And the only thing that's permanent...

I've been having a bit of a conversation on FB about how our lives change, and it reminded me on one of my favorite songs of all time, written by Johnny Rivers and on his 1971 album Home Grown.  The song is "Permanent Change," and here are the lyrics:

I've been sitting here for days
Thinking of different ways
To change my life so I can start anew
The one thing is not clear
What is this sound I hear?
Is it me or maybe it is you

I see colors everywhere
People who just don't care
Those who think that they can change the world
Looking back on all the years
Of happiness and tears
I've found now there's only thing that's for sure
You only get what you give
The way you die is the way you live
And what you want is not always what you need
cause you might want it today
but tomorrow you'll throw it away
and the only thing that's permanent is change

I see colors everywhere
People who just don't care
Those who think that they can change the world
Looking back on all the years
Of happiness and tears
I've found now there's only thing is for sure
You only get what you give
The way you die is the way you live
And what you want is not always what you need
yeah you might want it today
but tomorrow you'll throw it away
and the only thing that's permanent is change
oh, the only thing that's permanent is change
the only thing that's permanent is change

 

Peace and love, my brothers and sisters.

 

The Greatest Christmas Movie Ever

The original Miracle on 34th Street,  Just sayin'.  (Watching it is our only Christmas ritual.)

More Sunday Photoblogging

Chris Bertram has a lovely, very formal shot of the Natural History Museum in London; I have a not-so-lovey shot of the gallery at the Louvre wherein one can fight one's way to the place where the world's most famous painting hangs behind bullet-proof glass.

How the Scots Created the Modern World

I'm reading Arthur Herman's recent wildly popular book, How the Scots Created the Modern World, and I am, overall enjoying it greatly.  And I should probably finish it before I begin commenting on it.  Except...

It feels very much as if he come to a conclusion--that much of the intellectual foundation for modernity (however one may choose to define it, but let's go with representative, non-authoritarian governments and private-property ownership economies, with a strong commitment to the rule of law) arose in Scotland.  And that the book was written as, well as more than an argument for that conclusion.  More as a campaign speech.  Two examples, one fairly minor, the other, to me, extremely serious.

Minor.  The Scots thinkers about whom he writes clearly did not agree with each other.  Hume's skeptical rationalism and Witherspoon's religious-based appeals to custom and order make strange bedfellows.  Adam Smith's foundation of the wealth of nations in the operation of reasonably free markets does not play well with James Steuart's mercantilism (his Principles of Political Economy was published in 1767, 9 years before Smith's An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations--they were, essentially, contemporaries).  This is, however, somewhat minor.  No period of intellectual ferment--and the late 18th century was that--is a single stream of thought.

Major.  Herman devotes a chapter to the role of Scots who emigrated either from Ulster or from Scotland to America in the foundation of the United States.  He notes their championing of limited government and individual rights.  He also notes that many of them were prominent politically and professionally in the southern colonies.  Oddly, to my mind, there are only two mentions in that chapter of slavery.  One is a reference by one of the people he focuses on, referring to England's restrictions on colonial economic activity as slavery.  The other is a throwaway mention of disputes over slavery during the (1787) Constitutional Convention. 

But is seems obvious to me (as, indeed, it did to a fair number of people in the late 18th century) that in a society as dependent as the U.S., and in particular as dependent as the southern colonies-soon-to-become-states, were on slavery, rhetoric about freedom may ring hollow.  This disconnect between what people like Patrick Henry were saying in the course of their political disputes with England and how they prospered--by owning, and exploiting, slaves--is too stark not to at least address. 

So I don't know where I will come down at the end.  At the moment, there is a serious flaw at the core of the argument, and one that I'm not sure is capable of being remedied.

Another photo playing off Chris Bertram's photpblogging

Chris Bertram's got another good one over at Crooked Timber.   Here's something of mine, not exactly similar, but with steps in it.  Taken in Sorano, Italy, in 2002, when I was doing a photo workshop.

OK, here's another one, taken at DePauw University in 1999 (at a reunion).

Mark Rothko, John Logan's "Reds, and Me

We were at the Indianapolis Repertory Theatre this afternoon, for the performance of John Logan's Tony-winning (2010) play "Red," about Mark Rothko. It's a very strong piece of work (two characters, Rothko and an aspiring painter who comes to work for Rothko as a studio assistant), set around the time Rothko received a commission to paint a series of murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in the then-under-construction Seagram Building in NYC. (Frankly, a less likely place ...for a set of paintings by Rothko is hard for me to imagine.) Well-acted, with a well-designed set, and well worth seeing. (I suspect it'll be around for a while--two characters and an easy set to manage...it's not an expensive play to produce...and short--one act, about 90 minutes.)

One thing it did, though, was remind me of two of the encounters I have had with Rothko's work. The first was in the early 1970s (I think) at MOMA. First time I ever saw one of his paintings, and all I wanted to do was crawl inside it and never come out. I don't remember much about it, except that is was multiple shades of (of course) red. (I've pasted a photo of a Rothko painting in red for you all).

 



The second was at the Rothko retrospective (apparently at the Whitney in 1998). It was at this show that I learned that Rothko thought his paintings should be viewed from about 18", so that the work completely filled your visual space and seemed to surround you. I walked into one of the galleries, turned to the wall, and saw a work in yellows...it filled me with so much joy that I grinned and started laughing...

For me, Rothko is the greatest American painter of the 20th century (with Pollock, Motherwell, and Frankenthaler right there)

And now, 10 movies

So now I guess the thing is 10 movies that have stuck with us. 10 books was hard enough...

Casablanca. The greatest movie ever.

 The Big Sleep. So far, it's a Bogart festival.

 The Graduate. It has it's flaws, but...

 The Hustler. Maybe Paul Newman at his finest.

 Little Big Man. Chief Dan George steals the movie.

 Catch-22. Terrifying in its own way.

 M*A*S*H (the first half). Yes, the tv series was better.

 The Return of the Seacaucus Seven. I've come to appreciate The Big Chill more than I once did. But this is much better.

 Matewan. The best movie ever about the US labor movement. And that's 2 directed by John Sales.

 Midnight Cowboy.

That's 10. I might be able to do the list over de novo (All the President's Men; Parallax View; The Conversation; The Empire Strikes Back; Bonnie & Clyde; Easy Rider; Cabaret; The Station Agent; Reds; Indiscreet; The Seventh Seal...)

 

And over again...I'm sitting here doing a third list...The Sting; Butch Cassidy; Double Indemnity; The African Queen; Raiders of the Lost Ark; American Graffiti; The Americanization of Emily; The French Connection; Duck Soup; 2001: A Space Odyssey...