Moving again, lichen

    Lichen in natural mid-day light
    in September is an eloquent but
    ambiguous grace note in a cleft
    between the harder hues of heat
    and bitter cold. It pleases one
    to admire its tenacity and sure
    sense of calm, on a door to the
    outside, benign in its signing.

                               

   



















Farrow & Ball
No. 19©
Dorset, England

Moving again, accommodating staff

I do wonder, why we read so little

nowadays in our interior design per-

iodicals, of the problems of accom-

modating household staff. Even the

architecture websites, for all their

endless regard for second and third

residences, inexplicably pay almost

no attention to this apparent after-

thought of domestic planning. We en-

joy the most exhaustive support for

our selection of paints, and natur-

ally of fabrics, so I wonder why a

nod to the sub-domestic necessities

is almost nowhere to be found. I im-

agine, our people's lack of a trade

association or union - constituent

features, these days, of so-called

stakeholders -- may play some part

in their invisibility, despite the

best efforts of the Social Security

Administration. For all the wear and

tear upon one's own decision-making

powers in the laying out of various

rooms, I cannot recall so much as a

moment of concern in my present move

for accommodating a valet, and yet

when now I examine my plans, I note

only some fuzzy assumptions about

storage space and walk-in closets,

which I suppose have always served.

I'm fortunate, I suppose, in derma-

otological advice to avoid a con-

servatory at my age, and in a lack

of need for fur storage since the

invention of ersatz fleece, so I'm

less concerned about my negligence

than merely mildly embarrassed. At

least the pictures have their walls.

Hanging antecedents

This is a photograph by Jon Gasca

which he calls, Paul P at home.

I do not know if this is a refer-

ence to a portrait of Paul P, in

his house or not; or to a portion

of the house of Paul P, which we

are to infer to satisfy him.

I do feel that the photograph is

a comment on style, or an evoca-

tion of style, or both. In either

case it is provocative, in a prom-

inence it gives to the hanging of

a picture, an accumulation as much

as an acquisition, as Alan Bennett

would say, because we don't know

if its punctuation of the space

is antecedent, contemporaneous, or

subsequent to its creation by Paul.

We have no sense of its contribu-

tion except as ornament in place.

For a couple of decades I've been

living without the hanging of an-

tecedents or of new accumulations

in the space where I live. In fash-

ioning a new environment, I have

therefore been giving thought to

laying receptive preparations for

certain pictorial elements. Yet I

do congenially resist, slightly,

the inevitable burden of a past

which some impart, or of recent

but expired acquisitive choice,

in others. 

I do not know, what confers 

such tenacious immunity from or-

lamentation upon my space as I

have come to see it. I truly do

like pictures, even some of mine.

I do think a picture has a right,

so to speak, to be seen, alone.

I think no picture has a right

to be seen every day, without

extracting distinct concessions

from the space, and its tenant.

I do not agree that images rep-

resent the baggage of stored

pleasure, because they do have

an autonomy, against how I see

them. I do know, I do not care

to regard a picture as a debt I

must pay, by exhibiting it. This

means, it must compete with its

absence, in improving my opinion

of my space. This is why I like

Jon Gasca's photograph. I sense,

Paul P has preserved the values

to him, of space and ornament,

exploiting a recessive image

with almost objective success.

"Now why didn't I paint my room this way?"

There comes an hour in any night,

when the scholar asks himself how

much he has missed in reading the

data in the shade of House White.

Origins of Wednesday xcii: Asylum can wait

How movingly the New American Gov-

ernment has claimed the soul of its

tidier successor to Jeff Sessions,

whose testimony to the Senate Judici-

ary Committee, in protecting his nom-

nation, bore all the stalwart recti-

dude of the failed rapist, Justice

Kavanaugh. This sleeper collaborator 

has just promulgated his revival of

our Fugitive Slave laws, with the 

odd view, that aliens asserting the

legal right to claim asylum in this

nation must be jailed now, without

bail, indefinitely. Who could con-

ceive of sounder advice, as we claim

our own asylum from awareness of the

New American Government, in a bowl of

berries which are not yet in season?

  

Suppose it were Friday clxx: Or Kashmir

Now and again, at various hours 

of a day, it can be entirely pos-

sible for an active mind to won-

der what it's doing in Virginia.

We remark on this as lightly as

we can, who hold any equity in

our residence, but you can read

it, where our trousers wrinkle

and in the occasional irregular

nail. Friday focuses the matter.

The problem of Pakistan-envy, a

not unprevalent risk of Fridays,

is every bit as delicate to dis-

cuss. Merely to envision a soci-

ety where sectarian prejudices

are not only indulged, but pos-

itively fellated, and ethnic di-

versity the very stuff of target

practice by every practicable

means, is to restore the innoc-

uous traditionalist in Everyman

to the full, upright position.

What could be more natural, to

propose, in exchange for one

nicely armed afternoon in Kash-

mir, the transfer of one black-

face Governor and incorrigibly

belligerent Lt Governor, inde-

finitely? We could even sweet-

en the deal with our HQ offices

of the NRA, intractable heroic

statuary, and Falwellian "uni-

versity," without overpaying.

But then the spell is broken,

and the Virginian realizes he

has nothing to be anxious for,

no basis for Pakistan envy, af-

ter all. There are some 1,200

Methodist Churches in Virginia.

Charlie Heaton

West of Sunset

The capacity of a photograph to stir

instant recognition of time and place

isn't specific to photography and, to

hear many tell it, isn't even worthy.

Possibly the photograph allows time

and place to escape into permission

elsewhere to be valued. This lenity

is also not specific to photography.

So, it's the low coastal range in a

classic melting haze, the ample ten-

nis whites, and the molded chair by

Charles Eames that lift the seal of

memory for refreshment to be taken.

                  All it lacked, really, were the

                  reminding bells from countless

                  steeples at dawn and at sunset,

                  and at moments throughout the 

                  day. On the other hand, at the

                  age which he had managed to reach

                  in comparative comfort, he was

                  perfectly happy not to be remind-

                  ed, that time, his time, was pass-

                  ing. Uncomfortably quickly.

                   

Criterion has refurbished Visconti's

film of Death in Venice, in time for

permissions to extend to its escape.

Charles Eames

Chair in bent wood

Los Angeles, ca 1950

Dirk Bogarde

West of Sunset

Penguin Books, 1984©

Every glance a saving

   

Peter Hujar, photography

untitled

1981

Canzonetta sull'aria

         At the same time, when I
         get home, I like to feel
         I have slipped into soft
         slippers, while tumblers
         yield to my key, lofting
         me to sweet simplicity I
         have never really known.

We laymen learn from Johnson

every day, whatever they may

be saying in the proceedings

of this or that sublime frat-

ernity. We see this array of

furniture all about us, this

geometry imitated endlessly.

Who will have his courage to

say, it's immaterial; it was

all, always, immaterial. Now

take the air, take it in. It

isn't complicated; I built a

stage, but there was Mozart.

I had nothing to do with it,

except to give a frame to my

astonishment.

Philip Johnson
Residence in New Canaan
1949

A sailor and his rigging

 aren't
 soon 
 parted

        This is for Tom,

        the photographer

        says, who seems

        to have emigrated

        to Scotland.

iii  Blacksmith's Eye

A literature of power without force

I was going to discuss voting rights 

in the United States yesterday, but 

the subject called for more time than 

I could give it, with everything else 

Saturday offers - and requires. I cer-

tainly didn’t object to the subject I 

chose. I reasoned, I could pass off 

the note on voting rights to Sunday, 

and hastened into town to shop.

On my way home, I stopped at a smart 

little roadside café for a first bite 

of the day. I was followed a few min-

utes later by a young family — mother, 

father, a boy of about 7, one of about 

4, and an infant in a carrier. They as-

sumed their rôles without a hitch. The 

mother announced their requirements, 

the father fetched a stool for the in-

fant, the latter dozing silently; and 

the older brother strode about, explor-

ing the environment, until the younger 

spoke up to him, almost in a whisper, 

in a tone reserved for them: Why don’t 

you sit, and talk to me?

Immature. Narcissistic. Sexist. Needy.
That whole list of our objections now.

Without a single whiff of force, not

least of disdain. Disempowerment may

impart these elements, left to their

devices.

Representation, I understand. Direct 

democracy, I understand. Repression, 

I understand; and corruption, I thor-

oughly understand. Voting responds to 

something else. 

I know it by that question, I’d know 

its tone anywhere. It has driven this 

election, and it will do, all the way. 

Edward Hopper

Solitary Figure in a Theatre

1904

Whitney Museum