Lord Byron to Lady Melbourne, September 25, 1812:

As to Annabella [Milbanke, his future wife] she requires time and all the cardinal virtues, and in the interim I am a little verging towards one who demands neither, and saves me besides the trouble of marrying by being married already…I only wish she did not swallow so much supper, chicken wings—sweetbreads—custards—peaches and port wine—a woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and champagne, the only truly feminine and becoming viands.

From The Folio Book of Days (The Folio Society, 2002).

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The other day I said some disparaging things about The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird—something about them being overrated, if I remember correctly. The baby boomer in the room responded with something to the effect that, when I get something published, I can weigh in on the literary merits of the two books in question.

A couple of observations.

First, I should have known better. Boomers—like any generation, really—are protective of their cultural totems. I also happen to think that the Beatles are overrated. And that Jimi Hendrix is not, in fact, the greatest guitarist who ever lived. Both statements are easily defensible, yet anathema to just about anyone who grew up in the 1960s.

Second, is it really necessary to publish a novel to be critical of another? If so, then it surely must be true that that experience is also necessary if one is to praise a novel. And if that’s the case, then don’t bother arguing with me about the merits of Jimi Hendrix unless you’ve released an album. You can see how this approach quickly falls apart.

I don’t bring up any of this to disparage the boomer. He’s one of the sharpest people I know, not to mention a witty raconteur. Rather, it’s to point out that we seem to have lost our ability—or, at the very least, our willingness—to criticize.

Is this unwillingness due to a lack of knowledge? Maybe. Is it because we’re afraid we might cause offense? Probably. Is it because it’s just easier to use sales figures as the primary barometer of artistic merit? Almost certainly. (On this, however, I think Schoenberg got it right when he said, “If it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.”)

These are things worth fighting for. Or fighting over, at the very least. Otherwise, what’s the point? When we challenge each other to defend deeply held positions, we grow stronger and more confident in our own convictions—not to mention a whole lot smarter. And the art itself? It keeps getting better.

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“I miss the English,” says Martin Amis from his home in Manhattan. “I miss Londoners. I miss the wit.” So what’s wrong with Americans?

[T]hey’re very, well, de Tocqueville saw this coming in about 1850 – he said, it’s a marvellous thing, American democracy, but don’t they know how it’s going to end up? It’s going to be so mushy that no one will dare say anything for fear of offending someone else. That’s why Americans aren’t as witty as Brits, because humour is about giving a little bit of offence. It’s an assertion of intellectual superiority. Americans are just as friendly and tolerant as Londoners, but they flinch from mocking someone’s background or education.

It’s too bad, really, if only because humility—a characteristic that’s in rather short supply these days—is bred out of mockery.

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In a 1935 letter to his New York gallerist, Wassily Kandinsky made a bold claim: “Indeed,” he wrote of a 1911 work, “it’s the world’s first ever abstract picture, because back then not one single painter was painting in an abstract style. A ‘historic painting’, in other words.”

But is it true? Probably not. Swedish painter Hilma af Klint “worked with abstract imagery as early as 1906, arguably several years before Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich, Robert Delaunay and Frantisek Kupka, long considered the trailblazers of the movement”:

“Kandinsky was actively campaigning for himself as being the first abstract artist, constantly writing his gallery and saying, ‘Hey, you know, I was the first! I painted the first abstract painting in 1911!'” said Julia Voss, an art historian and art critic for the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “He was obviously successful, as he’s widely considered the father of 20th-century abstraction. But all the while, af Klint, much more privately, had already been creating these striking, abstract visuals for years.”

Stockholm’s Moderna Museet is featuring 230 of her works in the exhibition Hilma af Klint—A Pioneer of Abstraction. You know, if you find yourself in Sweden any time soon.

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Someone has finally deciphered the Voynich manuscript! Or…has he?

“Long ago, in the ancient city of Cyrene, there was a herb called silphium. It didn’t look like much—with stout roots, stumpy leaves and bunches of small yellow flowers—but it oozed with an odiferous sap that was so delicious and useful, the plant was eventually worth its weight in gold.” So what happened to it?

David Ferry has given us a new translation of the Aeneid. At 93 years of age.

Don’t tell your hippy-dippy baby boomer friends, but “the 1950s were among the most intellectually and creatively provocative periods of the twentieth century.”

A history of victimhood.

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Echo is on display at the University of Northern Colorado’s Mariana Gallery—and it’s pretty amazing. Artist Dylan Gebbia-Richards covered the walls of an enclosed room with layers of wax so dense that it actually absorbs sound. According to the press release, “[t]he lack of ambient noise within the chamber deliberately reduces the auditory stimuli in effort to focus on the visual senses.” Apparently, the effect has something to do with what’s called chromesthesia:

The title of the exhibition references the acoustic effect that occurs when sound reflects off of bare, close fitting walls and distantly repeats. Gebbia-Richards explores the possibility of inverting this principal into a “visual echo,” by encompassing the viewer in a 30′ x 20.5′, double ellipse room. The sloped, wave-like walls of what the artist calls “the chamber,” immerses the viewer in a life-size, textured painting made from 4,128 pounds of melted wax.

The exhibition runs through December 11. If you’re anywhere even remotely near Greeley, you really ought to check it out.

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When Skooch told me about this, I didn’t believe him. Nobody, I said, is that dumb—nobody. Turns out I grossly underestimated humanity’s capacity for stupidity.

Speaking of stupidity, our ruthless pursuit of self-aggrandizement appears to have reached a whole new level.

About time someone put the final nail in the coffin of “emotional intelligence.”

The world is going to hell: first came the hurricane, then the flooding, then the floating colonies of fire ants. And now this. Next up, probably: rivers of blood and a plague of locusts.

And when it’s all said and done, civilization will look pretty much like this.

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