Stilltitled

It looks like someone was listening. But how does it work?

We have to have our dark corners and the unexplained. We will become uninhabitable in a way an apartment will become uninhabitable if you illuminate every single dark corner and under the table and wherever—you cannot live in a house like this anymore. And you cannot live with a person anymore—let’s say in a marriage or a deep friendship—if everything is illuminated, explained, and put out on the table. There is something profoundly wrong. It’s a mistake. It’s a fundamentally wrong approach toward human beings.

—Werner Herzog, director, remarking on the general need for mystery: via GQ

A mural from a private Manhattan home was recently cut from the wall and transported to the Rosenbach Museum and Library on Delancey street in Philadelphia – all 1200 pounds of it. The mural happened to have been the work of Maurice Sendak, and the museum happens to have organized the largest collection of author’s works and ephemera.

Dr. Rosenbach and his brother were prominent dealers in rare books, manuscripts and fine art. Their efforts provided a precursor and catalyst to some of the great rare book collections of today: the Folger, the Huntington, etc. Their personal collection was converted into a museum in 1954 and played an early and special role in Sendak’s appreciation of the arts.

Sendak held a great appreciation for the Rosenbach, its contents and its project. To him, it now serves as a the curator of his memories and all that is good and fascinating in the world. With the news of its accession, he remarked on the mural, “It represents a time on a personal level when I was secure and young and happy. And I didn’t think about dying . . . about my friends dying.”

As the joyful detritus of his life is carefully collected and organized, however, Sendak casually remarks on his proximity to his own demise. He said, “I think I’m getting out just in time. Watching the news, everything seems to be in disorder. Everybody seems to be unhappy. We’ve lost the knack of living in the world with the sensation of safety.”

Perhaps the Rosenbach will maintain a little piece of vitality through its collections and their intention and ability to deliver them to others.

China is starting an English-speaking television network around the world, Russia is, Al Jazeera. And the BBC is cutting back on its many language services around the world. We’re not competing. I just feel like we’re missing an opportunity. And I’m well aware of our budget constraints and all of the difficulties we face, but now is the time — not in an arrogant way, but in a matter-of-fact experiential way.

–Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton: via The Atlantic

Clinton proposed outlining three themes in her interview that guide her thinking. Though she says they are “separate from dealing with nations, dealing with regions, dealing with ideologies,” on reflection, they seem central to the business of diplomacy, government and societies. She was able to share two of them in her interview with Jeffrey Goldberg before being taken irrevocably off track. The two that survived the interview show promise, even though her characterization of her doctrine may not: “my doctrine is the Goldilocks Doctrine — not too hot, not too cold, just right.”

First, “power is diffuse. It’s no longer the province of just governments.”

Second, “the dispersal of power through information that was unimagined a decade ago, let alone 50 years ago,” means that there are many more stakeholders: “if you thought you could just deal with one guy in one country and you could check it off your list of concerns, that’s impossible now.”

Third, if only Jeffrey Goldberg had shared this one with us. It seems a shame that it was lost in the editing of the interview.

In December 1776, our circumstances being much distressed, it was proposed in the house of delegates to create a dictator, invested with every power legislative, executive and judiciary, civil and military, of life and of death, over our persons and over our properties: and in June 1781, again under calamity, the same proposition was repeated, and wanted a few votes only of being passed…

Necessities which dissolve a government, do not convey its authority to an oligarchy or a monarchy. They throw back, into the hands of the people, the powers they had delegated, and leave them as individuals to shift for themselves. A leader may offer, but not impose himself, nor be imposed on them. Much less can their necks be submitted to his sword, their breath be held at his will or caprice. The necessity which should operate these tremendous effects should at least be palpable and irresistible. Yet in both instances, where it was feared, or pretended with us, it was belied by the event.

…

The very thought alone was treason against the people; was treason against mankind in general; as riveting for ever the chains which bow down their necks, by giving to their oppressors a proof, which they would have trumpeted through the universe, of the imbecility of republican government, in times of pressing danger, to shield them from harm. Those who assume the right of giving away the reins of government in any case, must be sure that the herd, whom they hand on to the rods and hatchet of the dictator, will lay their necks on the block when he shall nod to them. But if our assemblies supposed such a resignation in the people, I hope they mistook their character. I am of opinion, that the government, instead of being braced and invigorated for greater exertions under their difficulties, would have been thrown back upon the bungling machinery of county committees for administration, till a convention could have been called, and its wheels again set into regular motion. What a cruel moment was this for creating such an embarrassment, for putting to the proof the attachment of our countrymen to republican government!

—Thomas Jefferson: Notes on the State of Virginia

Voters will have to embrace institutional arrangements that restrain their desire to spend on themselves right now.

—David Brooks: via NYT

Why would we want to limit any individual desires to spend on themselves right now? Isn’t our very predicament a function of weak economic activity? And that weak economic activity is an result of broad-based, individual repression of spending?