What should we keep of the new normal?

People waiting in line with social distancing

We got together virtually and talked about how we are experiencing the pandemic, what are our fears and our hopes.

We’re sad that some people have died, suffered, and that a lot more will. We’re worried for that risk which is all around us, and might take away some of the people we love, and ourselves too, naturally.

We wonder what ways, or rites, we can come up to to express that sadness, to mourn as a community, now (virtually) and when the pandemic is over (a ceremony in cemeteries, other ideas?).

                                                                     * * * * * * *

Our world will be changed, it will never be the same, and we are trying to think of ways to veer it in a direction we value: more wholesome, just, zen. Less consumerism? Less production? Less pollution?

Some of the things that are happening are good, some are bad. Below is a list. We want to have our voices heard about how this pandemic is handled: social action. Two proposals, one physical: we stand at our windows with posters expressing our views: lives over dollars, save small businesses, help to illegal immigrants, suspend rents, suspend mortgages, etc.

Virtually, we could have a day of action where we all express on the internet (instagram, fb, twitter) our political views through photos, memes, statements.

TABLE COMPARING THE NEW NORMAL AND THE NEW NEW NORMAL

CORONAVIRUS PERIOD	THE NEW NORMAL (post covid19)
Bad hair cuts	Lose.
Less commuting	Keep.
More work from home	Either or.
Less traveling	Keep? More environmental solutions.
Less flying	Keep. Bring back transatlantic ships, they pollute less.
Less socializing	Lose. More “in the flesh” events.
Lots and lots of time on the Internet	Lose.
Lots of sex with one partner (or two)	Keep.
Less work	Keep.
Less pollution	Keep
More time with loved ones	Keep
More time alone	Keep?
More physical exercise	Either or
More caring	Keep
Hospitals overwhelmed	Lose
Small businesses endangered	Help from govt, from us
Virtual parties	Keep (for people who are sick, isolated, depressed, far)
More cooking!	Either or.
No restaurants, gigs, concerts, shows, exhibitions	LOSE!
Virtual shows, gigs, art.	Keep
People lose their job	Help from govt, from us
Some people have more access to health, some have no insurance	Justice, equality.
Illegal immigrants get no help	Justice, equality.
We read more	Either or.
Bad teeth	Lose.
Lots of time with pets	Keep.
Feeling we’re in this together, everyone	Keep!!!
Hairy legs, and other places on the body	Either or.

At the end of this long tunnel of isolation, we want to celebrate too. Maybe pick a date, and have a huge dance party at the park where everyone brings their own music and dance our liberation.

Skyping from NY to MD

We would love to have your comments, ideas, reactions, feelings, below!

This was contributed by Ingrid Norton, Nupur Mathur, Hyojin Yoo, and Arabella von Arx

Not a review: Wheeler at Zwirner

The title states that this is not a review, in the sense that I try to communicate my personal experience of a gallery event in Chelsea rather than discussing the work which I will let speak for itself.

I have a problem with a panel with 3 white guys even if one has a charming Italian accent, I know I'm being dogmatic, but it does feel terribly déjà vu. I was incapable of listening to anything Germano Celant said, maybe it's his accent, and he is likely to have said some very interesting things, he is the guy who coined the term "Arte povera" and who heads the Prada Foundation in Milano - maybe he is better with the written word. He does have a most charming name too, a whole story could be imagined around that name!

Doug Wheeler was more arresting. He stuck me as being the interesting case of a man who was shy to start with in life. Had he chosen another path, he would have had to overcome it. But he has become a famous artist, and  this allows for every idiosyncrasy of the personality. The artist is sold "as is" :with the understanding he is not able, nor expected to conform, and his failings are his qualities as they are linked to his creativity.

Wheeler, 81, has a handsome mane of long white hair. Its always a fun exercise to imagine a man with his long hair trimmed short. And I thought, imagine, imagine this doctor's son had had a career in a corporation. Or had started his own business of medical supplies. He might have had to beat the shyness out of his system, as is expected of what one calls a real man, of a breadwinner. And I can see his face shorn of hair, he would have had to compact into something showing power and control his spread out sitting position that is a self conscious attempt at appearing relaxed, and why not, It is a very different person yet the divergence in these paths might have been caused by something seemingly benign, like a bit of bullying by a cousin or an over demanding father.

My impression is that Wheeler knows the show business. He's been there for a while now. He probably doesn't really like it but it's the ransom of celebrity, and he'll play along, which is fair enough. He tells his stories, gamely. Does he tell these stories repeatedly? You would think, from their content's relationship to his artistic path, but if he has told them before, it's not obvious from the fresh, convincing delivery he achieves. He's a good story teller. He recalls his father the surgeon flying his small plane to remote areas in Arizona. Scary landings on high streets when there was no runway. His father would say: see that patch of the sky over there that's particularly blue? Don't go there. They're turbulences. John Wayne! In fact, minimalism has something macho about it. For a start, there is a certain arrogance in asserting that a very simple piece is a worthy art work just because the artist says so. Nothing soft or intricate or empathic about minimalism or conceptual art, these qualities typically needing figurative art or complex abstraction.

He tells of his father letting him fly the plane. Of the  landscapes seen from above, of the different

experience of the world. Of wanting to communicate his sensory experience of the world to others. 

He speaks simply, he is humble, he often seeks the gaze of his wife in the audience, the Hollywood producer Bridget Johnson, and mentions her by name. He also refers to another man in the audience by name, maybe to break the mythology of the famous artist on stage addressing the anonymous reverential audience, which is sympathique.

But still he is there, and he speaks, filling his expected role. The Zwirner son, Lucas, moderates. He's the picture of the young golden boy, well to do, confident, educated, handsome. WASP. Does he know suffering? I guess everyone suffers at some point. It's not a criticism of Lucas. It's a genuine question. The people  I know personally that have been born into exceptional privilege do not strike me as happier than the average Josephine (the average woman informed me she prefers Josephine to Jane).

At the end of the show, people take selfies in the Infinity Room.

And this ... is definitely not a review.

Written and contributed - reluctantly - by  - -  Arabella von Arx

Five reasons you don't want Samuel Pepys' life, 5 reasons you want to read his diary

Titian's Miracle of The Jealous Husband

 

Theater in 17th Century England

Last blog entry listed the 10 reasons you want Samuel Pepys' life. There are only five reasons you would not want his life:

1. You would be terribly jealous. Pepys suffered from terrible bouts of that ailment when his wife took dancing lessons with a dance master. ‘my wife, who by my folly has too much opportunity given her with the man, who is a pretty neat black man, but married. But it is a deadly folly and plague that I bring upon myself to be so jealous and by giving myself such an occasion more than my wife desired of giving her another month’s dancing. Which however shall be ended as soon as I can possibly. But I am ashamed to think what a course I did take by lying to see whether my wife did wear drawers to-day as she used to do, and other things to raise my suspicion of her, but I found no true cause of doing it.'

'Up with my mind disturbed and with my last night’s doubts upon me, for which I deserve to be beaten if not really served as I am fearful of being, especially since God knows that I do not find honesty enough in my own mind but that upon a small temptation I could be false to her, and therefore ought not to expect more justice from her, but God pardon both my sin and my folly herein.'

And just as he said above, he soon started to approach women, and young girls, to solicit sex or sexual interactions. Maybe that was his way to deal with his jealousy. It's certainly not pretty.

2. You would have no anesthesia is you needed surgery. Before he started writing his diary, Pepys had his bladder stones removed. Without anesthesia, naturally. Every year, he celebrates the anniversary of the successful surgery, and he’s ever grateful to his operating doctor. Everyone seems to have some kind of stones, not everyone had the gall to get surgery for them. For people who could afford it, like Pepys, diet was pretty much exclusively meat. Venison pasty almost daily. Lots of boiled lamb or ham. Add a few oysters here and there. Vegetables seem unheard of, fruit hardly more present.

3. If you were barren, there was no cure, nor treatment. Pepys and his wife had no children. It might have been a consequence of the removal of his stones. Pepys does not discuss this issue much except that he is invested in his brother getting married and having children. His brother actually fathered an illegitimate daughter with a working class woman.

After the brother’s early death, Pepys pays a number of people to hush the whole affair, and take care of the girl. It’s quite clear from the negotiations that no one gives a hoot about the little girl’s welfare, unless the mother does but she has no voice. It never crosses Pepys’ consciousness that he could adopt the little girl, as he and his wife are childless. Maybe he would have considered it if it had been a boy. Da Vinci, the son of a laundress and a noble Florentine, was adopted by his father and his barren wife. The problem of the girl seems to go away, as Pepys never mentions her again, and it is assumed that she died. My heart hurts when I think about this little girl, swung around like a load of dirty laundry, who might not have had much fuss over her in her last days.

Medical statistics: causes of death, 17th century

4. Just as you are thrilled to be alive, you live in fear. Fear of the Plague and other diseases. Pepys and his wife are terrified when one of their servants falls ill during the Plague. They nudge him firmly out of their house, by sending him to get nursed in his family. It turns out it was just a cold. After the Great Fire, he’s always worried about fire. He wakes up, startled, in the middle of the night: Is the City on fire? 

England is also at war with the Dutch which creates a lot of unrest as huge amount of resources go to the war. The sailors are unpaid and refuse to serve again. Their wives demonstrate, harass the navy officials including Pepys who expresses his sympathy in his Journal. He’s very critical of the authorities, particularly of the King. He reports his whoring, his mistresses, his friendships with rogues. One has to wonder who he writes his Journal for. He reports what’s happening politically and also intimate: the death of his brother, his jealousy of his wife’s “dark” dance master. That’s quite endearing. It’s a bit hard to follow the politics as there are so many players, still the mixture of macrocosm and microcosm is so compelling. He’s a born narrator. His Journal is very precious to him. At one point, terrified of an impending invasion of the Dutch, which does not happen, he sends his wife to the country side with a lot of their gold and ... his Journal.

5. It was a time of constant fake news. You think we live in a world of fake news? It was worse then. Rumors about conspiracies, invasions, victories circulate all the time and are usually completely erroneous. The Dutch were NOT invading, the French did NOT conspire to set the City on fire, the Navy did NOT win over the Dutch. And there is no reliable source of news that can be go to to check on rumors. Only time tells.

And Pepys has to keep himself up to date with current politics. His position depended on this protectors, and he had to navigate some hairy situations. Though he kept climbing the ladder after he stopped writing his journal (he thought he was going blind) and reached a very high position, he eventually fell out with his protectors, even being jailed for a brief time on accusation of Jacobinism.

5 very good reasons you should read Samuel Pepys' diary

1. If you love History, this diary gives you an unmatchable insight in life in the 17^th Century, and into its society. There seems to be way more social mobility than you would expect in a class society. It’s well written too, Pepys has a sense of narration. He wrote a fictional text as a youth, which he mentions destroying in his diary. It’s not evident who he wrote the diary for. He writes in his own personal shorthand in which he criticizes quite freely the king and a number of aristocrats. Obviously, he had no plans of showing anyone the diary while he was alive. He wrote for posterity, and for himself. He liked to keep a record of his health and daily activities, of his social status, and it helped him manage the stress of his social and professional life.   

2. If the human story is more your thing, his relationship with his wife is riveting. She seems quite free. They do a lot of things separately. She definitely is not locked up at home. He doesn’t seem to be madly in love with her, but he cares very much, she plays a huge role in his life. They had arguments, often over small matters, as most arguments still do now.

'So after the Paynter had done I did like the picture pretty well, and my wife and I went by coach home, but in the way I took occasion to fall out with my wife very highly about her ribbands being ill matched and of two colours, and to very high words, so that, like a passionate fool, I did call her whore, for which I was afterwards sorry.'

'After that I went by water home, where I was angry with my wife for her things lying about, and in my passion kicked the little fine basket, which I bought her in Holland, and broke it, which troubled me after I had done it. '

After she dies, he stopped keeping his diary. The official version is that he had issues with his eyes. But he never remarried, despite having no children, though he might have figured out his organs were at fault, as none of the women he had sex with became pregnant. 

3. He presents an honest picture of himself, and he is often repentant – that might have endeared him to the nobles around him. He is aware that he does not repress his passions. He penalizes himself with fines when he does not respect his own rules. But mostly in the first years of his diary, and it mostly concerns his spending too much money, particularly on plays, and spending too much time on leisure to the detriment of his work load. That does not seem to have hampered his social climbing.

4. His ascension in society is fascinating. He becomes richer, more influential, both through connections and skills. And he’s loving it! His father was a tailor, but probably fairly well-to-do, their status ranking above other working class positions such as laundress or servants. His family has aristocratic relatives, one of his aunts having married a Montagu. 

As he climbs the social ladder, he tends to go less to the pub, and host more in his home. At night, at first, he uses the services of young boys that carry a torch and light the way home for a small fee. He moves around a lot during the day, often by barge, and details his commutes in his diary. He takes the coach more, until he finally takes the dive: he purchases a fancy coach, complete with horses and drivers. He even changes one of the horses which he thought was not good enough. With his wife, they go parading through Hide Park, the fashionable thing to do for upperclass people, until someone tells Pepys it's unseemly for an upstart like him. He's terribly vexed. But still he loves having his portrait painted, and his wife. His household becomes larger, he hires a number of maids for his wife who seems dissatisfied with most.

'I do see the inconvenience that do attend the increase of a man’s fortune by being forced to keep more servants, which brings trouble.'

In the morning he usually goes to Whitehall or the exchequer to hear the latest news, and to network. Networking is a huge part of his life, and he must have been good at it. Then he might go to the pub such as the White Swan 'for his morning draft'. He has the despicable habit of trying to kiss the waitresses. He goes home for his midday meal which is called "dinner", hosts guests or is invited. He often sings with his wife, either during his lunch break or at night. In the afternoon he might go to a play and then he'll work later, sometimes after his evening meal. He also often walks in a park or in his garden with a friend for an hour or two. He doesn't say whether that's for health or just for enjoyment.

5. He has an endearing personality. Apart from his womanizing and his occasional brutality, he’s spontaneous, affectionate, curious (he was invited to the Royal Society, quite an honor at the time), eager, intelligent, sociable, volatile, has ethics when it comes to his work, - but not to his personal life. One has to wonder whether his lack of control over his passions were typical of the times, which seems likely. That looseness can be enviable to the modern reader living in a highly regimented world: Pepys gets angry! He weeps when his wife reproaches him his deplorable behavior! He fosters, and celebrates, daily moments of merriness!

You can read the whole text online, or, recommended, the abridged version which runs only about 600 pages!

Written and published by  - -  Arabella H. von Arx

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10 reasons you wish you had Samuel Pepys’ life

Samuel Pepys at the time he wrote his diary

I have been reading Samuel Pepys' diary. The abridged version: one volume of about 600 pages whereas the whole diary takes up 10 such volumes. It makes for a fascinating read, and offers such a unique insight in the London of the mid 17th century. It's a raucous time: he saw the execution of Charles I, the Restoration, the persecution of Catholics and Quakers and other non Anglican church believers, various wars, the Great Fire of London, the Plague. He lived from 1633 to 1703.

1. You have no schedule. He works for the Navy but no one seems to have heard of office hours. He usually gets up really early, but he might go to bed one night at 3am, and another day get up at 3am.

2. You socialize all the time.  He typically went to the pub two to three times a day. He has people over for dinner, at midday, or is invited. Also in the evening, but not as much. He had tens of friends, women and men alike, as well as relatives.

3. You go to the theater a lot. Pepys sees the same plays many times over. Here's what he thought of A Midsummer’s Night: 'we saw “Midsummer’s Night’s Dream,” which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life.' – well, he’s not remembered for being a literary critic.

Allegory of Music, Czech wall painting

4. Music is a huge part of your life. When Pepys goes home at lunch time, he often plays music on his flagelette (a wind instrument) while his wife sings. And then again at night. If he hears music played, a song sung, he cannot resist the attraction, and has to find who is playing, who is singing, particularly if they’re good. A talent for music will reinforce his friendships of which he has many. His wife asks him for a lady companion as they re going up in the world. At first, he renegades at the expense. But when the young lady comes and he finds she can sing, and is rather pretty, he yields.

5. There was little censorship yet, you didn’t have to worry so much about being correct. Pepys “shits”, and talks about his anus and his stools abundantly. And there is no correct spelling. He writes people’s names as he sees fits. And spells some words in various variants with no particular rule. Behavior also seems to have been looser, less repressed if a bit cruder. Pepys and his wife enjoy watching an execution on a Sunday, though these shows do get mobbed. A couple of Lords regularly enjoy running around the streets of London naked and singing "bawdy" songs. They get arrested by the watch, and the King has to go and bail them out. Then they all go to visit prostitutes together.

6. It was an exciting time, half way between an era of obscurantism and one of discoveries. It’s curious the irrational things Pepys will believe, when he is a man of intelligence, and passionate about science. He teaches his wife mathematics, and takes lessons himself from various scholars. He’s delighted that he’s been invited to belong to the Royal Society. There, he attends scientific demonstrations. He has a friend who invents an unsinkable double-shelled ship, the model of which gets sold to the navy, but the first one produced promptly sinks. An early Titanic.

7. Goods were precious. Pepys gets excited about getting a pettycoat for his wife, or a trinket. He's very excited about the purchase of a watch. Then he remembers he had had one, but didn't like using it! But he’s most passionate about books, each acquisition is a source of future joy: they offer knowledge to his avid mind, whether about microscopy or other parts of the world. Sometimes, he goes and reads at his bookseller, who seems to encourage it. The bookseller’s entire lot goes in smoke during the Great Fire.

Elisabeth de St-Michel,
Samuel Pepys enduring wife

L'Histoire amoureuse des Gaules

8. You have flexible morals. Pepys, who never had to worry about #metoo, puts pressure on his suppliants’ wives to have sex with him. He describes these interactions in a despicable mixture of Spanish and French and English, producing a kind of Lingua Franca of misbehavior. That’s a most detestable aspect to his personality which is quite attractive otherwise. Moments after these spurts of fornication, he goes to church. Mostly to watch the attractive women at the service, but he does pay attention to the sermon which he is usually critical of.

He reads titillating books such as “L’Histoire amoureuse desGaules” then burns them because he does not wish them to bring him posthumous shame by being to catalogued in his library after he dies. 

Samuel Pepys, later in life, with his wig

9. You are moving up socially. Pepys was the son of a tailor. He was smart and got a scholarship to attend Oxford where he learned Latin and Ancient Greek. He got under the protection of an aristocrat that was a remote family connection and entered the administration of the Navy. Thanks to his connections, and probably to his intelligence and social skills, he gets more and more responsibility, and he becomes richer. Every month, he makes his account to figure out how rich he has become. It’s fascinating to see him hit landmarks in that ascension: he purchases a powdered wig, which takes some encouragements from his servants for him to wear outside the house. Later, he plans on getting his own coach with coachman and horses.

10. But best of all, you are always so glad just to be alive and safe. He escaped the great Fire of London, and the Plague. His account makes you realize that the Plague was much more lethal for poor people. Anyone who could afford it fled the City. It’s surprising how much it was business as usual. The government, the nobility, the bourgeoisie all transfer to the outer suburbs. And party away. Pepys takes a ferry back and forth to visit his wife. A ferry! That seems the worst place to be in a time of epidemics, the equivalent of taking a plane, as you know a sure way nowadays to catch a virus going around. The City is much more affected, and he worries every time he has to leave the countryside. He does mention stumbling in the dark on a corpse left on the street. But it’s not the image we might have of ghostly streets with barricaded windows and doors, of lone passerby wearing masks and walking close to the walls, head down. Maybe that mental picture of the Plague is closer to what the situation was like in mainland Europe. At the end of every month, he takes the time to review his situation, and he thanks God for him and his wife being in good health, for his good economic situation. Almost everyday, he eats and drinks and sings with friends, reporting in his diary they "made very merry".

SOON TO COME: 5 REASONS YOU DO NO WANT SAMUEL PEPYS' LIFE!

                                           written and published by  - -  Arabella von Arx

Great Fire of London

I was bored at Mark Morris’ Pepperland! I swear!

Take The Beatles superlative Sgt Peppers’ Lonely Heart Club Band album, have it turned into a modern dance show by super fun choreographer Mark Morris: we had to be in for a treat. Even if the show didn’t break the intellectual sound barrier, it was bound to be highly entertaining and pleasurable. Well, no, and I am compelled to introduce a sad face 😢to support this statement.

The costumes were super yummy, I admit.

The music was awesome, it was arranged by Ethan Iverson to sound more like a musical's score, and the Beatles music can go there without blushing.

The whole show came across as a homage to the American musicals of the 60s, think American in Paris. Don’t think West Side Story with its grand tragedies. So what about the Beatles? What about their genial breakthrough in terms of the history of music with that album?

The Sgt Peppers’ Lonely Heart Club Band was the band’s homage to their working class origin. They offered the music band culture’s naive artistry to the wild wild world of the 60s with drugs and yoga and crazy costumes and... and dark glasses. They paid homage to the working class’ sweet taste for tackiness, and at the same time they acknowledged the hardships of these Lonely Hearts. So little of that groundbreaking approach to making an album is conveyed by the show. The Penny Lane song does contribute some nice working class content, but again it’s all fun and eye candy.

Unfortunately, additionally to the lack of meaning, the choreography was so so so so repetitive. A little repetition is satisfying, a lot turns sedative. Lots and lots of pieces with couples, female/male couples, female/female couples, male/male couples, loving, having fun. How did that relate to the album?

The dance movements had some relevance to what is being done now, nothing very ground breaking, and to American musicals, as mentioned, and to 60s pop dance such as the twist – that last part most enjoyable, naturally. Some of the dancing was quite casual, a bit sloppy, without the usual perfection reached for in modern dance. Nice.

The cancan was fun. There was some interesting stuff about mathematical permutations of movements: at first the whole line does the same movements, then they get shifted so that one dancer does movement #1, 2^nd dancer movement #2, 3^rd dancer movement #1. At the next round, the movements shift across three dancers (easier to do than to explain) instead of two. That was fun. That type of permutation was applied to another part of the choreography too. Choreographers can get quite obsessed with mathematical patterns. But what’s that got to do with the Beatles? With the 60s?

The show was sprightly and pretty vacuous, it was like The Monkees to the Beatles. The sense of optimism hit the mark better. But the 60s were not just about being a pretty face, it was not just about sex, drugs and rock and roll, remember? Vietnam War protests. Women’s Lib. Civil Rights movements. An interest in other cultures. Non violence. Tolerance. Change. Imagination. The only part where this was alluded to, aside from the homosexual couples, was the interpretation of the song A Day In The Life aka “I heard the news today”. The choreography nailed the feeling of the song, the music supporting beautifully with the use of the theremin: a bit sad, a bit sloppy, and a bit political. The Beatles! How I wish the rest of the show had been in tune, a contemporary dance show offering us an interpretation of that genius album.

The musicians were great. The dancers were great. They’re all shapes and forms, that’s cool. One was pregnant! How about that?! A woman, I think.

Mark Morris bypassed Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds for this show. HOW ABOUT THAT?! I couldn’t believe it. But I respect that choice, it is an obvious iconic song to exploit, though the choreographer of the superlatively fun Nutcracker ballet is usually not too worried about subtlety.

written and published by  - -  Arabella von Arx