Is This a Party You’d Want to Go To?
Click here for a first-person account of the recent LACMA fundraiser, which raised $5 million. It will tell you everything that is wrong about the art market today.
Warning: This is very nerdy. Literary nerdy.
It’s called the Literature Clock, and it works like this. Rather than glancing at your watch or phone, go to this website – https://literature-clock.jenevoldsen.com – and you’ll get the time expressed in a quote (usually from some obscure book and author). For example, I’m writing this at 3:59 p.m., and this is the quote that just came up:
“He looked at his watch: it was nearly 4. He helped Delphine to her feet and led her down a passage to a rear door that gave on to the hospital garden.” – The Blue Afternoon, by William Boyd
Re what I’ve been saying about violence in big cities – the NYC subways, in particular:
“Your Nov. 4 issue[LINK] about passion, weddings, and kale was a pleasant read until the negative New York trope. I realize that fear, real or imagined, cannot be changed by a few words. But I feel compelled to point out that over 900 million people have taken the subway so far this year. Compare that to the 25 pushing incidents and the odds of it happening to you are minuscule. In fact, yesterday’s paper had an article that pointed out, ‘Put into perspective, the current rate of 1.2 violent crimes for every one million rides is roughly equal to the chance of getting injured in a crash if one drives a car two miles.’ Add to that the health benefits of walking up and down the stairs, the environmental impact of the cab, and the $1.35 senior rate and you might want to join K’s line of thinking.” – KK
My Response: Thanks for doing the research to defend the hell hole (or is it shit hole?) you are living in. I’m going to spend the next 24 hours trying to find a fault with your logic. If I can’t (and I have to admit, it doesn’t look promising), I’ll publicly admit you are right. (I still won’t admit I’m wrong. You know the Zen idea: Two contrasting truths can exist at the same time.)
I did poorly on this history test about America’s First Ladies (16 out of 25). But the facts were fascinating. Give it a try.
Job Growth in October Was Stronger Than Expected
Does That Mean the Economy Is Stronger Than I’ve Been Saying?
The Biden administration is telling us that the US is not in a recession. In fact, they say, the economy is “very healthy.”
Those are the very words Biden’s script doctors have put down in the binder that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reads from several times a week. When I see her at the podium, reciting these phrases, I have nothing but sympathy. Who thought it was a good idea to put this young woman in that job?
She knows nothing about finance or economics. And that was fine during her first few months, when the mainstream press threw her only the softest of softballs. But now that inflation is over 8% and America’s middle class, including those that watch the mainstream media, are worried, the questions she’s getting are a bit tougher.
She seems like a nice, bright, good-natured person. The kind of person you’d want as a neighbor or a book-club friend. But she’s not up to what she’s being asked to do – i.e., defending the economic policies of the Biden administration by denying that the economy is in serious trouble.
One thing they could have done, when the negative data began to emerge, was craft a message similar to the one Clinton used. Recognize past failures and chart a new direction. But they didn’t do that. Either because they didn’t believe it was necessary or because Biden was committed to his FDR delusion.
Instead, they argued that inflation was temporary, and then that it wasn’t all that big or important, and then that the economy wasn’t really in a recession, even though we had two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.
Every time Jean-Pierre is asked a tough question about the economy, she must flip through her binder, hoping to find some new, believable talking point. Alas, there is only one: job growth.
As she keeps pointing out, the supply of jobs in the US is growing. In fact, non-farm payrolls grew by 261,000 in October, which was significantly stronger than the Dow Jones estimate of 205,000.
So… What?
I’ve been saying that I think we are headed into a massive, long-term recession that will include, among other tribulations, the failure of tens of thousands of businesses and the unemployment of millions of Americans that are currently working.
So, how do I explain the growth in jobs?
It’s simple. For one thing, most of the job growth we’ve seen in the past year has nothing to do with the growth of our economy. It is, instead, a reflection of the millions of job openings that popped up after the government abandoned its hysterical COVID protocols and businesses were allowed to reopen. It is also a reflection of the millions of Americans that “retired” when they received government bailouts, and have now gone through most of that money and need to return to work. And though the October number was better than expected, it was still the slowest pace of job gains since December 2020.
Tom Porcelli, Chief US Economist at RBC Capital Markets, seems to agree with me. He points out that job growth is a backward-looking data point. The broader picture is “of a slowly deteriorating labor market.”
“This thing doesn’t fall of a cliff,” he says. “It’s a grind into a slower backdrop. It works this way every time. So the fact that people want to hang their hat on this lagging indicator to determine where we are going is sort of laughable.”
Some negative indicators:
* Apple recently announced it will be freezing new hires except for research and development.
* Amazon said it is “pausing” hiring for retail jobs and its corporate workforce.
* Lyft announced it will be laying off 14% of its employees.
* And, of course, Elon just laid off half of the twits at Twitter.
A tribulation – from the Latin tribulum (literally, a thing with teeth that tears) – is another way of saying adversity – i.e., a trying period or event. As I used it in the essay above: “I’ve been saying that I think we are headed into a massive, long-term recession that will include, among other tribulations, the failure of tens of thousands of businesses and the unemployment of millions of Americans that are currently working.”
About Capital Punishment…
I’ve always been opposed to capital punishment. My logic was simple. If I believed murder was evil, how could I justify punishing murderers by murdering them?
Also, there was the question of wrongful conviction. Since DNA became a reliable forensic tool, there have been reports of hundreds of people sentenced to death that were later exonerated.
But I have modified my view on this in recent years. I’ve been reading about (and watching documentaries on the subject of) serial killers and mass murderers. And if there is one thing I’ve concluded about them, it’s that, however intelligent or rational they seem, at some level they are all insane. (How can they not be?)
Of course, this begs the question: If they are insane, isn’t it doubly wrong to convict them?
No. I don’t think sanity should be considered in cases of mass and serial murders. The level of damage these people do – not just to their victims, but to the families and friends of their victims – needs to be recognized and addressed. Everyone today is concerned with social justice. If social justice has any meaning at all, it means that sometimes we must punish people for the damage they do to society.
In Florida, thanks to the “work” of his defense team, the monster that killed all those people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was given life in prison, instead of the death penalty. I’ve followed the trail, and I’ve listened to the statements of the family members of those killed by this guy, and that research left me feeling that this guy should be put to death.
If you have never watched any of the pre-sentencing presentations by family members, this one, coming from the last of the fathers to speak, should give you an idea of why I feel as I do. Click here.
It’s Your Ship
By D. Michael Abrashoff
Originally published May 22, 2002
240 pages
This book was published 20 years ago. I happened upon it in a used bookstore last week. It’s a quick read because Michael Abrashoff is a good storyteller and he has a good story to tell: his experience in taking over as commander of USS Benfold, one of the worst-run ships in the Navy. Abrashoff comes across as smart and experienced and accepting of his limitations. He also has a good sense of humor.
I recommend It’s Your Ship for anyone that is in a position of taking a leadership role in an organization that is established and set in its ways. I, of course, particularly liked the observations that I agree with, such as:
“The thing about rules and policies is they become very hard to fix once they are put in place. Both the people who put them in place and the people whose jobs it is to exercise them become highly motivated advocates of the policies. Even if the policies originally made sense, they become very hard to change. When you try to change something but can’t, you start becoming a tenant and stop being an owner.”
Click here for a short (5-minute) read about the book.
And here to watch an interview with the author.
And here to watch him making a presentation at a conference.
What Should We Say About Alex Katz?
The Guggenheim is putting on a major retrospective of Alex Katz’s paintings. I came across a review of it by Alex Greenberger in Art News that was very negative. He calls the work “vapid.” (You can read the review here.)
I asked Bob S, a book club friend who has a great collection of art, including one fantastic Katz, what he thought of the review.
He said: “We’re going to NY next week and will see it. The NYT review from a few weeks ago was much more favorable. Any artist has some great works, some not so great works, and some failed experiments. This reviewer falls into the old art critic trap that says that if a painting is beautiful, it must be crap. I happen to think he’s a wonderful artist that created his own style, interesting and fun. I’ll comment on the exhibit after I see it.”
I agree with Bob. Katz developed a style that was and is unique. And also, obviously, enticing. That’s hard to do. His work is sometimes explained as social commentary. That’s a fair perspective. But it is not simplistic commentary, like most art that attempts to be social or political. There is a cleverness to Katz in the way he chooses scenes that resonate with the flatness of his painting and make it difficult to know to what degree he’s being ironic.
“I don’t care what people think of my poetry so long as they award it prizes.” – Robert Frost