Ruminatrix
...more recent posts
Thursday, Mar 13, 2003
Went on a job interview today. Out of practice and therefore nervous but once there found the process interesting. Although the stakes are real, there is a game-like quality to the interplay of revelation and concealment. It resembles an elaborate, bizarre form of courting:
Here's a question -- what precisely is the answer sought? Literal or metaphorical? How much to say, when to stop? Ah, that answer intrigued the interviewer, does one elaborate it? Do you have this type of experience? How much? And how would you cope with situation [x]? How did you hear about us? What's the most important thing in doing this type of work? Excuse me, I just have to ask my colleague something... Actually we don't have an opening in your field, a pity, because we would like to be able... We might hire you if you had experience in field [y], but you don't, so...etc. We'll keep this on file in case something comes up... Thank you and good luck...Despondent after, but just for a while... The inevitable second-guessing stage, the onrush of doubts and superstitions(Should I have applied earlier? Should I have worn something else? Rewritten the resume a ninth time? Worn the other shoes? Am I too old/young/fill in the blank?). A little later, and the going-through-it and the coming-out-the-other-side feel almost -- therapeutic. Pick yourself up, this is how you will cope next time, this is where you should steer things that way rather than this. And maybe it wasn't exactly what I wanted anyway. And so on.
The anticipation beforehand was worse.
Monday, Mar 10, 2003
The proposed new US/UK resolution in the UN Security Council this week (to "green-light" an invasion of Iraq) appears to be facing vetoes from Russia, China and France. I say appears since a few friends of mine theorize that we are in the middle of an elaborate good cop/bad cop ploy in which the French or Russians would jump in and mediate with Iraq at the last minute. This they're-all-in-on-it scenario might be more plausible if GWB hadn't already nailed his colors to the mast of regime change, which doesn't provide much incentive for Baghdad to co-operate.
A NYT columnist writes that if the US/UK proposal is vetoed (and so far they don't even have a majority of the fifteen votes): "This means that the UN as now constituted may continue humanitarian activity but need no longer function as the umbrella which strong nations restrain aggression."
What wishful thinking by Mr Safire! Let's eat our cake and have it too! Be in for humanitarian purposes and step out of it when security issues arise. This is nonsense, particularly since some sort of international (i.e. UN) mandate will be needed to provide legitimate authority in Iraq after the Ba'ath Party leaves office. And such mandates may be necessary elsewhere in the world, too -- in North Korea, even.
Ah, but note Safire's weasely qualifier "strong" before nations! First it suggests that weaker nations have no role to play in restraining aggression. And does he really think Russia and China are weak nations?
Prediction: Going in without a clear UN mandate will provoke exactly the sort of resolution condemning aggression that Mr Safire wishes to see passed, except that such a vote would be directed at the "coalition of the willing" itself.
...At which point Washington will be quick to blame the French Gremans, Russians and Chinese for destroying the UN and trashing international law.
For the first time last night, I heard a someone (albeit a "character" wearing a seal-skin baseball cap -- it's okay because it was made by a Greenland Inuit) assert that he wouldn't let French or German wine pass his lips. Did we have something Spanish, Italian or Australian, perhaps? Of course, de gustibus etc...But how does a government's foreign policy position reflect a winemaker's opinion, if s/he even has one? And isn't punishing an entrepreneur for the policy positions of their government, well, at least unRepublican if not somewhat unAmerican? Maybe I should reconsider my sommelier career plan (one of a few I'm wrestling with right now) if I can only sell overoaked juice.
Not much to add about the dispiriting UN deadlock over Iraq except that whatever the merits of the various parties' arguments -- war-now vs no-war-ever vs war-maybe-but-not-just-yet -- US diplomacy (an oxymoron already?) has been incredibly clumsy throughout. This goes for the handling of allies (UK in particular), just as much as of awkward opponents (Russia, China, France, Germany) and neutrals (Mexico, and so on). Letting your military schedule override all international discussions is more than short-sighted: It's like holding a conversation with your fingers jammed in your ears and your eyes shut tight -- it lacks finesse (sorry, I can' t think of an anglo-saxon synonym right now).
The President's subtle-as-a-flying-mallet introduction of regime change as an explicit war aim last week is a classic example: Washington must know this puts Blair on the spot. Blair has rested his case entirely on Iraqi disarmament. This is because waging a war for the purpose of regime change is not permitted by the UN Charter -- in case that matters.
So yeah, the Administration is transparently just going through the motions at the UN before its "inevitable" invasion and the race begins to sanitize Iraqi WMD files and lock up the evil scientists (the ones who don't want to come to work for us) and so on.
Prediction: there will likely be a price to pay later for this myopic haste, and for behavior that other nations could reasonably construe as contemptuous indifference to their concerns. Not right away, perhaps... But at some point, even if the war of '03 is a famous victory, the US might actually need the UN for some purposes -- if only to relocate Iraqi refugees, rehouse Baghdadis, repair the Shia shrines in Najaf and Karbala, or share some other expenses, material and symbolic. No? Or will US taxpayers, wallowing again in debt, joyfully assume the entire burden of the Protectorate? As Theo says: "Yeah right, dad."
Let's not even consider today how a wider regional peace in the Middle East could be facilitated by a UN role. But already one reads, for example, that the US would like to see multilateral, not one-to-one talks with N Korea. What's the incentive for other powers (China, anyone?) to join such talks, when the administration simultaneously leaks Air Force contigency plans to bomb the North's reactor? Even if it's what they want to convey, this "We're crazy, y'all better get out of the way" rhetoric is not a viable long-term global strategy. And it is time to be thinking about long-term strategies, not just mobilization schedules.
Saw the Wooster Group's Brace Up the other night at St Anne's Workshop in Brooklyn w Joshua. It's lively, fast-paced and playful enough (the customary WG use of video, narration, telescoping of scenes) to keep one off-balance without obscurantism. The ur-text is Three Sisters, filtered thru' the medium of tv talkshows. It's odd how one still "reads" different actors' performances (some more caricaturish, some more introspective), despite all the alienation-effect stuff like having a sixty-something actress (Beatrice Roth) play the youngest sister Irina. Good stuff. Thru March 19th.
Afterwards went to (spurious Flash alert) Chez Es-Saada on First Street. The new executive chef is Paul Liebrandt, (ex- Atlas and Papillon). In brief: tasty anchovy-and-merguez app, but overpriced quail & lamb couscous ($25) and dry duck tagine, unadventurous wine list, spotty service -- disappointing overall from the dining POV tho' the basement was pretty full of lounging drinkers. What's the minimum time someone has to spend onsite to qualify as executive chef?
Thanks to Jim for recommending irfanview, a handy freeware image-editing and optimization utility for us darkside drones. Designed by Irfan Skiljan --- a Bosnian student at Vienna Tech -- the program lets you edit most popular image, sound and video formats. So far I'm just dabbling, but the look of this page may change as a result.
For the third time I have hit the Back key on my browser (IE) while in the middle of writing in the post window and whoosh, all gone -- an hour's effort evaporated into the ether! Next time I had better use Notepad rather than typing directly in the post window. Anyway I'm not going to rewrite it from scratch, dammit, not this time.
In brief: went to the Met today. The Leonardo drawings (thru March 30th) are interesting, but limited in scope. And it's so crowded it's hard to get close enough to really see the drawings. Favorite title: "Sketch of a bear drawn over (faintly visible) outline of a pregnant woman" or something like that. I can see why Bill Gates bought the Codex Leicester (with all its tiny handwriting in mirror-script and marginal doodles of hydrodynamic gizmos) but it doesn't really move me or makes me see the world in a a different way.
The Manet/Velazquez show (thru June 8th?) on the other hand, is really an eye-opener -- how realism in 17th century Spain profoundly influenced 19th century French (and some American) painters, notably Manet. The linking artist is Goya and there are wonderful things here, including examples from Tauromaquia, Desastros de la Guerra (how topical!) and the Caprichos, forerunner of Moreau and Dore and of surrealists too.
Does ambient bellicosity makes one crave art? Hmm, let's see, there's also the Picasso-Matisse show in Queens and the Matthew Barney's Cremaster at the Guggenheim...
Thought while sipping a pint of Hacke-Pschorr at the local biergarten: It could be that the Pakistani secret service has a whole passel of bad guys under its surveillance, ready to be handed over one or two at a time. I mean, they bankrolled the Taliban for years and still run the Kashmir Liberation Front, so they would have some contact with the Osama crew, wouldn't they? So what will be the quid pro quo for them to find more of them to hand over to our interrogators?
And along the same lines, what secret promises will be made to Turkey to change its mind over admitting GIs onto its soil for a "northern front"? Regional powers have always found ways to manipulate superpowers. One major drawback of the current "let's make a deal" diplomacy is its utter lack of transparency -- and lack of accountability to electorates here and abroad, all under the rubric of national security.
In the light of the latest statements from Washington that regime change (of some sort) in Baghdad is non-negotiable, I recommended reading the latest Chatham House Report (21pp, PDF) Iraq: the Regional Fallout analyzes the impact on the region, including neighboring states, considering three possible outcome in Iraq: i) an internal coup ii) a protracted war or iii) a rapid victory and occupation.
The bulk of the report deals with the impact on each state. As for Iraq, the authors predict that neither the Washington policy establishment nor American public opinion will have the patience to sort out its internal ethnic divisions and structural problems. A "minimalist" military administration is likely, (i.e. an authoritarian new regime rather than the democratization of Iraq promised by maximalists); meanwhile back here, the domestic economy and Presidential electoral cycle return to the fore. An early indicator of what policy will prevail will be the treatment of the Kurds and which insurgent faction gets the nod. Anyway, it's well-written as these things go.
It's the last day of the snowiest February in twenty years, we're still in the middle of the worst economy in at least ten, and no relief is in sight. This winter would have been much harder without dirt-cheap lunch-time Rx: The sinus-clearing $4 bowl of pho at Pho Bang, 3 Pike St, just above Canal. For shrimp pho, try the place on East Broadway (Pho 89?) just uptown of the Manhattan bridge. Neither is new, both are effective.
From the Everyman Library collection Poems of New York:
- Whitman in Black
For my sins I live in the city of New York
Whitman's city lived in Melville's senses, urban inferno
Where love can stay only for a minute
Then has to go, to get some work done
Here the detective and the small-time criminal are one
& tho the cases get solved the machine continues to run
Big Town will wear you down
But it's only here you can turn around 360 degrees
And everything is clear from here at the center
To every point along the circle of horizon
Here you can see for miles & miles & miles
Be born again daily, die nightly for a change of style
Hear clearly here; see with affection; bleakly cultivate compassion
Whitman's walk unchanged after its fashion
-- Ted Berrigan (1994)
Thursday, Feb 27, 2003
So the Studio Daniel Libeskind beats out the Think Group for the wtc redevelopment project. It's a victory if not for kitsch then at least for easy symbolism (Tour guide: "Yup, that spire is exactly 1776 feet high...") over Think's airy latticework, which will now remain merely a concept.
On the other hand: SDL's idea of exposing part of the original towers' foundation is pretty cool, adding an unusual (for New York) archaeological dimension to the design. New Yorkers -- as befits the denizens of any great city -- weren't shy about expressing their opinions about the plans, even if we had no say in the final choice. ("Woah, whaddaya think of this new Parthenon thing that's going up on the rock?" "Not much.")
Then again, Gotham doesn't dwell much on its past and it never has done so. And I have yet to hear anyone say that they really loved the old towers, as opposed perhaps to finding them impressive or handy landmarks, even during the two years when I worked down there in the financial district. So perhaps aesthetics are slightly beside the point.
Coincidentally perhaps, the New York Times today has two other unrelated large-scale architecture stories:
Albert Speer, (son of his namesake) is building a gigantic axis for Beijing's 2008 Olympic City. And Indonesia is planning a shopping mall by the massive eighth-century Buddhist temple at Borobudur in Java, a World Heritage site.
Frickin A
Went to Frick Collection yesterday with Paul & Bob (visitors from Maine) for a couple of hours. Bob has worked as a historian of Venetian art and knows his stuff. I just like looking at some of it.
My gut feeling: the steel magnate and plutocrat Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919) probably didn't enjoy art very much, though he sure collected a lot of big names. Some attributions have been withdrawn or downgraded to "school of" status (though frame of the dubious, incomplete "Polish Rider" is still labelled Rembrandt); other works aren't particularly good (a weak Manet, butt-ugly Degas dancers), some just bad-to-mediocre (de la Tour, Piero). I hear the buyer cabling Frick "What you need to buy next is..." and the first thing on the market by, let's say, Tiepolo would be crated for the next steamer over. Have times changed? Perhaps today's magnates are less in awe of Old Masters.
There's little in the way of Impressionists (an unimpressive Monet) to lighten the Golden-Age formality. God, what a relief a few Cezannes would be among all this brown and black! (For example, there's a proto-Cubist sunlit view of Roman Forum at dawn by Corot). Frick bought lots of fomal portraiture (Gainsborough, Ingres), a lot of of fat old men (by Hals and Van Dyck) as well as bucolic/fleshy (Boucher, Fragonard) scenes. He had, for unknown reasons, several views (one an early Turner) of the gloomy ferry port of Dieppe on the English Channel. Did he have business interests there perhaps?
Would dinner chez Frick have been fun? No, I would prefer to party with Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner, even if her Vermeer is still being held being held for ransom somewhere.
But the Frick does indeed house honest-to-god masterpieces: two late Rembrandt self-portraits, two Vermeers, a fabulous Velazquez (a dour Philip IV), a couple of El Grecos (St Jerome), a pair of Holbeins (Thomas More and the pig-eyed chancellor Thomas Cromwell), two Titians, a Bellini (St Francis), a lovely van Eyck and a Bronzino. All worth an extended look, even if admission is a bit pricey at $12.
Reading: The current New Yorker has a long profile of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan by Philip Gourevitch and a profile of the awesome actress Frances McDormand by Joan Acocella. Neither article, unfortunately, is online -- why not do put 'em up as a civic service, Mr Newhouse? At the very end, McDormand recommends my favorite movie of the past several months: Rivers and Tides.
Note to self: If brevity is the soul of wit, future entries to this page will have to be much shorter.