Items of Interest, Pleasure Principle Edition
"Maya blue required an intricate method of manufacturing synthesis of various substances and elements, such as extracting dye from ch’oj before precipitating it onto special clay called palygorskite."
Liel Leibovitz, Novelist Boualem Sansal Is Being Murdered by the Algerian Government. “[W]hile some of the literary world’s braver souls are standing up and demanding his release—a tip of the hat, as always, to the brave Salman Rushdie—most of our bien-pensants are silent. The same mediocrities who collected awards while squawking about the fictitious genocide in Gaza are once again siding with the marauders, betraying a far greater writer seized for the sin of adhering to humanism’s core commitments.”
Paula Jacobs, The Mural in the Attic. “This month, the North Adams mural relocated permanently to the Yiddish Book Center, where it occupies a place of honor above the front entryway. A dedication ceremony is scheduled for this winter. ‘The greatest gratification for me,’ said Clingan, ‘was to rescue a rare piece of our Jewish heritage and have it displayed in a place where 10,000 people a year can see it.’”
Mark Viales, ‘Maya blue’: The mystery dye recreated two centuries after it was lost. “‘Maya blue required an intricate method of manufacturing synthesis of various substances and elements, such as extracting dye from ch’oj before precipitating it onto special clay called palygorskite,’ says Vazquez, who spent two years in Mexico completing a thesis on optimising electrochemical techniques to identify pre-Hispanic organic colourants, which focused on the indigo plant.”
Zachary Fine, Peter Schjeldahl’s Pleasure Principle. “Schjeldahl’s death was not just the death of a person but of a whole approach to writing about art. It was an approach that many people loved and that some people hated, because, on the surface, it seemed like he had turned art and language into one large epicurean buffet.”
Maya Sulkin, Inside Columbia University’s ‘Museum of Terror’. “Columbia is treating Jew hatred as though it’s just a PR situation instead of tackling the root of the problem—a core group of racist affiliates and a system that continues to enable their activities. Open antisemitism has been normalized and become banal, and we, the Jewish community, can’t just pretend that the situation is ‘fine’ and go on as before. I can’t keep quiet, especially given my family’s history of being persecuted for being Jewish in the Soviet Union. It’s up to us to do what we can.”
Matt Welch, Top-Down Political Cowardice Helped Make Charlie Hebdo a Lonely Target. “Carteresque reaction to the fatwa was a needle-scratch across the vinyl of liberalism, announcing a new, bad era for the culture of free speech.”
Douglas Murray, He Died Standing Up. “Both Lançon and Houellebecq had been accompanied to the party by police guards. American readers should reflect on that, because if you submit this much to the thought police, you, too, will live in such a world. The two men had never met before but recognized each other. Houellebecq reached out a hand and simply said: ‘Men of violence take it by force.’ It is a quote from the Gospel of St. Matthew. Lançon left the party minutes later.”
Sasha Chapin, How to Like Things More. “Enjoyment is a skill that anyone can improve. I learned it out of necessity. My childhood was unpleasant, and as a coping mechanism, I tried to love, hard, the moments of beauty and pleasure and focus. But everyone could benefit from honing the skill of enjoyment, especially because the world has gotten a little harder to enjoy.”
Daniel Pitt, Piety, Love, and the Permanent Things. “Scruton conceptualized love as a union that creates a first-person plural; that is, a ‘we.’ Scruton points out that people make sacrifices for the things that they love, and ask, ‘When do these sacrifices benefit the unborn?’ His answer was, ‘When they are made for the dead.’”
Coming soon: “Shota Nakamura: Sighs,” January 22 through March 1 at C L E A R I N G.
Coming soon: From Ted to Tom: The Illustrated Envelopes of Edward Gorey, to be published February 4.
Mark your calendar: Gestural Abstraction: Expression Through Color at the Art Students League, March 2025, instructed by Francine Tint. “In abstract expressionism, painting can be seen as an artist’s direct dialogue with the canvas. In this workshop, you will learn how to approach the often-intimidating arena of blank raw canvas, working with your physical body, instincts, and memories rather than from direct observation.” The artist also has a book out.
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Our current title in the Asynchronous Studio Book Club is Working Space by Frank Stella. For more information, see the ASBC homepage.
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Yes, normalized perversity tends to be or appear banal, but it is still perversity, not to say evil.
Franklin, the Jacobs item currently has no link.