"If he's dying in a particularly devastating way — and, more importantly, if he is leaving behind shareable content — it is possible that millions of strangers will mourn his or her death tomorrow. Why?... Grief porn is... voyeuristic, addictive, and compulsively attractive. It grabs at a desire to indulge when indulgence is otherwise unavailable. It promises a brief, satisfying release. And, like regular pornography, the internet has transformed it. Freed from the already relaxed constraints of tabloid journalism, grief porn is no longer obligated to fake newsworthiness or importance...."

From "This Kid Just Died [VIDEO]: Grief Porn Enters the Facebook Era." Via Metafilter, where somebody said: "Even having read the article, I can't imagine how someone would see 'A Father Sings To His Dying Newborn Son After His Wife Dies Following Childbirth' and think 'I wanna click that!'"

Even if you don't have a dog.

He will walk your metaphorical dog. He'll do whatever it is you need done.

"I told John Boehner, you know, I'll wash your car. I'll walk your dog, whatever you need to do."

Feel free to make that the first line of a comic monologue, Obama's Offer.

According to the card stuck to the wall in a London museum next to a 1926 photograph by André Kertész, which you can see here. The white paint — we were told by some curator — was "to banish entirely any recollection of the green he found so intolerable."

I copied those words down in my notebook in 2002 — the last time I was in London — along with a sort of diagram of the composition of the photograph:



That scan comes from a notebook I found, a notebook that — back in 2013 — I had talked about losing:

I have a notebook of drawings/writings done at a big Paul Klee show, done in London in about 2003, just before starting this blog. I'd like to copy the pages and blog it. I was analyzing/riffing on the... ideas that he used.

Wonder where I put that.

Back then, betamax3000 had said: "NOW you are teasing me. I want that post." Okay, I will get around to that. I have 9 pages of notes, which, if I remember correctly from 12 years ago, were intended to be the code-broken instructions for how to draw/paint like Paul Klee. But for now, you'll have to consider the womanlessness of Piet Mondrian.



Expressed by Yves Saint Laurent:

"Here you go, Internet: more examples of Bad Advice I Read on Pinterest — from the questionable to the facepalm-worthy."





Many more at the link. I chose those 2 because they worked on me... in spite of my defenses!

From the Wikipedia article "Bathos."

"... at a farmhouse in Italy 'where our children would be born. Their fathers and other people would also visit as often as they could... The house and garden would be worked by a local family...'. Charming. In an issue of Shrew magazine in 1973, a contributor asked 'Are Fathers Really Necessary?' and concluded 'they are more trouble than they are worth and likely to abuse children sexually.' That sort of contempt towards men and marginalisation of fathers rings down the decades of the last half century and it finds non-stop expression and repetition everywhere you look in our mainstream culture – from children's stories and TV soap operas to mass market advertising, newspaper columns, Woman's Hour and the rest."

From a UK Telegraph article headed "Is Gillian Wearing's family sculpture offensive to fathers?/A sculpture depicting a 'real Birmingham family' has caused controversy due to its absence of men. Why are fathers increasingly marginalised in mainstream culture, asks Neil Lyndon." I ran across that searching for the Germaine Greer quote about female artists that's paraphrased in an article blogged in the previous post.

Why interpret a sculpture of 2 women (one pregnant) with 2 children as an expression of hostility toward fathers? The sculpture only seems to say this, too, is a family. It promotes inclusion of gay people, not the exclusion of men. To see an exclusion-of-men message is, ironically, similar to an argument I have heard from gay-rights proponents: The pervasive images of heterosexual couples in our culture send a message of marginalization toward gay people, telling them that they are less-than-ideal or outsiders.

"Nor was it the discrepancy between what the market will pay for art made by men and what it will pay for art made by women... Is it ingrained sexism, or, as Germaine Greer told me in her opinion, historically work by female artists has generally not been as good as that produced by their male counterparts? No, what caught my eye was the institution selling the painting, which was The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Doesn't that strike you as odd? A museum selling an artwork by the artist it was founded to represent? I can't imagine it happening in this country.... The Americans take a more strategic approach when it comes to buying and selling work in and out of institutional collections. They generally have a policy of 'trading up,' whereby lesser works are sold to raise the necessary money to buy better examples from an artist's oeuvre."

Writes BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz, opining on the sale of a painting of "the simple white blossom of a weed" for $44.4 million, which is the most ever paid at auction for the work of a female artist. So... presumably, this painting — would it kill you to give the title?* — is a lesser O'Keeffe. Actually, Gompertz assumes otherwise — it's "considered to be of the highest quality" — as he questions the sale by the O'Keeffe Museum.

But one could reason the other way: The Museum's off-loading of the weed pic is evidence of its opinion that it is not her best work. Or perhaps: It's like other paintings in the collection — a closeup of a flower — and not the one they like best. I see 9 other flower pics at that link that could easily be considered superior to the painting the BBC assumed was "of the highest quality" but couldn't bring itself to name. It's "Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1," by the way.

Jimson weed — AKA Devil's snare, datura, hell's bells, devil's trumpet, devil's weed, tolguacha, Jamestown weed, stinkweed, locoweed, pricklyburr, and devil's cucumber — is "a powerful hallucinogen and delirian... used spiritually for the intense visions it produces... fatally toxic in only slightly higher amounts than the medicinal dosage." That's some kind of metaphor for Georgia O'Keeffe. Take the right dose.

Now, let's get back to Germaine Greer. I love how Gompertz got out the opinion that female artists have just not been that good by slapping the name Germaine Greer on it. Women are so useful when it comes to insulting women. I didn't say it. Germaine said it.

* ADDED: The 7th paragraph of the article does — at least now — have the title of the painting. That's after referring to it as 1. "Georgia O'Keeffe painting," 3. "the simple white blossom of a weed,"  3. "A floral painting," and 4. "O'Keeffe's work." The separate section by Gompertz does not use the title of the painting.

"A quick reply came from Gabrielle Dow, the team's vice president of marketing and fan engagement. The books were pulled, she said."

"In this ever increasing environment of awareness in which the National Football League is taking a strenuous stance against domestic abuse and sexual assault, removal of the book in all forms would be an appropriate course of action, in my opinion," [Royce] Boyles wrote.

This might seem like a bold and selfless move by the author, censoring his own book, but the book, "Lombardi's Left Side," had co-authors — former players Herb Adderley and Dave Robinson — and Royce didn't ask them if they wanted the book withdrawn.

"I know their names are on the jacket, too, but so is mine," he told me. "I don't think you take a vote on integrity. If integrity is for sale at $26.95 a copy, I don't want to know about it."

The foreword was "written" by recording what Cosby said off the top of his head immediately upon being asked over the phone if he'd write a foreword: "Cosby said, 'Just turn on your tape recorder.'" Cosby had been childhood friends with Herb Adderley:

The rambling foreword talks about their days in school and athletics. 

Which is probably why Cosby agreed to do it. He had ready material.

He doesn't get around to Vince Lombardi until the very end.

So maybe Adderley should have been consulted. Royce has other books about Lombardi, by the way. 

"I can write another book," Boyles said. "But when they drop the lid on my coffin, I just hope that maybe somebody would say, 'He had a sliver of integrity anyway.'"

Here's the cover, note the size of the names on that list of authors:



Herb Adderley — who's in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame — is 75 years old and played from 1961 to 1972.

ADDED: You can read the whole foreword by clicking on "Look Inside" at the Amazon page for the book. The book is about Adderley and Robinson. That's why it's called "Lombardi's Left Side." Adderley was the left cornerback, and Robinson was the left linebacker. I'm reading a little of the book, right after the foreword: "Two great black men shut down the left side of the football field and opened up the right side of our minds." That strongly suggests that Boyles is the sole author.