Monday, October 6. 2008
Seed Time and Harvest (1937) 
Thursday, October 2. 2008
From a post by AVI: I'll tell you something about lying from having to deal with it so much all day (not just my patients, but their agencies and families as well). When someone refuses to take any responsibility, blaming everything on someone else, they are usually lying. If they thought they were only 10 or 20% at fault they would pony up, lay out the facts, and trust that most observers would get it right. If they are 50-70% at fault they would admit to some responsibility and try to spin the impression on the rest. Only when people are well over 70% at fault do they have to take a reverse strategy and avoid the facts and try to construct a simple narrative of blame that they hope catches on with people. When people make categorical statements of blame, it's like Honest John's Used Cars.
A word of caution. Some politicians have perfected statements of appearing to take responsibility in their introductory comments but quickly moving on to zero blame for them.
Wednesday, October 1. 2008
As a Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst, this graph of mentions of "psychoanalytic" from Gene Expression (we linked the article in Graphs on the PoMo Fad) pleases me: 
Why does it please me? Because Psychoanalytic ideas were hijacked and distorted by Marxists, Existentialists, the PoMo movement, "progressive educators," academics, and other miscellaneous Leftist or anarchic moonbats - none of whomever understood it at all. The less those people talk about it, the better. Psychoanalysis is about plumbing the depths of human nature and the human soul. It's closer to anatomy and surgery than it is to "critical theory." It's never PC, it's somewhat dangerous, and it's not for amateurs.
"In making these paintings, as you may have guessed, I had in mind something which I hope to convey to a fairly wide audience in America -- the picture of a country rich in the arts of peace; a homely lovable nation, infinitely worth any sacrifice necessary to its preservation." Grant Wood This is "New Road," 1937. I see a cross - two crosses - and a crossroad, and a well-ditched new gravel road through a fertile land. 
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Tuesday, September 30. 2008
Thanks to Vanderleun for finding Graphs on the death of Marxism, postmodernism, and other stupid academic fads. A quote: "The sudden decline of all the big-shot theories you'd study in a literary theory or critical theory class is certainly behind the recent angst of arts and humanities grad students. Without a big theory, you can't pretend you have specialized training and shouldn't be treated as such -- high school English teachers may be fine with that, but if you're in grad school, that's admitting you failed as an academic. You want a good reputation. Isn't it strange, though, that no replacement theories have filled the void? That's because everyone now understands that the whole thing was a big joke, and aren't going to be suckered again anytime soon."
Here's one of his graphs, this one on academic references to Deconstruction: 
 A sad day: After six years, the classy and intelligent New York Sun ceases publication.
Monday, September 29. 2008
Reasons to visit Venice's little sister: Giotto, Menabuoi, and Donatello. This is Giotto's Capella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel) in Padua: 
Sunday, September 28. 2008
Ouch. My aching back: 
Saturday, September 27. 2008
Should Federal governments (ie taxpayers) support non-commercial arts? Bert Prelutsky says "No." More on the subject from Alberta, via Dust My Broom. And, finally, "It's The Arts:"
 "I wanted to acknowledge luck; the chance and benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others, who might not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it."
"I was always a character actor, but I looked like Little Red Riding Hood." Westport, Connecticut's Paul Newman, RIP Photo: Newman with wife Joanne Woodward, at home. Good people.
Friday, September 26. 2008
 Johnny Appleseed - John Chapman - was an interesting character: an ascetic, a Swedenborgian missionary, and a nurseryman who had little interest in making money.
Read about him and his unusual life at a good Wiki entry.
Jim Manzil at NRO writes, about Weinberg's Without God in the NY Review of Books: Steven Weinberg (Nobelist in physics) says this in the recent essay “Without God” in the New York Review of Books: [T]he worldview of science is rather chilling. Not only do we not find any point to life laid out for us in nature, no objective basis for our moral principles, no correspondence between what we think is the moral law and the laws of nature, of the sort imagined by philosophers from Anaximander and Plato to Emerson. We even learn that the emotions that we most treasure, our love for our wives and husbands and children, are made possible by chemical processes in our brains that are what they are as a result of natural selection acting on chance mutations over millions of years. And yet we must not sink into nihilism or stifle our emotions.
Really – why not?
Indeed, the materialistic, "scientific," and utilitarian views of life are cold as ice. But real scientists aren't cold. They are as emotional and "spiritual" as everybody else.
Thursday, September 25. 2008
I mentioned hearing Barbados' Arturo Tappin in Roberta Flack's band last weekend. The guy does every reed instrument, seemingly effortlessly and with joy. He does Grover Washington-style stuff, but can rock out if he wants. Here's a good sample of him:
 What's up with Beauty Studies (ie Neuroaesthetics) these days?
A quote from Beauty and the Brain (by the proprietor of Neurophilosophy) in Seed (h/t, Dr. X): ...recent work by several researchers at University College London?—?including the establishment of the first major grant-driven research program for the neurobiological investigation of aesthetics, or neuroaesthetics?—?has made the first steps toward a unified biocultural theory of art. An object's beauty may not be universal, but the neural basis for appreciating beauty probably is. The researchers' initial discoveries and the increasing formalization of the field promise to open the way for the first time to an understanding of beauty based on something other than speculation.
Can things of the soul and spirit be understood in terms of neurotransmitters and neural wiring? Count me a skeptic. Different levels of organization have different rules and patterns which do not transfer one to the other. For example, you could know everything about atoms but never predict a living cell, and you could understand everything about a cortical network without predicting Moby Dick. (And, for me, on a good day I see beauty everywhere but on a bad day I see it nowhere.) Still, they may as well give it a try. I get skeptical when they call it a bio-cultural model, however. It makes it too clear that they seek to detour around the psychology part.
 Casual business dress is passe (I don't know how to do an accent aigu on this machine).
I learned this from the Wall St. kid of a friend this weekend. They were informed that, from now on, Business Formal is their required dress code, all week. That's good news for Brooks Brothers and Ann Taylor - if there is anybody left on Wall St. to need the clothing. What do I wear to work? Blazers or tweed jackets and tie, and grey trousers. Brooks shirts. I wear good suits to court, but I only own 5 of 'em for court, weddings, and funerals.
Still Life with Apples, Bottle, and Chairback (1902) 
Wednesday, September 24. 2008
 If we have any such readers, would you guys please consider showing up for work once in a while? I mean, like, even if you have messy lives, and addictions, and multiple divorces, and kids from numerous females with school problems and police problems, and sick relatives, and broken transmissions, and court dates, and side-jobs, and cash-flow emergencies, and bowling practice and softball practice, or a kid with a tooth-ache or stomach-ache, or your helper is out sick with a hangover or a bad head-cold, or whatever, how about considering working like normal people? Like normal Yankee people who do not have an excuse du jour, and view their work as a serious committment to another person?
You know, like beginning work early in the morning, showing up when you say you will, working a solid 8-hr day, and all that sort of regular steady American thing. It just might do you guys some good. Most people need structure to their lives if they are to thrive. I think these guys just don't need the money. I still have no master bathroom, since early August. Tiling is half-done. No, 1/4 done, and this guy is supposed to be the best guy around. He shows up for two or three hours, gets a phone call from one of his ex-wives or a lawyer or a dealer or a friend who wants to go out drinking or fishing or an hysterical girlfriend who says he's cheating on her and who needs calming down, or a friend he has to take to rehab in Ohio, or whatever, then disappears for two days and turns off his cell phone. The shower door guy seems reliable, and our carpenter is the shiznits.
Contrarian wisdom from Robin Hanson: Food isn't about Nutrition
Clothes aren't about Comfort
Bedrooms aren't about Sleep
Marriage isn't about Romance
Talk isn't about Info
Laughter isn't about Jokes
Charity isn't about Helping
Church isn't about God
Art isn't about Insight
Medicine isn't about Health
Consulting isn't about Advice
School isn't about Learning
Research isn't about Progress
Politics isn't about Policy
Tuesday, September 23. 2008
Had the pleasure of hearing Roberta Flack perform a charity concert this weekend. She has knocked me out since the early 70s, and does a lot of work for autism. Here's my cell phone quality photo:  The guy on the right is the jazz reed virtuoso Arturo Tappin. Also in her band, Ralph MacDonald (who plays in Jimmy Buffet's band), guitarist David Spinozza, and Buddy Williams on drums. Dennis Collins joined in on a few tunes, and sang his Every Soldier Has One Prayer. Great band. My only regret is that she didn't do Bridge Over Troubled Waters. Here's Roberta in 1972:
I think this is a great idea: The Connecticut Water Trails Association. I'd like to see the same thing done in the other NE states.
 As readers may have noticed, with the beginning of Apple Season in Yankeeland we are making a point of having at least one Apple post daily.
Here's Apple Trees: Where and how to plant. Image is by Nicholas of Verdun (c. 1180)
Re our Yankee Stadium post yesterday, here's a photo of the "Old Met" from 1905, looking uptown. The yellow brick building stood at 1411 Broadway, occupying the block between 39th and 40th street. The Met moved to its new home in Lincoln Center in 1966, after which the Old Met, built in 1880, was torn down. 
Monday, September 22. 2008
Yankee Stadium has seen its last game. It will take a long time for the new stadium to acquire some soul. It feels sort of like when they tore down the old Metropolitan Opera House where Caruso sang and Toscanini conducted. 
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