I’d written previously about Marcel Duchamp’s early work as a founder of the Dada school of modern art, a school that aims to say nothing about anything except about itself. Duchamp hung a urinal as art and called it “fountain.” It was comic, insulting, and engaging — an inspiration for many modern arts to follow , and much bad modern art, too — the collections of string and found objects and paintings of squares or squiggles. But the story of Duchamp is interesting. In 1925, M. Duchamp gave up on art, at least this type of art and became a chess player. As with art, he was very good at it, and became the French chess champion. Now that’s an unexpected turn.
What sort of chess did Marcel Duchamp play? Modern. Very modern. While tradition chess had focussed on the center. He developed at the sides, a strategy that was called an “Indian attack”, named (I assume) after American Indians attacking a stage-coach. Instead of attacking directly, the popular image of an Indian attack is attack from the sides, or behind trees. In chess, it involves typically a “fianchettoed bishop.” Other modern chess players of the time attacked from the side too (Réti, Alekhine) but they generally worked form one side or the other with some central presence. Duchamp worked from both, often with no center.
Position after white’s 13th move
Here is a dramatic example, a position from a game with an American great, GM George Koltanowski. It’s 13 moves in, with Duchamp, is black, generally considered the weaker side. He has fianchettoed both of his bishops, and given up the center to Koltanowski. It’s Duchamp’s turn to move/ He will win in three moves.
Notice that Koltanowsi’s bishops point outward, as a cowboys guns might point, or as from a British fighting square. Meanwhile, Duchamp’s bishops point inward, with his queen -bishop almost directly at the white king. The game proceeded as follows. 13…, Nxd5 14.Nxd7, Nxf4 15.Nxf8, Bd4, 0-1..
The full game, seen here,. It might prove instructive if you want to explore in Duchamp’s footsteps. While I play traditionally, I sometimes fianchetto, and do not find it racist that such side-attacks are called “Indian attacks.” Perhaps that’s because I’m old and used to such things, or because they very often work.
Please Touch. M. Duchamp 1947
Self-portrait, M. Duchamp, 1957 (torn paper on black velvet).
As M. Duchamp’s chess skills waned, he returned to the art world, going in the opposite direction of Dali. Duchamp’s last works are small, and simple. They are still arresting but more dream-like. Dali’s works grew bigger and busier as he got older.
Every now and again a book or movie includes a chess game. Generally, it’s in a story where death is on the line. It’s a literary device used to indicate high mental acumen of the people involved, particularly the one who wins. As an example, in “Sherlock Holmes, A Game of Shadows”, 2011, Holmes plays Moriarty, each calling out moves far advanced for the 1800s. It emphasizes these individuals’ super-smarts. Holmes wins at the end, of course. The Ingrid Berman film, “The Seventh Seal” is similar, with the chess game played against death himself. The knight shows himself a more-than-worth opponent. And that brings us to Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, book 1 of the series, and movie, Ron Weasley is presented as a sort-of fool throughout the series. He’s mostly as source of background information about wizarding, but in one episode standout, he plays brilliantly with giant-size chess men against a magical intelligence, and wins. After the game, one that is described as one of the best ever, Ron goes back to being the goof-ball he was throughout. His chess skills don’t come up again, or do they. It’s a well written series, so what’s the point of including the game?
Position of pieces in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone (movie).
To see how brilliant Ron’s play is, recall that Ron is eleven years old in book 1. He, Harry, and Hermione enter a mysterious room filled with menacing statues. Ron immediately realizes it’s a chess board, and infers that they must win as black to pass through. He further infers that the piece representing Harry must make the checkmate. Two or three pieces are missing, and Ron infers that Harry’s character must replace one of these and become the mating piece. If you’ve ever played a decent computer, you know it’s very hard to win as white (in the 90s you could still win). This ghost intelligence plays quite well, and it’s almost impossible to win if you need to have a particular minor piece make the mate. In the movie, Ron plays as black and reaches the position shown with Harry as the king’s bishop and Hermione as a rook. He is down in material, but has laid a very good trap. The white queen captures the “free pawn” on d3, violently threatening the Harry-bishop. Ron interposes the rook to c3 forcing the white queen to take the rook. At this point, Ron could win by B-c5+, QxB, N-h3 mate, but that would sacrifice Harry and leave Ron as the winning piece. Both Ron and Hermione realize this, and Ron causes Harry to make the checkmate by N-h3+, QxN, B-c5+, Q-f3, BxQ mate. Ron is injured when QxN — a sacrifice in both senses of the word.
Death plays chess, painting by Albertus Pictor, 1480
It’s an impressive display of chess skill, and Dumbledore is right in saying it’s one of the best games. No normal player could manage a game like that, certainly no eleven year old. Normally such a display would be used to present Ron as the group brain, or at least as a very deep thinker. If so, why does the author have Ron revert to his care-free, stupid persona with chess never showing up.
We see that Voldemort, the arch villain, won his game too, and only lost a few pieces doing it. That Voldemort is good at chess is no surprise; it goes with his deep-thinking persona. We don’t see Voldemort’s game, but I can infer that he won via the Trailer gambit. It’s a fairly tricky win, but the only way that I know where you win as black losing only a kings bishop, a rook, and a knight, the pieces that Ron and his friends replaced. The Queen is the winning piece, though, and that’s a lot simpler than winning with a bishop. Ron’s win is far more sophisticated, a surprise given Ron’s behavior and how he is treated.
Perhaps it’s just bad writing, or an effort to show Ron is good at something, but I thought to do a quick re-read of Ron’s early appearance in book 2. Here I find that Ron is bright and motivated, but overshadowed. Early in the book, we find 12 year old Ron picking a lock using a hat pin, and driving a flying car reasonably well. We don’t think this is exceptional because his brothers do all this first, but it is exceptional: imagine tryin to drive a regular car with no instruction at 12. Later we find that Ron learns the fine points of Quidditch without native skill or a coach, just using a book, and we find that Dumbledore picks him to prefect, instead of Harry, a job he does well. Finally, we find that Hermione prefers Ron to Harry. It’s a somewhat surprising turn because she’s supposed to be the brains of the trio. How could she stand to be with Ron? Perhaps she is one of the few people who sees that Ron is bright. Dumbledore is too.
Viewed this way, the chess game becomes the first of the examples of Ron’s brainpower, and becomes an important foreshadowing to a surprise at the end of the last book/movie, to the final battle against Voldemort. In that battle, while everyone else is throwing hexes, Ron is the one who realizes that, to win the war, he must go to the basement chamber and collect basilisk teeth. It’s chess thinking: he’s focused on the king, on Voldemort, while everyone else is dealing with side threats. In a sense, it’s Ron who defeats Voldemort. The chess game is a foreshadowing, and fits with Hermione’s choice of Ron over Harry.
Robert Buxbaum, August 26, 2022. If you like chess puzzles, find some here. And in “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey,” 1991, the brilliance idea is sort-of reversed. Bill and Ted play against death in battleship, twister, and clue, and win. It’s used to show that death is sort of random, and sort of stupid.
…And [the leper] shall cover his face to the lip, and call out unclean, unclean… (Lev. 13: 45)
Video and TV-learning has been with us for a long time. It’s called PBS. It’s entertaining, but as education, it sucks. You can see the great courses on DVD too. The great professors teaching great material. It’s entertaining, but as education, they suck.
Consider PBS, the public broadcast system, it was funded 50 years ago and given a portion of the spectrum to be a font for at-distance education. At first they tried showing classroom lectures from the best of professors. Few people watched, and hardly anyone learned. Hardly anyone was willing to do catch every lecture, or do any of the reading or any of the assigned homework. Some did some problems, but only if they already knew the subject, sort of as a refresher . No viewer of record learned enough to perform a trade based on PBS-learnign, nor achieved any academic proficiency that would allow them to publish is a reviewed journal, unless they already had that proficiency. A good question is why, but first lets consider the great DVD lectures in science or engineering . They too have been around for years, but I’ve yet to meet anyone of proficiency who learned that way. Not one doctor, lawyer, or engineer whose technical training came this way. Even Sesame street. My sense is that no one ever learned to read from this, or from the follow-on program reading rainbow, except that they had parental help — the real teachers being the parent. My sense is that all formal education over video is deficient or worthless unless it’s complimented by an in-person, interaction. The cause perhaps we are not evolutionarily developed to connect with a TV image the way we connect with a human.
Education is always hard because you’re trying to remold the mind, and it only works if the student wants his or her mind molded. To get that enthusiasm requires social interaction, peer pressure and the like, and it requires real experience, not phony video. Play is a real experience, and all animals enjoy play. it convinces them they can do things, This stag on a now-empty soccer field is busy developing soccer skills and is rewarded here with a reaching his goal. Without the physical goal there would be no practice, and without the physical practice there would be no learning.
For people, the goals of the goals of the teacher must be made to match those of the student. The teachers goals are that they student should love learning, that he or she should acquire knowledge, and that he or she should be prepared to use that knowledge in a socially acceptable way. For the student, the goals include being praised by peers, and getting girls/ boys, and drinking. Colleges work, to the extent they do, but putting together the two sets of goals. Colleges work best in certain enclaves — places where the student’s statues increases if he or she does well on exams or in class, where he or she can drink and party, but will get thrown out if they do it so much that their grades suffer. Also colleges make sure to have clubs and sports where he or she can develop a socially acceptable way to deal with others. Remove the goals an rewards, and the lessons become pointless, or “academic.”
A cave painting from France. It’s diagrammatic, not artistic. It shows where you stand, how you hold the spear, and where the spear is supposed to go, but the encouragement to do it had to be given in person..
It might be argues that visual media can make up for real experience, and to some extent this is true. Visual media has been used since the beginning, as with this cave painting, but it only helps. You still need personal interaction and real-life experience. An experienced hunter could use the cave picture to show the student where to stand and how to hold the spear. But much of the training had to be social, with friends before the hunt, in the field, watching friends and the teacher as they succeed or fail. And — very important — after the hunt, eating the catch, or sitting hungry rubbing one’s bruises. This is where fine-points are gained, and where the student became infected with the desire to actually do the thing right. Leave this out, and you have the experience of the typical visitor to the museum. “Oh, cool” and then the visitor moves on.
In a world of Zoom learning, there is no feast at the end, no thrill of victory, and no agony of defeat. The students do not generally see each other, or talk to one another. They do not egg each other on, or condemn bad behavior. They do not share stories, and there is no real reward. There is no way to impress your fellow, and no embarrassment if you fail, or fail to work. The lesson does not take hold because we don’t work this way. A result is that US education as we know it is in for a dramatic change, but the details are sill a little fuzzy.
As best I can tell, our universities managers do not realize the failure of this education mode, or the choose to ignore it. If they were to admit defeat, they would lose their job. They can also point to a sort of artificial success, as when an accomplished programmer learns a bit more programming, or when an accomplished writer learns a new trick, but that’s not real education, and it certainly isn’t something most folks would pay $50,000 per year for.
Harvard University claims it will be entirely on-line next year, and that it will charge the same. We will have to see how that works for them. You still get the prestige of Harvard, though you can no longer join the crew team, or piss on the statue of John Harvard. My guess is that some people will put up with it, but not at that price. Why pay $50,000 — the equivalent of over $100/hour when you can get a complete set of DVDs on the material for $100, and a certificate. Without the physical pain or rowing, or the pleasure of pissing, there is no real connection to your fellow student, and a lot of the plus of Harvard is that social connection.
On line education isn’t strange; it just isn’t education.
I expect the big mid tier colleges to suffer even more than the great schools. I don’t expect 50,000 students to pay $40,000 each to go to virtual Indiana State. Why should they? Trade-schools may last, and mini-colleges, those with a few hundred students, that might be able to continue in a version of the old paradigm, and one-on-one or self-learning. This worked for Lincoln, and Washington; for Heraclitus and for Diogenes. Self study and small schools are good for self-reflection and refinement. The format is different from on-line, more question and answer. Some folks will thrive, others will flounder — Not everyone learns the same– but the on-line university will die. $40k of student debt for on-line lectures followed by an on-line, virtual graduation? No, thank you.
The reason that trade schools will work, even in a real of COVID, is they never focussed as much on personal interaction, but more on the interaction between your hands and your work. This provides a sort of reality check that doesn’t exist in typical on-line eduction. If your weld breaks, or your pipe leaks, you see it. Non-trade school, on-line eduction suffers by comparison, since there is no reality in the material. Anything can be shown on screen. My undergrad college, a small one, Cooper Union, used something of a trade school approach. For example, you learned control theory while sitting underneath a tank of water. You were expected to control the water height with a flow controller. When you got the program wrong, the tank ran dry, or overflowed, or did both in an oscillatory way. I can imagine that sort of stuff continuing during COVID lockdowns, but not as an on-line experience.
It seems to me that the protest and riots for Black Lives serve as a sort of alternative college, for the same type of person. It relieves the isolation, and provides a goal. My mother-in-law spent her teenage years in Ravensbruk concentration camp, during the holocaust, and my father-in-law survived Auschwitz. They came out scarred, but functional. They survived, I think, because of a goal. A recognition that the they were alive for a reason. My mother-in-law helped her sister survive. For many these days, ending racism by, tearing down statues is the goal. The speeches are better than in on-line colleges., you get the needed physical and social interaction, and you don’t spend $50,00 per year for it.
Robert Buxbaum July 24, 2020. These are my ramblings based in part on my daughter’s experience finishing college with 4 months of on-line eduction. The next year should see a shake-out of colleges that are not financially sound, I expect.
Japanese zen spiral — it’s a cartoon about meditation. It looks like a monk and a spiral, and note that both ends point inward. Cute.
The purpose of art is not generally to show the world as it is, but to show a new, better way to look at the world. As such, my take on Japanese zen art, is that it is a very cool, fun way to say “just go away.” What follows are some nice (to my eyes) examples, with my commentary.
As with most Japanese art, the zen art looks simpler and more free-form than western religious art. In a sense that is true: there are far fewer lines, but the paintings take as long to make, to a good estimate, since they only appear to have been made with casual ease: flicks of the wrist and waves of the hand. In actuality the artist had a vision of what he wanted, and then made free-hand waving copy after copy until he had some correct, free-looking ones ready for delivery. Because of this, you can look for a meaning in every wiggle — something that you would not do with US free-form abstracts, or with religious paintings of the 1600s. Take daVinci’s last supper — the grand layout is clearly planned and meaningful, the details of the wrinkles, not really. With these, though, no detail is accidental, and the non-accidental sense, as I see it, is “just go away.”
Buddhist Master. Art like this keeps away guests.
Take the spiral at left. It’s sort of cool, and claims to be an allusion to meditation. Mystic, no? As I look carefully a the spiral, the first remarkable thing I see is that it circles in on itself at both ends. At a simple level, I think that’s an allusion to the inward nature of meditation, but note that, at the top end of the coil there’s a wiggle that looks like a face. I take that to be a monk’s face, looking away. The geometry of the coil then suggests the legs and thighs of the rest of the monk (sitting?). If that’s the image (and I think it is) the fact that the monk is facing away from you, leaving you behind suggests to me that the owner has no desire to have you join him. I see nothing in this that would cause another person to want to meditate either. There is nothing attractively persuasive as in western religious art. Here’s an essay I wrote on meditation.
Perhaps it’s just me, but I also imagine these artists living on an industrial treadmill, making painting after painting in his shop and throwing most away because, for example, the monk’s back extended past the paper. Western expressionism also sometimes puts many paintings on a single canvas, but the hidden image stays, at least in a sort-of half shadow. And the wiggles strive to be less learned, even if the faces of some western religious art is distant –even more distant often. At right, above, you’ll find another popular zen-art approach. It shows a zen master in nearly full face. As with most zen art, the master (Buddha or a disciple) looks calm -ish with a sense of the put-upon, as if he were Christ carrying the cross of you being there. Perhaps the intent was to make you go off and meditate, or to see society as worthless, but I think the more-likely message in the master’s look is “why me Lord.” The master looks like he isn’t unhappy with life, just unhappy with you being there. I imagine that this work was placed in a noble’s living room or study for the same reason that many American today put up a picture of Yosemite Sam, sometimes (for those who don’t get art) “Keep Out! This means you.”
A monkey looks at the moon in a well. Don’t touch, the moon seems to say.
As with the Warner-bros. classic, there is a flowing look to the brushwork, but a fair amount of detail. As with the Warner Bros. cartoon, the casual lines seem to serve the purpose of keeping the viewer from taking offense at the message. Sort of like, “Don’t go away mad, just go away.” Cool, but I also like Western cartooning.
As one last example, at left you’ll see a painting illustrating a zen parable. in this case it’s the parable of the monkey’s and the image of the moon. Shown is the moon’s reflection in the water of a well — moon is that big round face. A monkey is about to touch the moon-image, and as we can expect, when the monkey touches the image, it disappears. There are several understandings to be gained from this, e.g. that all is illusion (similar to Plato and his cave), or suggesting that it is better to look at life than to interact with it. Which is the main meaning? In this picture, my sense is that the moon seems put-upon, and afraid. Thus, the lesson I take from the picture is one of inaction: “don’t touch the reflection.” Once again, the choice to depict a frightened moon rather than an impassive one, seems to be the painter’s way of saying “please go away.” Very cool image, but as messages go, that’s the one I see in most Japanese zen art.
Robert Buxbaum, August 17, 2017. I’ve also written on surreal art (I like it a lot, and find it ‘funny’) and on Dada, and conceptual (I like it too, playfully meaningful, IMHO). If you like zen jokes (and who doesn’t) here’s a story of the Buddhist and the hot-dog vendor, and how many zen Buddhists does it take to change a lightbulb? Four. See why.
Edward Elric, the main character of a wonderful Japanese manga, Full Metal Alchemist, wears an odd symbol on his bright-red cloak. It’s called a Flamel, a snake on a cross with a crown and wings above. This is the symbol of a famous French author and alchemist of the 1300s, Nicholas Flamel who appears also, tangentially, in Harry Potter for having made a philosopher’s stone. But where does the symbol come from?
Edward Elric wears a snake-cross, “Flamel” on his back.
Current symbol of the AMA
A first thought of a source is that this is a version of the Asclepius, the symbol of the American Medical Association. Asclepius was an ancient Greek doctor who, in 85 BC distinguished between chronic and acute disease, developed theories on diet and exercise, and cured parasitic snakes under the skin by wrapping them around a stick. In mythology, he was chosen to be ship’s doctor on Jason’s voyage, and was so good at curing that Hades told Zeus he revived the dead. Zeus then killed him and set him among the stars as a constellation (the snake-handler, visible in the winter sky between Scorpius and Hercules). Though the story shows some similarities to Full Metal Alchemist, the Asclepius symbol don’t look like Elric’s Flamel. Asclepius had two daughters, Hygeia (hygiene), and Panacea (drugs?); the cup of Hygeia, below, is similar to the Asclepius but not to Ed’s Flamel.
The cup of Hygeia, the symbol of pharmacy.
Staff of Hermes, symbol of the AMA till 2005
Another somewhat-similar symbol is the Caduceus, symbol of Hermes/ Mercury, left. It was the symbol of the AMA until 2005, and it has wings, but there are two snakes, not one, and no cross or crown. The AMA switched from the Caduceus when they realized that Hermes was not a god of healing, but of merchants, liars, and thieves. Two snakes fighting each other is how the Greeks viewed business. The wings are a symbol of speed. The AMA, it seems, made a Freudian mistake picking this symbol, but it seems unlikely that Flamel made the same mistake.
The true source of the Flamel, I think, is the Bible. In Numbers 21:8-9, the Jews complain about the manna in the desert, and God sends fiery serpents to bite them. Moses prays and is told to put a bronze snake on staff as a cure – look upon it and you are healed. While one might assume the staff was a plain stick like the Asclepius, it might have been a cross. This opinion appears on a German, coin below. The symbol lacks wings and a crown. Still, it’s close to the Flamel. To get the crown and wings, we can turn to the New Testament, John 3:16-17. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of man must be lifted up … “that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” The quote seems to suggest that the snake itself was being lifted up, to holiness perhaps or to Devine service. In either case, this quote would explain the crown and wings as an allusion to Jesus.
German “taller” coin, 1500s showing Jesus on the cross on one side, a snake on the cross on the other. Suggests two sides of the same holiness.
I should mention that Flamel’s house is the oldest still standing in Paris, and that it contains a restaurant — one that would be nice to visit. Flamel died in 1418. His tomb has this symbol but was found to be empty. A couple of other odds and ends: the snake on the cross also appears in a horror story, the curse of the white worm, by Bram Stoker. In the story (and movie), it seems there are serpent-worshipers who believe it was the serpent who died for our sins. If you re-read the lines from John, and take the word “Him” to refer to the serpent, you’d get backing for this view. Edward might have adopted this, either as part of his mission, or just for the hell of it. The following exchange might back up Ed’s desire to be controversial.
Roy: I thought you didn’t believe in gods, Full metal.
Edward: I don’t. That’s the thing. I think they can tell, and it pisses them off.
As for the color red, the color may allude to blood and or fire. In this direction, the Salvation Army symbol includes a red “S” on a cross with a crown and the words “Blood and Fire.” In the manga, life-blood and fire appear to be the ingredients for making a philosopher’s stone. Alternately, the red color could relate to a nonvolatile mercury compound, red mercury or mercuric oxide, a compound that can be made by oxidation of volatile mercury. Flamel claimed the symbol related to “fixing the volatile.” Either that’s making oxide of mercury, or putting a stop in death.
In the previous post, I asked what you would do as a general (Cornwallis), December 27, 1776. You command 30,000 troops, some 12,000 at Princeton of at total 50,000 against Washington’s 3500. Washington is camped 12 miles to the south just outside of Trenton with a majority of his men scheduled to leave in three days when their enlistments expire.
In fact, what Cornwallis did, is what every commenter recommended. He attacked at Trenton, and lost New Jersey. Cornwallis left 2-3000 troops at Princeton and marched south. Despite fallen trees, swollen rivers, destroyed bridges — all courtesy of Washington’s men –Cornwallis reached Trenton and attacked. By the time he got there, 2000 of Washington’s men had left, partially replaced by untrained militia. After a skirmish, Washington set up 400 militia to keep the fires burning, and without telling them where he was going “Fall back if the British attack”, he took the rest of his forces east, across frozen fields and swampland, then north to Princeton along the Quaker-bridge road. He later said the reason was to avoid looking like a retreat.
He split his forces just outside of Princeton, and a detachment, led by Hugh Mercer and 350 regulars had the first battle as they ran into the 17th and 55th British regiments as they prepared to escort supplies to Trenton. The British commander, Lt.colonel Mawhood, seeing how few men he faced, sent the 55th and most of the supplies back to Princeton, and led his men to shoot at the Americans from behind a fence. Mercer’s men fired back with rifles and cannon, doing little. Then, the trained British did what their training demanded: they rose up and charged the rebels with fixed bayonets. Mercer, having no bayonets, called “Retreat!” before being stabbed repeatedly, see painting. Mawhood’s men seized the cannon, turned it on the fleeing remnants of Mercer’s men.
General Mercer defeated at Princeton, as Washington shows up.
It looked like a British victory, but then General Nathaniel Greene (the fighting Quaker) showed up with several hundred Pennsylvania militiamen. The militiamen had never seen battle, and many fled, after shooting into the British lines with rifles and another cannon and grape-shot. At this point it looked like a draw, but then, Washington himself joined the battle with two brigades of regulars: Hitchcock’s 253 New Englanders and Hand’s 200 Pennsylvania riflemen.
Washington managed to rally the fleeing Pennsylvanians; “Parade with us, my brave fellows! There is but a handful of the enemy and we will have them directly!” And Mawhood, now without most of his officers, ordered a last bayonet charge and fled down the Post Road to Trenton. Washington rode after for a bit “It’s a fine fox chase, my boys!”
James Peale, 1783. John Sullivan and his forces at Frog Hollow. Battle of Princeton
The rest of the British along with Mawhood, met the rest of Washington’s men, lead by John Sullivan, at a place called Frog Hollow, near where Princeton Inn College (Forbes College) now stands. The Americans opened with grape-shot and the British put up little resistance. Those who did not surrender were chased into town, taking refuge in Nassau Hall, the central building of the university. Alexander Hamilton’s men (he’d been rejected by Princeton) took special enjoyment in shooting cannon into the building. A hole remains in the college walls and a cannonball supposedly decapitated a portrait of George II. About then the New Jersey militia broke in a door, and the British surrendered.
Washington had captured, killed, or destroyed most of three English regiments, took a wagon train of supplies, and left going north following a bit of looting. “Loyalists” were relieved of coins, liquor, shoes, blankets. They ate the breakfast prepared for the 40th, and were gone by 11 AM, heading north — to where?. Cornwallis returned before noon “in a most infernal sweat — running, puffing, blowing, and swearing.” His men looted the town again, but now what?
Was Washington headed to New Brunswick where a handful of British soldiers guarded Cornwallis’s supplies and a war chest of £70,000? He didn’t go directly, but perhaps by a circuitous route. Cornwallis went straight to New Brunswick and jealously guarded the place, its money and supplies. Washington meanwhile ran to safety in the Watchung Mountains outside Morristown. Cornwallis’s 17th claimed victory, having defeated a larger group, but Cornwallis gave up Princeton, Trenton, and the lives of the New Jersey loyalists. Rebels flocked to Washington. Loyalists were looted and chased. Hessians were shot in “a sort of continual hunting party.” Philip Freneau expressed the change thus:
When first Britannia sent her hostile crew; To these far shores, to ravage and subdue,
We thought them gods, and almost seemed to say; No ball could pierce them, and no dagger slay.
Heavens! what a blunder—half our fears were vain; These hostile gods at length have quit the plain.
Many studies have shown that marijuana use and paranoid schizophrenia go together, the effect getting stronger with longer-term and heavy use. There also seems to be a relation between marijuana (pot) and creativity. The Beetles and Stones; Dylan, DuChaps, and Obama: creative musicians painters, poets and politicians, smoked pot. Thus, we can ask what causes what: do crazy, creative folks smoke pot, or does pot-smoking cause normal folks to become crazy and creative, or is there some other relationship. Dope dealers would like you to believe that pot-smoking will make you a creative, sane genius, but this is clearly false advertising. If you were not a great artist, poet, or musician before, you are unlikely to be one after a few puffs of weed.
The Freak Brothers, by Gilbert Shelton. What’s the relationship?
When things go together, we apply inductive reasoning. There are four possibilities: A causes B (pot makes you crazy and/or creative), B causes A (crazy folks smoke pot, perhaps as self medication), A and B are caused by a third thing C (in this case, poverty culture, or some genetic mutation). Finally, it’s possible there’s no real relationship but a failure to use statistics right. If we looked at how many golf tournaments were won by people with W last names (Woods, Wilson, Watson) we might be fooled to think it’s a causal relationship. Key science tidbit: correlation does not imply causation.
Pot cultivation is easy — that’s why it’s called weed– and cultivation is often illegal, even in countries with large pot use, like Jamaica. As a result, I suspect pot is grown preferentially in places contaminated with heavy metal toxins like vanadium, cadmium, mercury, and lead. No one wants to grow something illegal on their own, good crop-land. Instead it will be grown on toxic brownfields where no one goes. Heavy metals are known to absorb in plants, and are known to have negative psychoactive properties. Inhalation of mercury is known to make you paranoid: mad as a hatter. Thus, while the pot itself may not drive you nuts, it’s possible that heavy metals and other toxins in the pot-soil may. The creativity would have to come from some other source, and would be diminished by smoking bad weed.
I suspect that creativity is largely an in-born, genetic trait that can be improved marginally by education, but I also find that creative people are necessarily people who try new things, go off the beaten path. This, I suspect, is what leads them to pot and other “drug experiments.” You can’t be creative and walk the same, standard path as everyone else. I’d expect, therefore, that in high use countries, like Jamaica, creative success is preferentially found in the few, anti-establishment folks who eschew it.
Robert E. (landslide) Buxbaum, September 4, 2014. The words pot, marijuana, dope, and weed all mean the same but appear in different cultural contexts. To add to the confusion, Jamaicans refer to pot as ganja or skiff, and their version of paranoid schizophrenia is called “ganja psychosis”. I’m not anti-pot, but favor government regulation— perhaps along the lines of beer regulation, or perhaps the stricter regulation of Valium. My most recent essay was on the tension-balance between personal freedom and government control. I was recently elected in Oak Park’s 3rd voting district. My slogan: “A Chicken in every pot, not pot in every chicken”. I won by one vote. For those who are convinced they’ve become really deep, creative types without having to create anything, let me suggest the following cartoon about talent. Also, if pot made you smart, Jamaica would be floating in Einsteins.
When it’s done right, Dada art is cool. It’s not confusing or preachy; it’s not out there, or sloppy; just cool. And today I found the most wonderful Dada piece: “Attention”, by Gabriel -Belladonna, shown below from “deviant art” (sorry about the water-mark).
At first glance it’s an advertisement against smoking, drinking, and eating sweets. The smoker has blackened lungs, the drinker has an enlarged liver, and the eater of sweets a diseased stomach. But something here isn’t right; the sinners are happy and young. These things are clearly bad for you but they’re enjoyable too and “cool” — Smoking is a lot cooler than sucking on a carrot.
Dada at it’s best: “Attention” by Dadaist Gabriel (Mio) Belladonna, 2012; image from deviant art. If I were to choose the title it would be “But it’s hard to look cool sucking on a carrot.”
At its best, Dada turns advertising and art on its head; it uses the imagery of advertising to show the shallowness of that, clearly slanted medium, or uses art-museum settings to show the narrow definition of what we’ve come to call “art”. In the above you see the balance of life- reality and the mind control of advertising.
Marcel Duchamp’s fountain and “Manikken Pis.”
Any mention of dada should also, I suppose, mention Duchamp’s fountain (at right, signed fancifully by R. Mutt). In 2004, fountain was voted “the most influential artwork of the 20th century” by a panel of artists and art historians. The basic idea was to show the slight difference between art and not-art (to be something, there has to be a non-something, as in this joke). Beyond this, the idea would be that same as for the Manikken Pis sculpture in Brussels. Duchamp’s was done with a lot less work — just by signing a “found object.” He submitted the work for exhibition in 1917, but it was rejected as not being art — proving, I guess, the point. Fountain is related to man: his life, needs, and vain ambitions; it’s sort-of beautiful, so why ain’t it art? (It has something to do with skill, I’d say.)
Duchamp designed two major surrealist exhibitions — a similar approach, but surrealism typically employs more skill and humor than Dada, with less shock. Below is another famous work of dada, Oppenheim’s fur-lined tea-cup (Breakfast in fur — see it at the Modern Museum in NYC) compared to a wonderful (and in my mind similar) surreal work, “Ruby lips” by Dali. Oppenheim made the tea-cup and spoon disgusting by making it out of a richer material, fur. That’s really cool, and sort-of shocking, even today.
Meret Oppenheim’s fur tea-cup (Breakfast in fur) and Dali’s ruby lips; the same idea (I think); dada vs surreal.
Dali’s “ruby libs” brooch took more skill than gluing fur to a cup and spoon; that adds to the humor, I’d say, but took from the shock. It’s made from real rubies and pearls: hard materials for something that should be soft; it’s sort of disgusting this way, and the message is more or less the same as Oppenheim’s, I’d say, but the message gets a little lost in the literal joke (pearly teeth, ruby lips…). I could imagine someone wearing Dali’s brooch, but no one would use the fur-lined cup.
There is a lot of bad dada, too unfortunately, and it tends to be awful: incomprehensible, trite, or advertising. An unfortunate tendency is to collect some found pieces of garbage, and set it out in an attempt to scandalize the art world, or put down “the man” for his closed mindset. But that’s fountain, and it’s been done. A key way to tell if it’s good dada — is it cool; is it something that makes you say “Wow.” Christo’s surrounded islands certainly have the wow-cool factor, IMHO.
Christo’s surrounded Islands: Islands near Miami Beach wrapped in pink (fuchsia) plastic.
A nice thing about Christo is that he takes it down 2 weeks or so after he makes the sculptures. Thus, the wow factor of his work never has a chance to go stale. Sorry to say, most dada stays around. Duchamp’s “fountain” sits in a museum and has grown stale, at least to me and Duchamp. What was scandalous and shocking in 1917 is passé and boring in 2014. The decline in shock is somewhat less for “breakfast in fur,” I think because the work is better crafted, a benefit I see in “Attention” too; skill matters.
At the height of his success, Duchamp left art for 30 years and played chess. He became a chess grand master (life is as strange as art) and played for France in international tournaments. He later came back to art and did one, last, final piece, a very fine one, seen only through a peephole. Here’s some further thoughts on good vs bad modern art, and on surrealism, and on the aesthetic of strength in engineering: what materials to use; how strong should it be, and on architecture humor.
Robert E. Buxbaum. April 4-7, 2014. Here is a link to my attempt at good Dada: Kilroy with eyes that follow you, and at right some Paris street art that I consider good dada too. As far as what the word “dada” means, I translate it as “cool,” “wow,” “gnarly,” or “go go.” It’s dada, man, y’ dig?
Here I am wearing a sculpture I made, called Gilroy. The Idea is based on the drawings of Kilroy made during WW2, but to make things spookier the eyes follow you as shown in this video. I suspect that the original drawings were made to discredit the Nazi’s by undermining the sense that they brought order and were the inevitable power in the area.
How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb.
The fish.
Surrealism aims to show the reality that exceeds realism; the dream-like absurd that is beyond the rational, common-sensical and practical. Beyond control engineering.
And you know “How many engineers would it take to screw in a lightbulb?” —- “Minimally two, and it would have to be a very large lightbulb.”
Even if the insights of surrealism are common-place, for example, that the eye is a false mirror of the world, I like is that they become real (if the surrealist is talented.)
False Mirror by Magritte; the idea, I suppose is that we see what’s already within us.
“The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.” What I particularly like is the falseness of the mirror is shown as both false and true. The world is rarely this or that. Another insight / joke.
We all have masks, especially with those we love.
I imagine most I could make second-rate surrealistic works. The way to know your work is second rate it’s beautiful and insightful, but not funny.
Creation of Man-the-militant. Kuksi. It’s well done, and interesting (a retake on Michelangelo), but it’s not funny. See my cartoon in mechanical v civil engineers joke.
And then there is bad modern art. You could argue that this isn’t surreal, but some sort of other modern art, or post modern art. But that’s all false: it’s just bad art.
Bad modern art: little skill, little meaning, no humor. If you have to ask: “is it art?” It usually isn’t.
