(Just last night, I finished reading A History of Turtle Soup. Most edifying and instructive. Last week found me completing Embalming Around the World. Exciting stuff as you can well imagine. It occurred to me that one could spend a great deal of time reading these fascinating books, but wouldn’t it be much better to put all of these histories together in a fresh history of the world?  Many years ago, Will and Ariel Durant published their 11-volume Story of Civilization. Since then, much new stuff has been uncovered, so I decided I would take on the task of bringing the world’s story up to date. So,  here is a sample chapter for your edification. As you can imagine, much work needs still to be done, but fortunately all the required information is already stored in my brain, so completion of this vital  project should take months rather than years.)

Chapter Two

The Dawn of Civilization and the Rise of the Ians

It’s unclear when people began to speak to one another. Perhaps the first communications consisted merely of grunts and screams. Imagine a cave dweller cooking a hare over an early fire, then chewing on the result. He grunts with pleasure. His mate hears the grunt and it sounds just slightly different than the grunt when he uses the facilities. She tries the hare herself and grunts similarly.

She has also noticed – even then, women paid more attention to subtleties – that when he stubs his toe, he gives out a shriek. When he comes upon a large and toothy cat, he also gives out a kind of shriek, but it’s louder and more prolonged. Soon, people began to understand the differing sounds of annoyance and fear. They also noticed that in the former the sound almost always comes out sounding like “ouch.” In much the same way, the grunt of satisfaction is soon regularized into “good.”

While people were soon chattering away at breakneck speed, it didn’t yet occur to them to write the new words down. Actually, the use of pictographs came before the Palmer Method. The Sumerians (the first of the Ian civilizations) often traded goods among themselves. When one group had a surplus of alfalfa sprouts but a shortage of malt beverage, they would often do a trade. We know their level of sophistication because, to prevent pilfering enroute, they would fill a jar with pebbles coinciding with the number of baskets of sprouts, and then seal it with clay cylinders. At the other end, the recipient would break the jar and count the pebbles. If the pebbles and baskets matched, all was well. If not, woe betide the shipping company. In fact, this is where Summery executions began.

Eventually, a thrifty shipper noticed that you could actually make marks on the clay stopper before it dried, using dots for each basket instead of putting pebbles in a jar. This eliminated the need for pebbles and jars; thus, the first recorded instance of improving the bottom line.

Every system has its faults, of course. It wasn’t long before the shipping companies discovered that they could make their own clay disks with fewer marks and enjoy a few sprouts on the trip without being discovered. Soon, however, the shippers began to do elaborate drawings of the goods instead of simple marks. The shipping companies soon countered this by hiring talented artists to duplicate even the most sophisticated symbols. Not surprisingly, they were called “counter” fitters.

An interesting footnote: J. Pierpont Morgan, the celebrated American financier, began to collect these disks when their meaning became clear. Not only did the disks look nice in glass cases, but he was in a position to appreciate their relevance to his own business practices.

The Sumerians lived in what is now the Middle East. It was either merely hot or really hot all the year. Nearby, in a mountainous region where snow was not unknown lived a tribe called the Friesians, who lived in cedar forests (now part of Lebanon). They often traded their timber with the Sumerians, usually during the colder months in the mountains. They began to equate Sumeria with warm weather and soon began to refer to the warmer months in their own country as summer.

Another early civilization of note was the Assyrian, the so-called “donkey people.” Much later, after a particularly virulent outbreak of hoof and mouth disease wiped out the donkey population, they transferred their allegiance to the hardier camel and became simply the Syrians.

The Assyrians thought big. One only has to peruse the massive statuary and tablets displayed at the British Museum to be convinced of this. Indeed, the museum would be a much smaller place without them and the famous Elgin Marbles (see discussion of cultural piracy later in the book).

In case you get lost at the museum, the Assyrians are the ones with the wide beards. It’s the Egyptians who have the narrow ones. Also, the typical Assyrian beard seems braided, much like today’s dreadlocks. It would appear that they did not perhaps have razors quite so good as the Egyptians, but a much higher order of beard dressing.

They were also prodigious warriors (“the Assyrians came down like a wolf on the fold”). It must have been a daunting experience to see them charging their enemies on their famous war donkeys. Even the women participated in these battles, although they demurely rode sidesaddle, hence the word “asside.”

Now that their hieroglyphics have been deciphered, we know that the Assyrians had all the hallmarks of a developed civilization: language, art, trade, politics, and cities, subjugation of weaker neighbors, marriage and divorce.

In this, they resembled their rivals, the Hittites, who appear to have emigrated to Anatolia from the Balkans, and who can blame them? Before they disappeared, they conquered the Babylonians and fought the Egyptians to a draw, mainly because they discovered iron, which held an edge better than sticks and, heated up, could put a snappy crease in their uniforms. Ultimately, of course, the formula for iron was discovered by their enemies, who soon were hitting back with a will. We hear nothing about them after 1200 BC; maybe they went back to the Balkans, which might explain a lot.

While peoples in other parts of the world struggled along at the same time, we know little about them because they left no written record. In great part, what they left behind were big rocks. Later to become notably articulate (after the Roman conquest), the early Britains seemed capable only of constructing massive henges, the most notable of which is near the modern village of Stone on Stoke. What these circles of shaped stone actually signified is mere conjecture. The most plausible theory holds that they are a kind of astrological timepiece. This was all well and good for those at the henge. It appears, however, that if you were in Scotland, you couldn’t get the time of day.

The Assyrians were eventually conquered by the notably talkative Babblelonians, who also gave their name to the storied city. While they gave fits to the nearby tribes (the Israelites for example), they were also really keen gardeners. The famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon were justly famous. It was while reclining in the gardens that the Great Hammurabi (in Babylonian, this means “the big hammer”) drafted his famous laws, the first fully codified system of government we know of. While he made sure the codes put him in full charge, they at least permitted one to appeal for mercy before being dragged six times around the city gates.

Before leaving the Dawn of Civilization, we must pay some attention to that other great Ian people, the Egyptians. During their heyday, they were called the “Profile People,” since the court painters didn’t seem able to draw faces straight on. Like other ancient peoples, the Egyptians worshiped nature and animals, thus the term animus. Their major deity was the Sun God, Rah. When his likeness was paraded in the temples, the worshipers were often heard to chant in unison “Rah, Rah, Rah.”

They believed strongly in the afterlife, so modern Egypt is dotted with tombs of various kinds, the most famous being the pyramids. These vast edifices contained the mummified bodies of notable Pharaohs, along with their treasures and all the food and comforts they might need in the afterlife. It wasn’t long before these tombs were looted, so many of these kings now reside in museums, which at least have climate control systems and functioning cafeterias (although one can’t, in conscience, recommend the food).

It should be mentioned that many of the later Pharaohs were actually Greeks, Cleopatra being of course the best known. By the time of her reign, Egypt was in decline and would soon become part of the great Roman Empire and thus related to the next great historical period: the Classical World.

Sacre Doo! 

By Patrick F. Cannon

Have you noticed the paucity of French names among your fellow citizens? We have numerous examples from Germany, Great Britain, Poland, Mexico, China, India – well, you name it, we have it.

But why no DeGaulles, Rollands, Petains, Chiracs, Foches, or de Lattre de Tassignys, for that matter? I have long puzzled over this, but in a flash of enlightenment (just in time for this article), the answer became clear. It’s simply this: the typical French person would chafe (is that a French word?) under the reasonable restrictions we place upon ourselves.

Of course, on our own continent we have the French speakers in Quebec. Notice that many of them refuse to speak English to their fellow Canadians (or is it Canadiens?), and have on several occasions tried to secede from Canada itself. Although you may catch sight of a Quebecer wintering in Florida, one suspects it’s only because they can’t afford Martinique.

I have been to France several times; indeed, I once spent a year there, courtesy of the United States Army. One thing I noticed almost immediately is that the average French person walks along with his or her head down, while tourists are looking up to gawk at the Eifel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe. One reason, of course, is that they’ve seen this famous landmarks many times. But the main reason they look down is to avoid stepping on doggy doo, whose volume increases as the day goes on.

Now, to their credit the French are dog lovers, but the thought of bending over and picking up their poop would be anathema to them. This is the job for the municipal authorities, who hose down the streets and sidewalks early every morning, thus providing a clean canvas for little Fifi and her friends. No doubt also that there is the inevitable French union to make sure no one takes jobs away from the Pooperintendants.

As to smoking (who can forget film actor Jean Paul Belmondo with a fag dangling from his lip) the French have among the toughest smoking bans in the world, which apparently is routinely and increasingly flouted.

Here’s an example closer to home. Several years ago, my friend Jerry McManus was giving an architectural walking tour in Oak Park to a group from France. Not everyone spoke English, so they had an interpreter with them. As was customary, Jerry began with a list of simple rules (don’t walk on the grass, don’t look in people’s windows, etc,) before he started the tour. He noticed that the interpreter wasn’t passing these simple and sensible rules along to the group. When he asked why, he was told: “You don’t tell adults what to do!”

Now, we pride ourselves on our individual freedoms, but the French tend toward anarchy. They also tend to believe themselves far superior to other beings, although they don’t mind us as much as the English. They are willing to be among the barbarians for short visits, but the thought of actually immigrating to the outer world must fill them with dread. So, we can continue to stride confidently along our own sidewalks without fear (except perhaps near the French consulate or the Alliance Francais).

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Help! The World is Shrinking! 

By Patrick F. Cannon 

I write this from Florida, where I’m spending time with my son, Patrick and staying for a a few days with my brother Pete and his charming wife, Mary Beth. To get to this earthly paradise, I had to fly from Chicago. I chose United Airlines, which had a decent fare and a reasonable departure time. It was only a short flight – a bit over two hours – so the potential for discomfort was minimal.

But, nevertheless, they did their best to torture me. Over the past few years, seats have become increasingly smaller. While a couple of inches of decreased width and leg room may not seem much, they were deducted from already tortuously tiny seats. If you’re a petite little thing, it may hardly matter. But if you’re six feet two inches tall and weigh close to 250 pounds, every inch counts. While it’s possible to survive being cramped for a two hour flight, try the same seat on an eight-hour flight to Europe.

Don’t hold me to it, but I read somewhere recently that Americans on average are three or more inches taller than they were 100 years ago. And surely you’ve read that an increasing percentage is obese or at least pleasantly plump. So, of course, everyone recognizes this by making everything smaller.

Airplane seats are only the most notorious example of the world getting smaller while we get bigger. Automobiles are also getting smaller. I own what is now considered a full-size sedan. It’s just fine for the front seat passengers. If, however, you have to carry some folks in the back, you have to adjust the front seats far forward, thus scrunching yourself so close to the steering wheel that your head almost touches the windshield.

In 1948, I think it was, my father was able to finally buy a postwar car. He wanted to buy a Buick, but he would have had to pay a high premium above list because new cars were still scarce and Buicks were then the Cadillac of the middle class. He settled for a Mercury. Even so, the back seat was so capacious that I could not reach the back of the front seat with my legs fully extended, and I was tall for my age. To get the same kind of room nowadays, you would have to spend big bucks on the largest Mercedes, or even bigger bucks on a Rolls or Bentley.

While most of them are hideous architecturally, I can almost understand why people are moving to the far reaches of civilization so they can afford a bigger house or “McMansion” as they are derisively called by the urban sophisticates. An affordable house in Chicago is likely to be a bit on the small side. I remember years ago looking at a townhouse development and thinking the interior looked reasonably spacious. Then I noticed that the furniture in the model was actually about two-thirds normal size. I hadn’t realized that such stuff existed; perhaps it was manufactured by the Lilliputian Furniture Company.

Back to the airlines. At present, they’re making a pile of money, what with the current decline in the cost of fuel. But apparently, they want to pile it up for future eventualities, so they have decided that if you want a real seat, you’ll have to pay extra. The “one percent” still gets to cavort with Champagne in their giant seats up front, while the 99 gets squeezed in the back, although you can pay extra to get back the two inches the poor slobs in the far back have lost. Why hasn’t Bernie Sanders taken up this cause? Maybe he’s flying first class?

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Pesky Facts 

By Patrick F. Cannon 

One of the hallmarks of our recent political discourse is that many people prefer not to let actual facts sway them from their cherished opinions. I am indebted to David Brooks of the New York Times, our most rational conservative voice, for pointing out some of the following.

While most Americans accept that there are probably something like 10 million illegal immigrants currently in the country, they also seem under the impression that the thieving and raping hordes continue to pour across our border (you know, the one that Mr. Trump wishes to beautify with a wallier wall). In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, more Mexicans left the country from 2009 to 2014 than arrived, to the tune of 140,000. As Brooks points out, maybe Trump wants the wall to keep them from leaving? You know, he does own quite a few golf courses. Would you care to guess the nationality of the folks who maintain them?

Then, there is the question of the criminals and rapists. Here are some more facts to ponder:

• Approximately 1.6 percent of immigrant men between the ages of 18 and 39 end up in jail.
• Three percent of their native born neighbors are in there with them.
• If you’re born in this country and lack a high school education, you have an 11 percent chance of ending up in jail.
• If you’re from Mexico or Central America, with similar educational attainment, you have less than a 3 percent chance of being a burden on the taxpayer.

It seems hardly necessary to point out that this is a country of immigrants. My own father was born in Ireland. The people who came over on the Mayflower were themselves immigrants, after all. And legal immigrants, many from Asia, tend to be highly educated and able to make immediate contributions to our growth and prosperity.

That’s why it’s so sad for me, an independent conservative, to see the great Republican Party turn itself into a contemporary version of the 19^th Century “No Nothing” nativist party. If it survives that long, how will it appeal to a country that will be minority Caucasian by 2044?  It should remember that its first president was Abraham Lincoln, who had been a Whig, a once thriving party both in this country and Great Britain. The Whigs died because they were no longer relevant. It is well to remember that history can repeat itself.

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Don’t Touch that Table! 

By Patrick F. Cannon 

I’ve been watching Antiques Roadshow since it first aired in 1997. From time to time, I’ve also watched the British original when it has occasionally popped up on the Bravo or Ovation channels. It started in 1979 and is still going strong.

In case you’re not familiar with the format, people haul their (hopefully) valuable antiques and collectables to a local venue, where experts from various fields (furniture, art, ceramics, dolls, toys, etc,) either confirm or dash their hopes. Most episodes have a surprise or two, like someone finding an old picture in grand dad’s attic that turns out to be a Winslow Homer water color worth $100,000.

People will discover that some antiques are worth more when they look shiny and new (porcelain, for example), but that others had better show their age.

“This is a fine bronze, beautifully cast. But you shouldn’t have cleaned and polished it, for the market demands patina, and even though it’s by an acknowledged master, it’s only worth $10,000 instead of the $50,000 you could have gotten.”

“Can I ask? Was it refinished at all? Ah, I was afraid so. It’s a common mistake, unfortunately. If it were dark and dingy as one would expect after 250 years, it would probably fetch $500,000 at auction, but…”

If you’re a regular watcher, these quotes will have a familiar ring. I’m sure many viewers have looked at that old desk that Uncle George refinished for them a few years ago and broken into tears of regret. Oh my God, what have I done?

I suppose there are good reasons why the experts prefer the dingy to the clean. For one thing, it presumably makes it easier to date the piece. They like nothing better than pulling drawers out, turning things over, and muttering about oxidation, primary woods and the lovely gloom that generations of dirt and grime can produce. Being an expert on the effects that coal fires and candle smoke can have on finishes gives them an edge over the hapless layman, after all. And it’s certainly true that today’s craftsmen can produce superb fakes of anything done by masters of the past.

So, if you have an old piece of furniture or a bronze (or any number of things) and have had it cleaned , repaired or in any way refurbished, you’re probably sunk, even though it might look absolutely lovely to the uninitiated.

Why am I troubled by this? Probably because I find myself wondering what the original creator of the piece in question would think of today’s passion for dirt and grime. Would Thomas Chippendale really be happy to see a chair, upon which he lavished so much attention, now dark with the pollution of the ages, and with threadbare upholstery to boot? Somehow, I don’t think so.

After finishing the chair, he would have stained it in the shade he or the customer wanted, and then added some varnish for protection. If he came down from the cabinet maker’s heaven today and saw it covered with dirt and discolored varnish, does anyone doubt that he would be appalled? I should think he would immediately roll up his puffy sleeves, strip off the dirt and old varnish and restore it to its original glory. “Why,” I’m sure he would think, “would anyone want a dirty old chair?”

When an artist finishes something – whether painting, statue, chair or building – it seem to me that it looks the way he wanted it to look forever. While the artist may have had some vague feeling that nothing actually lasts forever, he is unlikely to lose any sleep over it, since life was and is short. He moves on to the next project and hopes for the best.

If you’ve been in any of the world’s great art galleries, you’ve surely looked at paintings so dark with age that significant details are no longer visible. I can assure you that the artist who painted them wanted you to see and appreciate the smallest detail. If they remain uncleaned, the artist’s intentions have been lost.

On a more personal note, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio in Oak Park, Illinois, where I have given tours for many years, has the dining room table and chairs he designed for it. Some years ago, Wright’s widow, the exotic Olgivanna, donated the table and six chairs to the now museum. They were refinished to the original natural Oak shade. Later, two additional chairs were sent on permanent loan by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. They are as nearly black and they can be, standing in sharp contrast to the others. As the Foundation still owns them, their decision to leave them alone must stand.

If Wright would come down from Olympus (where he surely resides) and visit his old house, would he not say: “If I wanted those chairs to be black, I would have painted them black! They better be refinished the next time I see them!”

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Turn of the Screw 

By Patrick F. Cannon

(I recently found this piece, which I wrote for a magazine 30 plus years ago. I think it still says something about the human comedy.)

It is one of life’s truisms that if you go up a ladder with a screwdriver to remove, let’s say, a drapery rod, you will find – as you sway back and forth – that you have brought a regular screwdriver when, in fact, all the screws have Philips-heads.

So it’s back down the ladder and out to the kitchen to root through the tool drawer. There will be no Philips-head screwdriver, even though you own three of them. Regular screwdrivers will, of course, abound. So will various hammers, hundreds of nuts an bolts (none of which will match), odd pieces of sheet metal of no apparent utility, nails either too large or too small for any earthly use, tubes of pipe joint compound that will have disappeared by the time you need them, rusty razor blades, two cores that once held electrical tape, a full roll of masking tape that won’t come off in pieces longer than two inches, various pieces of string that might someday be tied together to wrap a package, worn out sandpaper, a wrench too small for the next pipe that bursts, three blown fuses and copious amounts of the kind of fuzz usually associated with pants pockets and cuffs.

You will ultimately discover – when it’s too late – that one of the Philips-head screwdrivers is in the backyard, hidden in the grass, waiting to be chewed up by the lawnmower. Another is in the glove compartment of the car. The third is in the pocket of your son’s winter coat, now hanging in the cloakroom at school. He will not recall why he put it there.

Muttering, you will go back up the ladder with the wrong screwdriver. The passage of an hour will find you sitting quietly, staring out the window. Your color will be returning, the sweat drying on your forehead. When you wife walks in the door, she will start to greet you, think better of the idea, and proceed to the liquor cabinet. You will resolve for the hundredth time to make sure that tools are returned to the drawer after each use.

You will, of course, be lying to yourself. Some things, after all, are beyond human control (and understanding, for that matter).

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Let’s Encourage the Others

By Patrick F. Cannon

In 1757, the British Royal Navy court martialled Vice Admiral John Byng for dereliction of duty, deciding he failed to give vigorous enough battle with the French in their successful attempt to take Minorca. The British government of the time was in trouble for a variety of reasons, and decided that making an example of poor Byng would show how determined they were in prosecuting the war against their ancient enemy. Byng was found guilty and executed on the quarter deck of HMS Monarch by firing squad, which apparently was less humiliating than being hanged, although the result was roughly the same.

When he heard of this, Voltaire included a similar incident in Candide, where the hero witnesses a similar  execution in Portsmouth and is told that it is good to kill an admiral from time to time “pour encourager les autres” (to encourage the others).

(A small digression. After fighting the French for a thousand years, the British victory at Waterloo ended the military phase of their competition. But old animosities die hard. I remember a television interview with an elderly Church of England Vicar when the Channel Tunnel was being dug. He was asked what he thought of soon being able to get to France in minutes instead of a long ride on the ferry. His response: “why would anyone want to go to France?”)

Anyway, it appears that our own government preferred to levy huge fines on corporations found guilty of financial shenanigans during the late troubles, rather than sending the corporate leaders to prison as a way of “encouraging the others.” Alas, the firing squad is no longer considered an option. It may be that their own sense of guilt in fostering the housing bubble by essentially forcing mortgage companies to lend money to unqualified borrowers had something to do with it. A series of highly publicized trials could well have rubbed both ways. Better apparently to just fine the corporations (thus sticking it to the stockholders) than send the guilty executives to jail.

An investment banking firm with a trillion dollars or so of assets hardly misses 4 or 5 billion, and probably gets to write it off its tax bill anyway! How much more satisfying it would have been – both to most Democrats and Republicans – if a few of the worst offenders had been sent away to join the legendary Bernie Madoff in the Federal pen “pour encourager les autres.”

No wonder that other famous Bernie, the venerable Sanders, has gained so much traction with young people and left wing Democrats (who yearn wistfully for the final triumph of Marxism).  They see the fat cats getting a slap on the wrist, while the poor shmoe who gets caught dealing a bit of weed gets years of hard time. Some of them, of course, did lose their jobs, but how many of them actually lost their ill gotten gains?

I’m for the absolute minimum of financial market regulation, but when the laws that are on the books are broken, the culprits should be dragged to the quarter deck just like the unfortunate Admiral Byng and made to understand that the rule of law applies to everyone. I’m OK with fining their employers too, because they almost certainly looked the other way as long as the profits kept rolling in.

Finally, I should make it clear that the financial markets generally work just fine, Bernie Sanders to the contrary. The tendency to demonize whole groups for the misdeeds of the few is a regrettable feature of our recent public discourse.

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Mistaken Perhaps, But Evil? 

By Patrick F. Cannon

I can believe that President Obama made a mistake in forcing through the Affordable Care Act without making a serious effort to accommodate the ideas and concerns of the Republican members of Congress. Had he done so, perhaps many of the obvious failures of the act might have been avoided.

One might also question his handling of foreign policy, particularly as regards Syria, and his tendency to use executive action to get around the gridlock in Congress on immigration and gun control.  At the very least, it smacks of a kind of “I know better” arrogance. But nearly everything he’s done is consistent with his essential political philosophy, i.e., progressive liberal activism.

While I might not agree with most of his policies – in fact, I strongly disagree with much of what he has done – my opposition is on purely political grounds. I do not hate President Obama. I’m able to make a distinction between the policies and the man. The man has a wife and kids, and loyal friends, just like most people. He has a dog, always a plus with me. If we broke bread, it’s likely we would find things in common as well as areas of disagreement. You know, just like your friends. Or do your friends have to march in lockstep with you and your politics? Is that all that matters?

If you listen to conservative talk radio, or watch the pundits on Fox, you might be forgiven for thinking that all the President really cares about is screwing over you personally. He’ll begin by taking your guns, and then force you to like illegal immigrants, abortionists and gays. After that, he’ll grab your dough and give it to the undeserving poor.

This kind of partisan hatred is, of course, nothing new. George W. Bush got pretty much the same treatment for this two terms (what President would actually want to serve more)? In his case, the attacks came from the hard left; insert MSNBC for Fox, and Bill Maher for Rush Limbaugh. Bill Clinton was a special case with his sexual peccadilloes, but presidents before him really didn’t have to undergo the same level of demonization that seems to have become common in the age of partisan 24-hour news outlets and the internet.

It’s far too early to say what history will make of either Obama or Bush. It’s only fairly recently that we have come to really understand the malignancy of Andrew Jackson, for example. Other bad presidents (but not necessarily bad men) include Tyler, Buchannan, Pierce, Fillmore, Grant, Harding, Hoover and Carter. Aside from Jackson, it’s hard to summon up much hatred for any of them. Grant and Harding, for example, trusted people they shouldn’t have. And Hoover was a great engineer, but a lousy economist.

Of the presidents who have served in my lifetime, I can summon up genuine animus for only one: Richard Nixon.  And even he has some apologists! So, let’s save our hatred for terrorists and the creators of reality television.

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

Would You Believe It? 

By Patrick F. Cannon

Before the Guinness “Book of World Records”, the shabbier supermarket tabloids and the more dubious television “magazine” shows began to feed our apparently insatiable appetites for the bizarre and just plain goofy foibles of people and things, about all we had was that old standby, Ripley ‘s “Believe It or Not.”

Ripley’s oddities (the man himself died in 1949) always seemed to be the product of simpler days and simpler tastes. A typical entry might read: “John S. Tiresome, inventor of the tire patch, never learned how to drive!” or perhaps (and these were especial favorites): “Farmer Jones, of Hicksville, Illinois, has a cow with six legs and two heads!”

This would be illustrated with a drawing of the cow, with Farmer Jones in proud attendance.

How did Ripley find these gems? Well, aside from the historical stuff (Napoleon, only five feet three in his stocking feet, had to use a ladder to ascend the Imperial Throne!), I guess people just dropped him a line. I imagine that if I went to the barn one morning and found such a cow, I’d want to tell someone.

But the new purveyors of the bizarre are after more adventurous stuff As a result, folks don’t wait around anymore in hopes of digging up a potato that looks like a cocker spaniel, or of harvesting a 600-pound squash. Instead, they try to break one of Guinness’ so-called “world records,” or perform some foolish stunt that will get them on television.

I remember some years ago reading about several men – and one woman -who were trying to break the somewhat dubious record for living (if we can put it that way) the longest time in a cage filled with poisonous snakes. The record was a month or thereabouts. As I recall, a few bites had been recorded, but no actual deaths had occurred among the lunatics involved (no word on the health of the snakes, however).

Alas, Ripley was not immune to these hijinks. I remember one entry (this one actually appeared) that showed a young couple looking at a great white orb, with the following caption: “A baseball owned by Gloria and Mike Carmichael of Alexandria, Indiana, is 55-3/ 8 inches in circumference and weighs 180 pounds – over a period of three years that have added 10, 000 coats of paint. ”

Now, I don’t know about you, but I can’t even begin to imagine what would possess anyone to take brush in hand and start painting a baseball. And then keep right on painting. Or, why anyone would care whether or not someone had managed to create the world’s largest Jell-0 mold; or indeed the largest cheese cake, a pizza ample enough to feed Kalamazoo, or a string of  jellybeans that stretches from Paris to Rome.

In many cases, these stunts are the result of some publicist’s fevered imagination, or the belief of some citizen of India or Bangladesh that breaking a record will confer an immortality surer than religion. But all they really insure is that someone lurks somewhere ready to sleep with snakes for just one day longer, or create an even bigger tuna casserole.

Oh, how I long for farmer Jones!

(P.S. I just noticed that the new edition of the Guinness Book of World’s Records is high on the New York Times best seller list. Oh, and you can find Ripley’s web site and see what amazing stuff they’re still unearthing.)

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon

What is Art, Actually?

By Patrick F. Cannon

In his opinion in a case involving the definition of pornography, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote (in part): “I shall not…attempt…to define…hard-core pornography…but I know it when I see it…”

I wonder if he would have said the same about art, that most subjective of human endeavors?  I can imagine a prehistoric man looking at cave paintings and exclaiming to the struggling artist: “You call that a deer? Looks more like a cow!” And the critics have been at it ever since. I’m old enough to remember the reception Jackson Pollock got for his abstract expressionist drip paintings in the 1950s. “Why, a monkey could do that,” the average Joe said, whereupon some enterprising person got some chimps together with cans of paint and canvasses and, lo and behold, they produced their own brand of Abstract Expressionism.

You could check out the chimps paintings on the evening television news or in the movie newsreels (this was the 50s, after all), and chuckle along with the rest of us. But the folks who bought Pollock’s tortured musings eventually sold them for millions, while all the chimps got was some bananas.

Now, I’m not a fan of Pollock or the other Abstract Expressionists like Rothko and DeKooning, but I can appreciate there is a great difference between their paintings and the efforts of those who thought they could do the same thing by flinging paint against a canvas. While we may not like the results, we can see the skill and hard work involved in producing it. If, for example, you look carefully at one of Rothko’s apparently simple color-field paintings, you’ll see how carefully the paint is applied and how the different colors are related one to another. All of these artists were academically trained. They knew how to paint realistically before they chose another path.

So, my first rule for fine art (as opposed to “outsider” art, primitive art, or the art of spray painting squiggles on other people’s property) is that it is not done by amateurs. Fine art is intended, and is done by trained professionals.

In the 400 years or so since he wrote it, thousands of actors have played Shakespeare’s Hamlet, many admirably, but in the end it is the play that is really the thing. Thus, my second rule: art must be produced by an individual, not a factory.

Although he is not alone, Jeff Koons is perhaps the best living example of the factory approach to art (he owes a great debt to Andy Warhol). He has been unabashed in saying that he is the “idea” man who leaves the actual creation of the work to his employees. Thus, he decided it would be amusing to have balloon animals blown up to giant size and executed in colorful metal instead of latex. Sounds ridiculous, and is to me, but Koons sells this stuff for millions of real dollars, while the clown at the birthday party probably is lucky to get a hundred bucks for amusing the kiddies with balloon animals.

Contrast this with Rembrandt laboring over a sheet of copper to produce an etching. In some cases, we have various stages showing how he worked and reworked the plate until he finally got the effect he wanted. The end result – let’s say of his series on the Crucifixion – is both complex and emotionally powerful. And let us not forget that he had to do it all in reverse so that the print would present a positive image on the paper.

Many of Rembrandts etching plates were never destroyed; so impressions continued to be made after his death. But even an impression from his own hand might be bought for tens of thousands of dollars instead of tens of millions. A better bargain in every way, it seems to me.

And yes, I have heard the argument that many Renaissance artists had assistants who did some of the work. True enough, but what they mainly did was prepare the canvas or board, mix paints and sometimes paint in backgrounds, and then only for large-scale commissions. And I suspect no one helped Velasquez paint his famous portrait of Aesop, whose model is thought to have been an entirely human local beggar.

(I should mention that images of the Aesop painting and others mentioned here are easily found on the internet.)

About Koons, I could eventually be proved wrong. In 400 years, he may be as revered as Rembrandt is today.  Fashion in art is a funny thing. We now revere the somewhat overexposed Impressionists, and have largely forgotten their far more successful French contemporaries, much of whose work has been consigned to storage or the walls of small provincial museums.

I thought about those once famous artists when I recently visited the Art Institute of Chicago to view the new galleries of contemporary art, including many works recently donated by Stephan Edlis and Gael Neesson. It occurred to me that they were wise to donate these works at the height of their value, thus maximizing their tax benefits. I think it would be a safe bet that in 50 years some of them will have found their way to the Institute’s storage rooms.

I visited between Christmas and New Years, and it was interesting to see the reactions of the larger than usual crowd. Many were families with children, and it was amusing to see parents trying to explain abstract paintings to their confused children. The reality: the paintings usually have no meaning beyond the viewer’s personal reaction. What possible deep meaning could there be in an Ellsworth Kelly triptych of three squares of color?

Looking at it reminded me of the Pantone color system, which includes numbered color swatches of seemingly every possible shade of every possible color. Graphic artists and designers use the system to specify to a printer, for example, the exact color they want. Each has a number, and I suspect you could find a Pantone color to match each color that Kelly has chosen.

Which leads me to my final rule: the more human the art, the finer it will be. I have already mentioned Velasquez’s Aesop, whose subject convinces us that we are looking at a man whose experiences could indeed have resulted in the wisdom revealed in his fables. A late Rembrandt self portrait will also reveal a man who has suffered but nevertheless prevailed. Something of the same humanity has been revealed in the contemporary works of artists like David Hockney and Lucien Freud.

I mentioned the Impressionists. Their landscapes represent a human response to what they saw in the natural environment, as did the paintings of predecessors like Turner and Constable.  Now, if we didn’t know that Jackson Pollack was a tortured, neurotic alcoholic – and see his paintings as a reflection of his struggles – what we would think of them?  And what would we think of Rothko and Kelly if we knew nothing about them? But does it matter what we know of Velasquez when we look at his masterpiece, Las Meninas?

If you have seen this painting at the Prado in Madrid, you will have seen the work of a committed professional, who has stamped it with his particular vision. The human subjects are revealed to us as Velasquez saw them, with all of their qualities exposed. How different it is from Pollack, Rothko and Kelly. And in every way, it seems to me, finer.

While this essay has discussed painting, the qualities of professionalism, individuality and humanity are equally relevant to the other arts. You may not agree with me that these are the most important qualities of any work of art, but if you value the arts – and not everybody does – than you should at least have a set of standards by which you can judge them.

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Copyright 2016, Patrick F. Cannon