On Friday the Westboro Baptist Church descended on the San Francisco headquarters of Twitter, because God hates social networking. Or something. The above photo from the exuberant counter-protest was sent in by JMG reader Craig. Go here for many more hilarious signs.
He is nearly finished, bella. They want it"
erected in the Piazza della Signoria. Already
some are calling him a masterwork.
That’s nice, dear.
Can you move your things?
Lucia is stopping by.
On one level, he is sacred
homage to divine creation. Of course,
he is also heresy.
Who, after all, is our
Goliath in this, the most
enlightened of ages?
If they knew my heart
they would tear it out.
Did you forget to pay the light bill, Mike?
Goddamn it – how many times do you have to be
reminded? I swear, you’re
like a little kid.
Now what will we do?
There is talk of a commission – a
commemoration of the Battle of Cascina for the
Palazzo Vecchio.
You know how proud I am, yes?
I would like if you
stopped by the studio to see him.
Maybe one day this week, and then
we would dine in that little place
near the Piazza Duomo.
I never understand sculpture.
You have worked so very hard, and
your statue, it is beautiful, I’m certain. I
know your heart, do I not?
Hand me my purse.
My father didn’t want me to be an artist, you know.
Said it was beneath me. But he
approved of you, and it’s good to
make family happy.
I think I’ll get those shoes
I told you about. They’re Ferragamo,
calzolaio supremo di Milano,
heels like icepicks.
You’ll see how men stare when
we go to the opera.
A student asked me today to
speak of my philosophy.
I said to him
art is
integration of that which is merely juxtaposed.
Caleb Crain remembers the jolly fellows, "a certain type of American man—rowdy, boastful, hard drinking, and fond
of games, brawls, and tricks—who could dependably be found in village
taverns and on city streets":
Jolly fellows found themselves besieged when the nineteenth century's famous reform movements began to attack drinking, brawling, gambling, and whoring. Reform arose in the Northeast but quickly spread south and west, transforming society wholesale: The average American drank an estimated 7.1 gallons of alcohol in 1830, but only 1.8 in 1845. The alteration is sometimes credited to the religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening. But Stott quotes a Mississippi boatman's belief that "religion is generally located in the upper story" and suspects that the deeper cause was industrial capitalism, which shifted America's ethos from sympathetic interdependence to prudent individualism.
Manners became finer, diets became more sophisticated, homespun fabrics gave way to factory-made ones. Men in suits were unlikely to soil them by brawling. An early sociologist, studying the change as it hit an Indiana village in the 1860s, noted that guilt, gossip, and legal coercion joined forces. Before, "the typical man was a fighter"; afterward, he was "a champion of denial." Once credit agencies started to record men's drinking habits, jolly fellowship was doomed.
