Art and the Homeless

Sigmund Freud wrote about Michelangelo's Moses in a study unpublished by him, probably because it neglects the artist, dwelling, instead, on the subject of his work of art: Moses. From what we know of Michelangelo any insight into how his personality affected his production as an artist would have been welcome. We must be happy with what we have. Freud begins with this disclaimer: "I'll start by saying that I'm not an art connoisseur, but a layman. I have often noticed that the content of a work of art attracts me more than its formal and technical qualities, which are what the artist attaches most importance to. I really don't have the right understanding for many of the means and effects of art. I must say this to ensure a lenient judgment of my attempt." Freud makes it clear he's looking for meaning in art, not aesthetic pleasure, which he assumes is the artist's motive. Had he lived to see the total elimination of subject from art, as with Abstract...

"This is what went down," as we say today because, when it went down, it would have been anachronistic to put it that way. It was a school day in 1970. I was on the Freshman swimming team. After-school practice had just ended, and I was returning to my school locker to get my books, when the clock struck bad luck.  At that time I regularly carried a gym bag for wet swim trunks and a personal towel needed for use after swim team practice. After I got my coat and finished arranging things in my school things locker, I closed and locked it. Attached to the draw string of the gym bag I carried was a separate combination lock used for my gymnasium locker. Books under one arm, gym bag in the other hand, I turned to leave for home.   I was in a hurry. It was late, I knew mom was waiting for me in the car to take me home, and as I walked brusquely through a set of school hallway glass doors the gym bag lock at the end of the string swung wild and hit one of the doors. The safety glas...

Jean Paul Sartre's writing is a paragon of writing for peer review. It is declarative, spare, lucid, adaptable to any subject. Copied at random, a few examples from Sartre's dissertation, Being and Nothingness :  “The appearances which manifest the existent are neither interior nor exterior; they are all, they all refer to other appearances, and none of them is privileged.” “The self is individual; it is the individual completion of the self which haunts the for-itself.” “The multiplicity of consciousnesses appears to us as a synthesis and not as a collection, but it is a synthesis whose totality is inconceivable.” “The sacred object is an object which is in the world and which points to a transcendence beyond the world.” “The Future is the continual possibilization of possibles—as the meaning of the present For-itself in so far as this meaning is problematic and as such radically escapes the present For-itself.” These sentences, as everything in Being and Nothingness , are no...

It is said you can get too much of a good thing. The maxim has been twisted for irony into “you can never get enough of a good thing.” The parody exposes the unstated middle term. What is enough? Or, better expressed, how much is enough? There is a related proverb (possibly apocryphal), attributed to Native American Indians, that “too much is enough.” It is ironic in that it tricks such a questioner into a circular argument— petitio principii. There is a saying in Las Vegas, where it is said, "Know your limit." It should be a matter of common sense, but going too far is irresistible. Play seems to engage the pleasure center of the brain. Losing your bankroll should be the limit, but what about actually winning? Why stop—when you're winning. It's not just Las Vegas, or even gambling in general, but a human predilection. A young professional is on the crest of his career, a salaried executive at a going concern. The deadlines are tight, and failure is not an option, as...