Tom Watson

Crisis at the Met: Failing the Crowds of Memorial Day

The irony firmly in place this warm Memorial Day places the philanthropist Mayor of New York in the supporting league of a major arts institution that is clearly in crisis. Michael Bloomberg and the company he founded are major patrons of the Metropolitan Museum of Art - and the Met is letting them down, wasting their money, and giving the city itself a cultural black eye.

On Memorial Day, we took the family to the Met with several agendas: everyone wanted to see the wonderful collection of American art, the boys eagerly awaited the George Washington paintings, our daughter looked forward to Grant Wood, my wife wanted to see the Japanese scrolls and bask in the quiet of the Astor Court, my older son anticipated the arms and armor collection, and the little guy just wanted to see "William," the ancient Egyptian hippo that has become so symbolic (and marketable) to children.

All were closed. Every one of the exhibits. Closed. Roped off. Shut tight.

And today was one of those special holiday Mondays, during which the Met, normally closed on Mondays, is opened with funds from Bloomberg LP.

They shouldn't have bothered. We trudged around, looking for our favorites, only to encounter ropes and locked doors and grim-faced guards in blue suits. Yet here's what you read if you look up the "Met Holiday Mondays" on the museum's site:

"More than 200,000 people have visited the Museum on a Met Holiday Monday in the three years since the program was inaugurated, and we have been gratified by their positive and enthusiastic response," commented Emily K. Rafferty, President of the Metropolitan Museum. "Met Holiday Mondays add seven extra viewing days to the year and, in turn, these represent seven additional opportunities to visit the Met and enjoy our outstanding permanent collection as well as our roster of superb special exhibitions. We look forward to another year of welcoming the public to experience great art."

I'm sure Emily Rafferty was nowhere near Fifth Avenue today, or surely she would have taken the situation in hand and moved the appropriate employees to open those crucial galleries. I'm sure that the famed director of the Met, Guy Philippe Henri Lannes de Montebello, wasn't on Fifth today, either. He certainly would have understood the horrific symbolism of closing the American wing's historic paintings - on Memorial Day! He would have moved personnel from the museum's shops (fully-staffed with employees, we noticed) to the museum's galleries.

Surely, Emily Rafferty wouldn't have allowed her museum to be such terrible and public failure on a major American holiday - and with money provided by one of her most important benefactors.

Surely, she wouldn't have kept me from some of my favorite paintings. Not that American art is particularly important to the Metropolitan Museum. It's an also-ran, over in the corner, despite its phenomenal collection. And its American paintings galleries are often the quickest to close when there aren't enough security personnel to go around. Yes, this is a personal complaint - I love many of the paintings in the American wing; they represent the kind of cultural synthesis in the visual arts that blues and jazz and rock and roll represent to musical history. They're vitally important the progression of the visual arts, and they take a second row to no other culture. I'll admit it's galling to find, say, the Rockefeller galleries on primitive art wide open and well-staffed while the American paintings are shuttered away.

No art museum in any other major world capital would be as dismissive of its own culture.

On Memorial Day, we were prevented from viewing Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. Sure it's a work of nationalistic myth, an idealized view of a founding military moment. But if not today, when? Same goes for the collection of Gilbert Stuarts, the Charles Wilson Peales, the John Singleton Copleys, the John Trumbulls.

Less patriotic but more interesting in the artistic if not the historical sense are the 19th century works: the brilliantly-lighted landscapes of Thomas Cole and Frederic Church, the visual stories of George Caleb Bingham and Martin Johnson Heade, the deeply human paintings of Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins, and the telling portraits of Mary Cassatt, James Whistler, and  John Singer Sargent.

They were to have made up our own American "Memorial Day Parade," as I'd planned it. No. I filed a complaint with a polite docent at the information desk, who agreed that closing off the finest in American art was a shame and directed me to the modern wing, where he assured me that some fine 20th century American works were on view. If only he'd been right. The European paintings were open, but the singular galleries centered around American paintings from 1900-1945 - an incredibly fertile period in American art - were closed. Not enough security personnel, I was told. So we only got a glimpse across a long and empty room at an Edward Hopper. And we were barred from the Grant Woods.

Yes, the Frank Stella retrospective was open (I'm not a fan, though some of the constructions were interesting) and we did see the Warhols - where we did finally see a massive, nationalistic icon. Sure, it was Chairman Mao, but it's a memorable work indeed.

My question now is for the corporate philanthropy staff at Bloomberg LP: do you know your company's brand is being damaged by the incredibly poor experience you're funding at the Met?

My other question is for Philippe de Montebello and Emily Rafferty: what kind of museum are you running?

Oh, and where did you spend Memorial Day?

Comma Day

"...I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma ..."

-- President George Bush, 24 September 2006

Platform Facebook

I joined Facebook a year ago, built a small network of contacts (mainly political bloggers), and left it at that. Turned to it now and then to look people up. But lately, I'll admit to spending more time. Facebook has become a big-league platform and frankly, it's wonderful to have a still-independent big-time new media platform out there and growing.

Now, Facebook germinated with the college kids - linking campuses and causes, "faces" and wannabes. It's often thrown into conversation by middle-aged guys who need a buzzword or two about the hot social networks. "The MySpace and Facebook crowd." So the names drop.

But while MySpace remains a generally inpenetrable mess (sorry Rupert, you bought a lemon), Facebook has grown up and it now has real professional uses. It's also a pleasure to use.

So much so, that I created a newcritics Facebook group today, rather than add bulletin boards and other features on the site itself. It just made sense. For one, the ease of use at Facebook and its new open platform (you can build apps there now) is attractive. For another, there's a built-in audience that can come to newcritics from the Facebook platform itself. I like that.

Feckless Fools

So this is why we elected Democratic majorities in the House and Senate in last fall's historic takeover on Capitol Hill - to cut and run from a straight-up policy fight over the single issue that put our candidates in power? To back down from a weak and defeated President and his corrupt and morally bankrupt administration just because we couldn't handle a few, meager Republican brickbats on little-watched cable gabfests over the holiday weekend? To dissemble in pathetic, groveling fashion about compromise and "benchmarks" - to actually stand up there and claim victory in the battle over war funding?

No. No. That is not the reason. We funded them, and supported them, and canvassed for them, and blogged for them, and linked to them, and promoted them, and elected them for one central reason: to end this stinking war.

If these be Democrats, call me independent.

Call them weak, cowardly, spineless and ill-informed. More on that last one: these people actually believe that they still need to seem tough, to posture mightily in the so-called "war on terror" to appeal to the "American heartland," which is not as "liberal" as they are. Talk about brain-suck. Reid and Pelosi (and Obama and Clinton, for that matter, who will vote next week) are still buying into that lame-ass pollster-speak, those tired fear-driven post-9/11 squeaks. Their electorate tells them one thing; they don't believe it. Democrats, says Markos:

...appear to have learned nothing from the last few elections, and continue to cling to outdated CW like, "Voters think Democrats are weak because we don't want to bomb the shit out of other countries." Voters think Democrats are weak -- and I'm in this camp -- because if Democrats don't fight for what they believe in, then what will they fight for? How can we trust them to do what's right when they'll jump at shadows?

So they fold to a pair of deuces (at best), never calling with the royal flush of a grand electoral sweep. Talk about power hard-earned, never-used. Maybe the conventional wisdom is right. Maybe this generation of Democrats is allergic to actually using power. Maybe polls and triangulation are all they know. Or maybe Karl Rove and his bullies just scare the pants off 'em (as Taylor Marsh suggests):

Armed with only a bullhorn and a message against the war in Iraq, one protester kept screaming during Mr. Bush's press conference. He's got more spine than the DC Democrats and rubber stamping Republicans combined, who are currently preparing to kiss the president's ring on Iraq. Oh, but it's all in the name of "supporting the troops," right? Sure, if you call being afraid of what everyone will say if you refuse to continue to escalate the Iraq war. Sure, if you think having no particular plan is a good way to run a war.

According to the New York Times, the flags and bunting of Memorial Day sent the Dems a scurryin':

Democrats said they did not relish the prospect of leaving Washington for a Memorial Day break — the second recess since the financing fight began — and leaving themselves vulnerable to White House attacks that they were again on vacation while the troops were wanting. That criticism seemed more politically threatening to them than the anger Democrats knew they would draw from the left by bowing to Mr. Bush.

Well guess what? The left is pissed. So's the Goddamned center, by the way. Abject cowardice in the face of a great decision is never endearing. Keith Olbermann says it well:

The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the Administration, in which the only things truly compromised, are the trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our brave, and doomed, friends, and family, in Iraq.

You, the men and women elected with the simplest of directions—Stop The War—have traded your strength, your bargaining position, and the uniform support of those who elected you… for a handful of magic beans.

Let's revisit one of those campaigns from last summer - one that charged up all of us wild-eyed peyote smokers in the netroots (with our fusty hemp togs and quaint socialist manners) - the energetic underdog campaign of a musical man named John Hall. I liked Hall, pushed for him, met some of his people and was thrilled when he defeated a tired Bush apologist by the name of Sue Kelly. Today, John Hall voted for a parliamentary slight of hand that put the funding bill up for vote with no timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Tonight, I am incredibly disappointed by John Hall and I hope when he goes home to his district this weekend, he hears it from the majority that sent him to Washington to end the war.

Defunding was the power that Pelosi and company had - but they turned feckless and fearful. Digby:

Sure enough, we were forced to watch the extremely unpleasant spectacle John Kerry doing his clumsy pas de deux a thousand times trying to explain to the robotic press corps that he gave "authorization" to the president, but didn't actually vote for war --- and then later how he was for supplemental funding before he was against it. (Yes, I knew this was a "nuanced" position, but it disasterously played into every negative Democratic stereotype.)

Damned if we might be seeing the same thing unfold all over again. I accept that the supplemental funding bill will pass as is. And I accept that there will be some faithless Dems who will cross over and give Bush his "bipartisan" cover. Bush is determined to continue with this debacle and that still scares pols from conservative districts and states. (I won't even go into the marshamallows who call themselves Republican "moderates" in more liberal districts, but I'm looking forward to helping the Dems defeat them.) But I never in a million years thought that we would re-run 2004 again, and the prospect of having to watch our candidates do verbal gymnastics explaining why they didn't vote for the one thing that could have ended the war --- de-funding --- is almost incomprehensible.

See, the leadership thinks this was the safe vote, the the wild-eyed left will be angry but that middle-of-the-roaders will buy the "abandon the troops" lie of the Republicans. But I think they're wrong, that they've miscalculated terribly. So does Jane Hamsher:

Have the Democrats so rigorously internalized the notion that the extremely unpopular GOP is better at PR and will be able to capitalize on it when the Democrats do exactly what the country elected them to do that they are struck with paralysis?

Yeah, I know.  I shouldn't be surprised. (And really, I'm not). And we should all remember that this is Bush's war. But many of us worked to elect people who vowed to end Bush's war. And today, they violated their pledge to voters - and sullied their personal oaths of office.

UPDATE: Both Clinton and Obama voted against it. Good for them.

UPDATE II: Clinton's statement is clear - so clear and politically smart, it makes me wonder why Pelosi and Reid folded so easily:

Tonight I voted against the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill because it fails to compel the President to give our troops a new strategy in Iraq. I believe that the President should begin a phased redeployment of our troops out of Iraq and abandon this escalation.  I fully support our troops, and wish the President had followed the will of the people and signed the original bill we sent which both funded the troops and set a new course of phased redeployment.  But the President vetoed Congress’s new strategy and so Congress must reject the President’s failed policies. I will also continue to press with Senator Byrd for our legislation to end the authorization of the war in Iraq.

 

Restless Minds

Take about 30 iconoclasts, give 'em a log-in, tell them to write about culture and sometimes you'll get what you need. There are a bunch of new bloggers over at newcritics (where regular readers know I'm the den leader) and I wanted to share a few recent highlights:

• Manny Maher is happily shocked at the masters status recently awarded to Phillip K. Dick.
• Exile on Main Street may be the archetypal "whiskey rock" record of all-time, but Fred Wilson finds that the Kings of Leon have that honky croak down, Nashville-style.
• Chuck Tryon discovers a must-see YouTube video that snips 100 movies in exact numeric order.
• The Siren takes on Mark Steyn over the matter of Elia Kazan and the Hollywood blacklist - and finds him shockingly devoid of nuance and knowledge.
• I reviewed The Plague by Albert Camus in light of current events.
• What did Jerry Falwell mean to our cultural identity - some SNL skits, at very least, says Dennis Perrin.
• Maud Newton looks at some political propaganda in pop culture - oh, but it was in 1681. Same deal. Cool post.
• M.A. Peel reviews the wild rush of fire that is The Tristan Project.
• Jason Chervokas reviews the brilliant new record by Mavis Staples - Down in Mississippi - I've been listening to this one myself, and love it.
• Kathleen Maher has a review of the biopic of jazz singer Anita O'Day, and she's captivated.

Great stuff, and I urge you to pop over and take it in. And please leave some comments, and join the conversation.

Letting Down the Side, Old Chap

The quiet majesty of the White House Rose Garden was disrupted yesterday by a group of boorish foreign-types who brought with them to a ceremony at our glorious Executive Mansion two qualities generally not welcome in those genteel quarters: skepticism and curiosity.

Yes, the British press louts were on full display at our national going away party for Tony Blair, staged as it was like a loyal departing employee's gold watch ceremony at the White House. But it wasn't the staffers who were offended by perfidious albion's reporting manners - it was our own "national press." Over at the Politico - which I must say, has been an awful disappointment of mostly insiderish claptrap - Mike Allen was clearly horrified by the doings:

The British press got off on the wrong foot with President Bush, literally. When he and Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom walked into the sunny Rose Garden just before lunchtime on Thursday, most of the foreign reporters stayed in their seats, while the White House press corps followed tradition and stood in respect.

Yes, you don't want to get off on the wrong foot, old chap, with our President. You won't score one of those slick nicknames from The Decider that way. Allen explains further:

Partly, it's a British thing: Back home, the press stands for the queen, who is the head of government, but not for the prime minister. But some of the scribes admit that it's also partly an anti-Bush thing.

Privately, of course. In a long series of off-the-record interviews with the "scribes" carefully recorded by Allen and discussed with editors before such a wide and near-blind attribution was allowed in The Politico. Or not. Perhaps just blown out of the interview with Allen's thumb and straight into his laptop. But I digress. Let's go to Allen's blow-by-blow:

The Brits asked blunt, even rude, questions about Blair's relevance, the cost of his embrace of Bush and the unpopularity of the president across the pond.

"That's a lovely question," Bush observed sarcastically after Adam Bolton of Sky News asked Blair what he would say to those who are saying "you should go sooner."

After a follow-up by Bolton, Bush concluded with a tart, "Nice to see you again." Blair acknowledged the awkwardness, asking playfully, "You had kind of forgotten what the British media were like, hadn't you?"

In apparent reference to the reporter's failure to stand, Bush looked at the Sky News correspondent and said: "He woke up to ask the question."

Then Bush winked at him to salve the sting.

Yes, that famous wink. Works wonders with tamping down those blunt (even rude!) questions from the press corps. Certainly did the job back in the spring of 2003, when they all went along for the adventurous ride across the desert to oblivion.

Breaking the Morning Silence

So, David Gregory is good. Not only at serving as the resident scourge of dissembling White House flacks, but in picking up the pieces in Imusland - where many of us have been relegated to thoughtful morning silence lo these many post-Rutgers weeks (we've been in recovery exactly as long as Governor Corzine). Meditation is a good thing. Listening to the birds is wonderful. But getting the creaky mind working is also good; a happy chuckle or an angry harumph at 6 a.m. is the equivalent of a mug of steaming joe for some of us. A little politics, a little news, some absurdity. No more stupid skits and characters. Works. So Gregory is a find. I find the radio in the "on" position these past few dawns. Wonder if they'll keep him?

I'm the King of Torture (No I'm the King of Torture)

Last night in South Carolina, eight middle-aged white men - including a couple of Jesus-loving Bible-thumpers - fell over each other trying to let Republicans know that they've got that true 24 mentality.

You know, they'd go pretty darned far like that handsome, gritty Jack Bauer character, if American citizens ever found themselves in a far-fetched comic book scenario obviously dreamed up between refills from Roger Ailes' Scotch decanter high above Sixth Avenue.

The sneering curl that is Brit Hume's upper lip was wet with some kind of spook-driven desire for action when he laid things out: simultaneous attacks on three U.S. shopping malls (oh, please spare Build-A-Bear, Mr.Terrorist) rock the nation as a coordinated caravan of munitions-laden Mercedes GL-450s infiltrates underground parking garages, piloted by terrorists disguised as JC Penney shoppers (I may be misremembering a detail or two). A terrorist with detailed knowledge of another imminent and deadlier attack had been captured and taken to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. OK, Republican old men - how far would you go?

Not one of them pointed out that this Foxy scenario was awfully close to the 2002 epic Collateral Damage, starring the nation's most prominent and popular Republican who cannot be President. But most of them responded with some version of the movie's hooky tagline: "The Act Itself Wasn't Personal...HIS VENGEANCE WILL BE."

Mitt Romney: Close Gitmo?! Hell, I'll double Gitmo!

Rudy Giuliani: "Every method" that can possibly be construed as not being the T-word.

The Other Guys Nobody Knows: "I as President will authorize extreme measures." [Roughly paraphrased].

With two notable exceptions, they all did the manly-man dance of faux toughness. Tom Tancredo, the immigrant-bashing fencing contractor, actually said he was "looking for a Jack Bauer."

The exceptions to the torture bandwagon were the actual torture victim and the actual conservative. Andrew Sullivan:

Some issues really are paramount moral ones. Two candidates opposed it clearly and honorably: McCain and Paul. All the others gleefully supported it - including Brownback. He's a born-again Christian for torture. Giuliani revealed himself as someone we already know. He would have no qualms in exercising executive power brutally, no scruples or restraints. Romney would double the size and scope of Gitmo, to ensure that none of the detainees have lawyers, regardless of their innocence or guilt. That is in itself a disqualification for the presidency of the United States. A man who has open contempt for the most basic rules of Western justice has no business being president.

Then there was Mike Huckabee's canned one-liner about John Edwards and his expenses at the "beauty parlor." How subtle. Edwards is not a manly Republican type because he spends money on his coif. Say effete elitist. Whisper "gay." This as his obviously beloved wife is dying. So much for Mike Huckabee's aw-shucks nice guy conservative pose.

The Republicans with their failed national leader, their deadly pointless war, their domestic incompetence, and their endless scandals don't have much to grapple on to. The insightful Digby:

It was quite interesting watching the Republicans debate down in South Carolina tonight. I think it's clear that this group has come to fully understand that winning the GOP nomination is all about the codpiece. These guys have just spent the last fifteen minutes of the debate trying to top each other on just how much torture they are willing to inflict. They sound like a bunch of psychotic 12 year olds, although considering the puerile nature of the "24" question it's not entirely their fault.

This debate is a window into what really drives the GOP id. The biggest applause lines were for faux tough guy Giuliani demanding Ron Paul take back his assertion that the terrorists don't hate us for our freedom, macho man Huckabee talking about Edwards in a beauty parlor and the manly hunk Romney saying that he wants to double the number of prisoners in Guantanamo "where they can't get lawyers." There's very little energy for that girly talk about Jesus or "the culture of life" or any of that BS that the pansy Bush ran ran on.

See, there's nothing there to run on - so it's all slogans about slogans about 9-11 about slogans. As Jim Wolcott said (while inching his thumb toward the channel marker on the remote):

"Some of these candidates are convinced that the US can stay indefinitely in Iraq (retreat equals defeat) and confront Iran and reduce the price of gas for the average American family on their Sunday drive to the church or synagogue of their choice."

Maybe next time, the moderators will invent a better scenario - one that requires more thought. I liked the what-if dreamed up by Britt Peterson over at The Plank:

I keep imagining an alternate scenario: Chris Wallace asking, "So, if your plane had crashed on a remote island that might or might not be purgatory and/or a big science experiment and/or a figment of your imagination, and on this island, along with a lot of improbably beautiful women, some polar bears, a smoke monster, and an army of natives who are constantly trying to kidnap your women and children, was a former member of the Iraqi Army who (let's just say) knew how to use 'enhanced techniques' to get information -- and if also on that island was a conman who had stashed all the medicine that was on your plane and was refusing to give it up to a girl having an asthma attack -- and if you were a world-class surgeon with daddy issues who really, really wanted to save the day -- would you sic the Iraqi torturer on the conman in order to get the girl's inhaler? Now would you, sir?"

That's almost better than a rerun of Gilligan's Island. Almost.

Famed Hater Dies

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say you helped [9-11] happen."

- Jerry Falwell (1933-2007)

Getcher Mornin' Papeh!

There's this fellow who works the entrance to the Number 7 train on the south side of 42nd Street, just west of Third. His job is to give away the freebie tabloid daily amNewYork, which on surface of it wouldn't seem to be a difficult task. As he's always hollering as I brush by, "hey hey, the price is right, the price is right."

But every morning, this guy is out there selling it - which really counts for something when your product is free. New Yorkers are grouchy in the morning, especially those who've just survived the long, lurching ride form outer Queens and the slow-as-hell escalator ride up from deep below the street. They don't want free - they want caffeine.

But this man moves units - he hawks those free papers. He's got a particular way with the ladies, shall we say - calling attention quite loudly to their particular charms or manner of attire. "Hey, hey young lady - you're lookin' fine - I saw you coming a block whole away!" Funny, they always take a paper.

Some mornings, when I'm drag-assing myself toward an annoying meeting or some gut-twisting deadline, this amNewYork hawker serves as instant inspiration, imparting a kind of Buddhist devotion during my shuffle along 42nd Street. Whatever you do, form a relationship with it. Embrace the task, whether it's pushing newsprint or nailing a client pitch. Perform each task properly, with attention to detail. The ability to work is a gift.

Funny thing. I've never taken one of his papers. Generally, I roll quickly by, semi-lost in some remote iTunes track. And I've never yet cracked amNewYork, but I've learned a lot from its public face - that loud, friendly guy on 42nd Street. Maybe I'll take one tomorrow.