We must do whatever we can to be as profitable as our entrepreneurial creativity allows us to be. That is our only mandate. We cannot be motivated by anything else. If we were to stray from that mandate, we would be replaced by others who would not stray....If you don’t want us to engage in inhumane practices X, Y, and Z, then you must outlaw practices X, Y, and Z, for we will do whatever the law allows....We will swear up and down that we could never find a way to make profits if you impose rule A or regulation B. It’s not true, sir. We are American business leaders. We are smart and talented and devoted to making profits. We will always find a way to make money and beat the competition. We could sell water to a well....the system compels competitive, not benevolent, behavior. We are immune to questions of shame, decency, morality, even humanity. The corporation is inhuman in that it lacks free will. It will always pursue profit and disregard unprofitable goals like compassion and sympathy....The corporation has no decency and neither can its officers if they want to remain its officers. That is the logic of the publicly traded corporation.
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/06/they-will-do-what-the-law-allows-or-dont-hate-the-player-change-the-game.html
Since for better or worse I am not immune to the questions that the corporation is immune to, I will never be a CEO swimming in dough and will never be able to afford this car. It's awfully nice though, an Austin Healey 3000 MkII convertible.
http://pigtown-design.blogspot.com/2010/06/classic-cars.html
The early Michelangelo Antonioni film Le Amiche (The Girlfriends) has been restored and re-released. I can't wait for the DVD; the Fifties films of the great Italian directors such as Antonioni, Fellini, and Visconti are incredibly warm and vibrant. Each of those directors eventually became more mannered -- as fascinating as ever, but perhaps not as lovable.
http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/1950
http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/movies/18amiche.html
Stephen Holden's cabaret reviews for the New York Times, such as this piece on Sutton Foster's new act at the Cafe Carlyle, are one of the least-commented-upon but most dependable delights of that great newspaper:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/arts/music/17foster.html
One of the best lists I've seen recently is this guide to songs of "displacement" (northward migration) in country music:
http://kidnappingmurderandmayhem.blogspot.com/2010/06/top-10-country-displacement-songs.html
Bravo to the Library of America for acknowledging the graphic novel with a two-volume set of the woodcut narratives of Lynd Ward:
http://causticcovercritic.blogspot.com/2010/06/lynd-ward-ii.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynd_Ward
How I have missed this poem by Thomas Hood I do not know, but it is hilarious:
A Parental Ode to My Son, Aged Three Years and Five Months
Thou happy, happy elf!
(But stop, - first let me kiss away that tear) –
Thou tiny image of myself!
(My love, he's poking peas into his ear!)
Thou merry, laughing sprite!
With spirits feather-light,
Untouch'd by sorrow and unsoil'd by sin –
(Good heavens! The child is swallowing a pin!)
Thou little, tricksy Puck!
With antic toys so funnily bestuck,
Light as the singing bird that wings the air –
(The door! The door! He'll tumble down the stair!)
Thou darling of thy sire!
(Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore a-fire!)
Thou imp of mirth and joy!
In love's dear chain so strong and bright a link,
Thou idol of thy parents – (Drat the boy!
There goes my ink!)
Thou cherub – but of earth;
Fit playfellow for Fays, by moonlight pale,
In harmless sport and mirth,
(That dog will bite him if he pulls its tail!)
Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey
From ev'ry blossom in the world the blows,
Singing in Youth's Elysium, ever sunny –
(Another tumble! – that's his precious nose!)
Thy father's pride and hope!
(He'll break the mirror with that skipping rope!)
With pure heart newly stamp'd from Nature's mint –
(Where did he learn that squint?)
Thou young domestic dove!
(He'll have that jug off, with another shove!)
Dear nursling of the hymeneal nest!
(Are those torn clothes his best?)
Little epitome of man!
(He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan!)
Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life –
(He's got a knife!)
Thou enviable being
No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing,
Play on, play on,
My elfin John!
Toss the light ball – bestride the stick –
(I knew so many cakes would make him sick!)
With fancies buoyant as the thistle-down,
Prompting the face grotesque and antic brisk,
With many a lamb-like frisk –
(He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!)
Thou pretty opening rose!
(Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!)
Balmy, and breathing music like the South,
(He really brings my heart into my mouth!)
Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star, -
(I wish that window had an iron bar!)
Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove –
(I'll tell you what, my love,
I cannot write, unless he's sent above!)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/jun/21/poem-week-parental-ode
Despite its being, in terms of loss of life, New York City's worst pre-9/11 disaster, few people are aware of the tragedy of the paddle steamer General Slocum:
http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/new_york_new_york/remember_the_general_slocum.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Slocum
Among notables born on this date are fiction writers Richard Powers, Gail Godwin, Ivan Goncharov (Russia), Varlam Shalamov (Russia), and Raymond Radiguet (France), children's writer/illustrator Chris Van Allsburg, lyricist Sammy Cahn, film critic Roger Ebert, poet Geoffrey Hill, sociologist Jurgen Habermas, Beatle Paul McCartney, and actors Jeanette MacDonald, Brian Benben, E.G. Marshall, Isabella Rossellini, and Carol Kane. Throughout my high school, college, and young adult years I worked off and on in the children's room of my hometown library in Passaic, New Jersey, and thus had seen every acclaimed children's picture book for a long period of years. So when I say that Chris Van Allsburg's second book, Jumanji, absolutely knocked me out in 1981, you'll understand that reaction was against a background of deep familiarity with the field. Talent tells.
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