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Starry Nights, Science, Atheists

March 20, 2016 by Ed Mooney

Richard Dawkins’ head is fizzing with mad thoughts.. . . Outside a shimmering band of turquoise near the horizon brings a soft sparkle to the beads of dew hanging from trees in early bud; the heavy clouds in the distance look peach-pink and insubstantial; so do the old pale brick houses that line his street. The birds are singing in riotous chorus. “Accept my genetic information, females of my species!” they sing. “Observe my superior fitness for survival, as […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: art, philosophy, poetry, politics, science

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Bach, God, Fervor, the Devil

February 14, 2016 by Ed Mooney

I returned last night from a concert that featured, among other things, two movements from Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites. By pure luck, I had been reading an essay by Edward Said on Bach’s life and work. Bach cavorts with immortality. As my exposure to the cello suites confirmed once more, Bach’s work is inexhaustible in its energy and in its inspiration. Its boundless innovation can — and is — rendered in ever fresh ways. With discrete elision, I might […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: art, literature, philosophy, women, writing

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Big Science, Big Art

January 31, 2016 by Ed Mooney

I was startled to read in yesterday’s Boston Globe that a scholarly paper on “the God particle” (the Higgs boson) had 5,154 authors. I wondered if they hired a stadium for the signing and celebration. I usually think of science as dancing with poetry. An odd couple, you’ll say, but I’ve learned from Thoreau that they don’t have to stay off the dance floor, or only glower at each other. But here, in this headline about the “God particle,” I […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: art, philosophy, technology, writing

Sex and Death

January 18, 2016 by fritztucker

While reading Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, I came across a most thought-provoking passage on Bollywood, which applies to Hollywood as well. On pg. 348, Mehta writes (emphasis mine): Gangsters and whores all over the world have always been fascinated by the movies and vice versa; the movies are fundamentally transgressive. They are our eye into the forbidden. Most people will never see a human being murder another human being, except on screen. Most people will never see […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiR • Tags: art, books, crime, criminals, death, film, History, literature, love, sex, sexuality

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Halloween as Social Movement

November 2, 2015 by fritztucker

In Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (Holt Paperbacks, 2007), Barbara Ehrenreich writes about the evolution of carnivals; from tribal societies masking and dancing to manufacture group solidarity (Intro, Ch. 1); to feudal festivals that challenged oppressive gender and class relations (Ch. 4). Writes Ehrenreich: Whatever social category you had been boxed into–male or female, rich or poor–carnival was a chance to escape from it. No aspect of carnival has attracted more scholarly attention than the tradition of mocking the powerful, […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiR • Tags: art, books, capitalism, childhood, children, civil rights, gender, History, homosexuality, law, literature, love, politics, social justice, women

The Black Panthers: Revolutions and Dinner Parties

September 20, 2015 by fritztucker

I recently watched Stanley Nelson’s The Black Panthers: Vanguards of the Revolution. While the documentary is clearly pro-Panther, I nevertheless found it to be a surprisingly critical examination of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. The film focuses on many of the well-remembered legacies left by the Panthers–such as their Free Breakfast for Children Program, their armed-yet-non-violent storming of California’s capitol building in Sacramento, and the mass movements to free Huey Newton, the Chicago 7, and the New York 21–as well as a few of the negative […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiLL • Tags: African-Americans, art, Black Panthers, capitalism, civil rights, crime, death, film, History, literature, movies, New York City, politics, race, social justice

Cocteau, Americans, Dignity, Slinkys

August 6, 2015 by William Eaton

In 1949, the French writer, artist, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau wrote a few lines about French politics at that time, lines that might help Americans today view their own political battles with more optimism than usual. In my translation: I know well that in 1949 politics are a big deal and the clashes of different factions seem more important than lovers’ quarrels. But, just between us, don’t these political battles feature the same injustice and bad faith as lovers’ quarrels? […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: art, France, Hollywood, Jean Cocteau, Le Journal des Goncourt, Museum of Modern Art, Picasso, technology, toys, United States of America

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White Terror: Symbolic or Institutional?

July 5, 2015 by fritztucker

Since the mass murder at Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, seven historically black churches have been torched, as have innumerable Confederate flags. Only one of these types of arson, unfortunately, has proven to be an effective political strategy. Historically, Southern churches have been among the most important venues for community organization. Burning a historically Black church in the South is akin to burning a union headquarters or university in the North. These burnings meet both widely used definitions of […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiLL • Tags: African-Americans, art, civil rights, crime, death, History, politics, race, social justice

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The Art of Horses

July 4, 2015 by William Eaton

For four days at the end of June the art gallery, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, on the occasion of the closure of its space so that its old one-story industrial building could be torn down for another condo, rented 12 horses from a nearby stable and brought them into the gallery to spend the day and eat their fill. The horses were equally spaced around the gallery and tethered to rings on the wall. Only seven people were admitted at a […]

Categories: Gayle Rodda Kurtz, ZiLL • Tags: art, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, Horses in Art, Jannis Kounellis

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