside down, facing sideways in slow-motion walking backwards into a psychedelic truth. Yet, who can say: This…
The song of the breeze of the morning in a field peopled with fragrant flowers is one of the many delights in having life. And the song of the breeze is, to those who pause to listen, the voice of eternal wisdom. Listening to the morning breeze is for me an almost daily occupation from…
Having these past forty years of life a desire to taste of pleasure and delight—and having tasted—I consider myself something of an expert on Beauty, on pleasure and delight. Alas, with humility I must confess a dilettante’s knowledge, only. Though, had there been a course of study or even a course of lectures on the…
There is pleasure in the contemplation of the object one desires; there is a pleasure in tasting, touching, hearing or seeing the object; and there is a pleasure in the remembrance of the object enjoyed. This pleasure, what is it? Is pleasure specific to the object and unique to the person, or is pleasure general…
Why We Remember Forgotten Patriots Many states and localities commemorate African American History Month. The wisdom to be derived from the commemoration is necessary and useful. Yet, we must remember our history, I say “our history,” because the history of these United States is not coded by color, is not sub-divided by gender; the accomplishment…
The bird learns to fly by being pushed from the nest. Sea turtles know they must run to the ocean. Baby ducks ride mother’s back until learning by example to swim. The tadpole grows legs and hops; the caterpillar grows wings and flies; what must the finger-painter grow to become a picture-maker. Certain you have…
Fellow Americans: You might be surprised to learn that you are Greek, in the first instance; that you are Roman, a child of Lucius Junius Brutus; that you are Catholic, even if atheist; that you ascend from victories in the Art of War; that you, fellow Americans, are Hellenocentric, even if citizens of the One…
You might like to know: my Sun is in Venus, my Scorpio is Ascendant, my Mars is in Pisces, my Venus is in Virgo, my Moon is in Taurus … that art is varied, variable of element, color, form. You might like to know, that Art is the idea made real; that Art is fashioned…
You know, perhaps, the meaning of the word, “poetry”, derives, as does most everything of civil worth, from the Greek, “poesis”, a word descriptive of, “making”. A poem is a thing made, alike a rocking chair, French fries, a statue; a poem is a thing made for a purpose: practical use, sensual joy, humane growth,…
The seasons of our lives, love to birth to death, bring moments of joy, of hope, of loss, occasions by which we learn to be in others, ourselves. These occasions, the courting, the marriage, the birthday, the anniversary, the funeral and that final epitaph each deserve words appropriate to the occasion, suitable to the person. …
The homes of the gods are most often constructed near their sacred springs, the site of their miracles, their births, or the location of some occasional visitation. Most often, at home, there was a table for feasting, then, as now, known as an “altar”. There was a porch, maybe two, and within the main room…
For most of us, Aeolus is difficult, if not impossible to see, being “Wind”, as he is. Even so, watch the leaves, as on this October day I have done. If you will do as I have done, you will see, as did Leonardo, the pattern of the god, the twist and the turn of…
Many years ago, beneath nine, lovely, star-snowed nights, Mnemosyne [ne-mos-ie-ne] enjoyed the favor of Zeus-shepherd, each night bearing forth from love a Muse, as Hesiod in Theogony relates. Before the Muse History (Clio), before Love Poetry (Erato), before Song (Euterpe) and all the rest, there was Memory (Mnemosyne), god borne, corporeal, beautiful. We muse in…
A Review of Civilization in Little Songs: You, friend, ascend from many victories. All who read these words shall know we won, that we through three millennia have won upon the bloody fields of contest; that through rolls of papyrus, through vellum folios, through books stitched in hard-covered paper we won the sharp battle of…
The dancing step, the telling gesture, memory in movement; we can imagine the joy, the ritual, the sacrifice to God in our days cave-safe, firelit some 40,000 years before this day, creatures as now we are yet without advantage, without these past millennia of humane tradition, the gift of thought, the accumulation of wisdom that…
Reality is a mundane enchantment, a make-believe typical to creatures of our type, to sensate creatures who cannot see over the horizon, who cannot hear through walls, who feel but by direct touch, whose peculiar quality of taste can be known only to the self, alone. We are pretty creatures, flesh alike pearl, geometric in…
