Starbucks Iconography

To find the now ubiquitous Starbucks symbol, an early company partner, I am told,

poured over old marine books until he came up with a logo based on an old sixteenth-century Norse woodcut: a two-tailed mermaid, or siren, encircled by the store's original name, Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spice. (33).

She became the siren (a.k.a. melusine, mermaid, lorelei) of caffeinated delight, "bare-breasted and Rubenesque... as seductive as coffee itself" (ibid). Starbucks found it expedient to slowly conceal the reference over time - but it's still there, and has even been revived with the Pike Place brew resurgence. Tempting as it may be to use this connection as opportunity for an Utne reader rant on how the seductive corporate monster will lead our otherwise innocent race to shipwreck on capitalist shoals, I have chosen to this time quiet my inner Adbuster and seek a more interesting interpretation:

The siren symbol of course goes much further back than a 16th century Norse woodcut. Aside from their cameo in the Odyssey, sirens often showed up in Medieval Cathedrals where they bear a very close proximity to the Starbucks design.

As one might imagine, these great grandmothers of the coffee temptress were more than just decor. Keeping in mind that sirens seduced to kill, a mermaid with tail spread open was an (not entirely subtle) indicator of the dangers of sexual temptation. Medieval carvers who knew of the popular Bestiaries would have known exactly what they were up to. Explains one art historian,

Sirens, the most common hybrids to be included in Romanesque sculpture, appear frequently in the context of the monastic cloister. The Siren owes its prominence here to Jerome's translation of Isaiah 13:21-22 in the Vulgate: 'But beasts reside there, and their places are filled with dragons, and ostriches live there, and satyrs also dance there; and they respond there with ululations in his places and sirens in the houses of pleasure.' Jerome's own commentary on the passage, as well as those of other Early Christian Fathers, including Ambrose, Augustine, and Paulinus of Nola (353/54-431), popularized the idea of the Siren as courtesan, the symbol of carnal pleasure (volumptas) and lust (luxuria)" (Art Bulletin 2001).

And therefore considering the natural habitat of the Starbucks imagery I make the following suggestion: Every time you see it, remind yourself, as would have medieval audiences, to be on your guard against sexual temptation in all its nefarious guises.

If word gets out on this, considering the symbol's planetary proliferation I predict a chaste earth by 2020.

Off Off-Broadway

Breaking into the New York arts scene isn't easy. Should you wish to venture beyond showtunes and major museums to the interesting stuff, questions inevitably arise: Where do you go? Is it gonna be good-weird or just weird? How much black do you wear? Will you stumble into an art gallery (as I did last weekend) that pummels you with imagery of wounded body parts in the name of high culture? Will you be stereotyped as an unhip heartland flunky with an unironic appreciation for the America video (ht: rpd, video worth the download time)?

Such uncertainties usually means one requires some kind of "this is worth going to" recommendation to justify the expense... and this I can happily provide:

Dog in a Manger ($15 tickets) at Quinnopolis (164 11th Ave. between 22nd and 23rd Streets) has been extended to this and next weekend (Fri/Sat. 8pm), starring none other than a former millinerd herself, ma souer Abbie Killeen. It's a faithful reworking of a Lope de Vega play, spiced up with a reincarnation of the ancient Greek chorus precedent in the form of a singer-songwriter playing 80's hits at just the right times. All characters are superbly acted, two of which are Ken dolls. Weird transfigured into good-weird before my laughing eyes.

Furthermore, if you go this weekend you'll be able to see the once-in-a-lifetime Fra Angelico exhibit just before it closes, and if you go next weekend NJ students ride the train for free.

Any excuses left?

POMOPOWERPOST

Here at millinerd we try to keep you up to date with the those moving beyond the postmodern moment. Not those who move around it, mind you, but those who move through it. Easy it is to find those who flippantly dismiss postmodernity, much more interesting are those who have sufficiently wrestled with its challenges and are happily moving on. It is a task however that is becoming increasingly hard to keep up with. When I first found a thinker that fit the description, I thought it was a rarity. Then it kept going... and going... and going... and going... and going. Until now postmodernity may be becoming a lot like salad dressing: There's no need to buy it again. Ever.

The following are two of the more impressive minds I've come across who fit the post-postmodern profile. Both happen to be Christians (perhaps I'm biased). Those more academically inclined might prefer Hart. Wright, though himself a rigorous academic, may be more accessible. Both, I suggest, are well worth your time.

Continue...

David B. Hart and the Meta-metanarrative
Hart defines modernity as

"the search for comprehensive metanarratives and epistemological foundations by way of a neutral and unaided rationality, available to all reflective intellects, and independent of cultural and linguistic conditions" (3).

A mouthful indeed - but right on. Perhaps because Hart's theology is deeply rooted in Cappadocian soil, he bears little affinity for this modern perspective, and is consequently unruffled by the postmodern critique of it.

"For Christian thought, [postmoderinty] is not by any means a disheartening prospect. For if indeed God became a man, then Truth condescended to become a truth, from whose historical contingency one cannot simply pass to categories of universal rationality; and this means that whatever Christians mean when they speak of truth, it cannot involve simply the dialectical wrestling of abstract principles from intractable facts... Christian thought has no stake in 'pure' rationality to which dialectic seems to appeal - the Christian ratio, its Logos, is a crucified Jew..." (5-6).

Unphased as he may be, the difficulty Hart does have with postmodernity nonetheless appears, but

"not in its alleged 'relativism' or 'skepticism' [the standard critique], but in in its failure sufficiently to free itself form the myths of modernity."

That is - and it is amazing that more people don't realize this - the pomo critique of metanarratives "can easily be translated into a dogmatic metanarrative of its own." Postmodernity is

"the culmination of the critical tradition of modernity... and predicatbly (given its pedigrees), this rigourous soupcon or critical incredulity becomes yet another attempt to extract thought from the quagmires of narrative; it become a meta-metanarrative, the story of no more stories, so told as to determine definitively how much may or may not be said intelligibly by others who have stoies to tell; it completes not only the critical but the metanarrative projects of modernity (which prove to be indistinguishable). This is where the temper of the postmodern often proves wanting in courage and consistency. The truth of no truths becomes, inevitably, truth: a way of naming being, language, and culture that guards the boundaries of thought against claims it has not validated" (7).

This idea of postmodernity as hyper-modernity is certainly not original to Hart, but what is unique to Hart is a compelling reconstruction of a non-violent metaphysics of beauty that follows.

N.T. Wright and the Epistemology of Love
Was postmodernity providential? The Bishop of Durham thinks so.

"Part of the point of postmodernity in the strange providence of God is to preach the Fall to arrogant modernity."

The following are my notes to his extraordinary remarks on the subject (culled mostly from this address, the last of a 4 part series freely available here).

In necessarily critiquing modernity, Wright insists that we will of course find some common points with postmodernity; but as with Paul in his Areopogus speech, we need to affirm, critique and subvert this worldly wisdom. In Christ, not in Voltaire Rousseau, Hegel, or Derrida are found all the treasure of wisdom and knowledge. Although postmodernity was necessary against modern arrogance, on its own it leads to fragmentation - that pick and mix smorgasbord world which declares that all great stories are just powerplays, not least of which those told by postmodernists themselves.

On its own, postmodernity is ultimately a message of judgment and death, of sterile and ironic negativity. Look at the life as well as the thought of Michel Foucault. We agree, says Wright, with postmodernity's negative judgment on modern illusions, while insiting over against particularly Foucault that the resurrection is the ground for a cultural renewal and revival, of which Christians should be in the forefront.

The Way Ahead
But Wright doesn't stop with deconstructing deconstruction. He points the way forward toward a new theory of knowledge, nothing less than what he claims is true knowing. We, especially academics, must allow the gospel to challenge and remake our very knowledge itself, and in doing so we must take on board the full weight of the postmodern critique of knowing. Many who claimed in modernity to be merely describing the world were in fact disguising a power grab. But that does not mean that all knowledge is simply a reflection of our own powergames.

Paul speaks of being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the creator. Although current accounts of knowing privilege the would be scientific knowing, a biblical account of knowing should take love as its basic mode, with the love of God as the highest possible form of knowledge. Think about it, who really knows biology, the scientist who dryly memorizes data, or the one who has the data but is also enchanted with the beauty of molecular structures, and consequenlty loves biology. Love is a form of knowledge. When I love I affirm the differentness of the beloved. Not to do that is lust. When I affirm the differentness of the beloved I am passionately and compassionately involved. We can and must give an account of human knowing that will apply to all disciplines: from science to art, mathematics to music. The epistemology of love is the way of the post-postmodern world, to which we have a serious and joyful commission.

But, says Wright,

"I don't see people pointing the way out of the postmodern morass."

Many close up the shutters and live in a pre-modern world, including some Christians. Many are still stuck in modernity, including some Christans. Many think that picking off the garbage heap of now dated postmodern theory is the best they can do, including Christians.

My brothers and sisters we can do better. The Gospel urges us to be at the leading edge of the whole culture. Articulating in story, music, art, philosophy... even, believe it or not, Biblical studies - a worldview which will mount the historically rooted Christian challenge to both modernity and postmodernity, leading us into the post-postmodern world with joy and humor and music and dancing and gentleness and good judgment and faithfulness and wisdom.

If not now when? If not us who? If the Gospel of Jesus is not the key to all this then what is? Professor Wright concludes with a modest proposal:

"Jesus is Lord and neither modernity nor postmodernity are."

There's also a great closing illustration, but I wouldn't want to give it all away.

Intelligent Salad

You never need to buy salad dressing again. Ever.

Take your lettuce (romaine is nice, plain spinach leaves work too) and add 3 things, and 3 things only:

1. Fresh squeezed lemon (1 tbs).
2. Extra Virgin Olive Oil (1 tbs).
3. Course salt.

(Credit must go to where it's due.) On a special occasion, upgrade to the late Julia Child's unsurpassable recipe, which is, were it possible, but alas, it is... even better.

Thus my cooking knowldege is exhausted.

Intelligent Spaghetti

Hard to believe that I could have started a post about a year ago with the words, "You may or may not be aware of the Intelligent Design debate." The "may not" doesn't quite seem to fit anymore.

Without taking a side on the matter, Mark Helprin recently said quite beautifully that

"...the ability to describe a molecular or astrophysical process does not even touch the skirts of the deepest and most abiding questions. Nonetheless, science is directed at verifiable truth, and despite retrograde ideologies that cling to the scientific establishment, the more that science illumines the darkness, the more whatever is seen appears wonderfully coherent, even if not entirely predictable or comprehensible. Given that the driving force of science since its beginnings has been to discover coherence, though science in its first blush and infancy gave rise to the present nihilistic orthodoxy, science as it progresses may turn out to be one of the engines that overturn it."

Regardless of what you think of Intelligent Design (I.D.), Helprin's snapshot of where science is headed I hope strikes a chord.

Attractive as I.D. may be to the kind of Christians that terrify this nation's preeminent journal of opinion, the movement, I've learned, makes no claims about who or even what this "designer" may be. Its claim is simply that design is the most plausible explanation for facts lately discovered about cell structure that Darwin, in writing, admitted had the potential to impale his theory. The designer, which could very well be the Flying Spaghetti Monster (hat tip: Pat), is another conversation entirely. Those of us of Christian persuasion have our own non-pasta related ideas, but that's belief, not science. And granted science is not hijacked by secular ideology (as it consistently has been), there is nothing from it a Christian has to fear.

It is certainly possible, or not possible, that what we are experiencing is the beginning of the process described in Thomas Kuhn's classic book. He explains that

"scientific revolutions [of both large and small variety] are inaugurated by a growing sense... often restricted to a narrow subdivision of the scientific community, that an existing paradigm has ceased to function adequately in the exploration of an aspect of nature to which that paradigm itself had previously led the way" (92).

But it's still too early to say. Perhaps it's my softspot for Teilhard's intriguing blend of Catholic doctrine and evolution (which I may need to get over), but personally I am as yet not completely convinced of I.D... though I am keeping an open mind.

I know I'm not supposed to. Please, don't tell.

Wooden Allen

Interesting review of Woody Allen's latest which, I fear, leaves my worst suspicions confirmed:

"Allen wouldn't be the first God-haunted artist to struggle at the height of his career with questions of faith and despair that in his later work cease to resonate. Ingmar Bergman, one of Allen's idols, wrestled profoundly with the absence of God in the films of his middle period, but eventually seems to have made his peace with the emptiness of the universe. Similarly, Graham Greene's middle novels are torn by the conflicting forces of spiritual belief and personal immorality, but in his later novels the struggle seems to have drained out of Greene's soul..."

I haven't seen it though. Chose Hoodwinked instead, which was liked by both millinerds. I know it's a "kids movie," but seeing that all the kids were in other theatres, we figured we should try to balance the scales. Writes Thomas Hibbs regarding Hostel:

"Yet, the most depressing and horrifying thing about these sorts of films is, alas, not the explicit gore. It is the fact that at nearly every screening of a gruesome horror film I attend (from Massachusetts to Texas), I see parents in the audience with young children. That strikes me as a serious form of child abuse and a more convincing sign of the impending apocalypse than anything depicted on the screen."

Future, meet art history. Art history, meet future.

Update 1.15.06: And this little gem might help put "Romanesque" in context.

N.T. Wright on Art/Imagination

I've tried to argue before about what Christianity and the arts is not. Much more exciting is the same point made beautifully in its positive aspect, for which I direct you to this speech by super-scholar N.T. Wright (I suggest fast forwarding through the first 12.5 minutes of standard college chapel intro).

Because he actually believes in a new creation, Wright can argue that the job of artists of all kinds is to condition our eyes and ears for that new creation, when the knowledge of God's glory will cover the earth like, as we say in Jersey, "woodah."

Interfaith Dialogue

Is the Reformation Over? asked Wheaton professor Mark Noll.

Replied Wheaton President Duane Litfin, Not yet.

UPDATE: Interjects Raniero Cantalamessa, Define "over"?

The Book of Daniel

Call it a "parting" gift. As the Episcopal Church slowly consummates her separation, she got herself a T.V. show.

I like the Book of Daniel. As for the program, the anti-7th heaven, Denise and I were somewhat disappointed. Shocked? Well, no. It's T.V.

I warmed up to the Jesus bit, which rather than offensive was the redeeming feature. I only wish he had commented more often. Perhaps to the writers themselves. Should we find ourselves at home again on a Friday night, the millinerds will be competing to predict the plot twists in advance. So far we're neck and neck at about 80%.

Cage Match: Kimball vs. Fried

In the mid-nineteenth century artist Gustave Courbet crashed onto the suffocatingly Classical French art scene to ruffle its settled academic feathers. Wrote one art historian,

"Courbet employed a technique alien to the established traditions and audiences for art... For the Realist Courbet, this alienation entailed a rejection of the academic and bourgeois juste milieu and an espousal of the formal principles found in nonclassical and working class popular art" (212).

Courbet was hated for it.

I mention this because that is almost exactly what happened last night, where in a packed house at the Studio School (so tightly packed it was much like a cage), Roger Kimball ruffled the academic feathers of a comfortable theory-laden academy, and was hated for it. But this isn't just a Kimball puff-piece. Do read on.

Allow me to set the stage: The evening, entitled "Courbet Seen Twice," entailed a debate between Michael Fried, a Rhodes Scholar, Johns Hopkins tenured, successful art historian and critic who uses fashionable theories to give his readers ingenious, and I mean ingenious, spins on Courbet's paintings... and Roger Kimball, the non-academic art critic who is attempting to say that, at least when it comes to this kind of academic art history, the emperor has no clothes on. Below I offer a loose transcript of the debate, including the remarks of the woman next to me who seemed generally representative of the room.

Kimball: Kimball begins with a clever (if a bit silly) Powerpoint presentation where he claimed that reading Fried is like reading Where's Waldo?, except the game is Where's Courbet? in all the theoretical kerfluffle. To give you just one example of the excesses that Kimball uncoverd, in his analysis of this painting (which seems like a mere hunting scene), Fried writes:

"We are led to imagine the roe deer's genitals or at any rate to be aware of their existence by the exposure to our view of the roe deer's anus, a metonymy for the rest... I would further suggest that, precisely because the roe deer's anus stands for so much we cannot see - not simply the roe deer's genitals and wounded underside but an entire virtual face of the painting - such an effect of equivalence or translatability may be taken as indicating that the first, imaginary point of view is more important, and in the end more 'real,' than the second" (50).

Kimball's point was that whereas the job of the critic or art historian should be to illuminate a piece of art, writing such as this gets in the way of the art, and such writing is indicative of art history writing today. So much for Kimball.

Woman next to me: While refusing the customary applause, remarks "Supercilious blankhole," very audibly.

Fried: Fried begins his speech by critiquing Kimball for using Powerpoint. Fried switches to slides (despite the fact that there was an four minute delay due to a slide malfunction... no comment), and commences his remarks.

Woman next to me: "Give him hell Michael!"

Fried: In a stimulating and impassioned lecture, Fried convinces the room that his analysis of Courbet actually does have merit (though the deer anus bit goes conveniently unmentioned). The theme that Fried sees in Courbet's ouvre is an entire career of a painter trying to paint himself into his painting, each work being in fact a successively candid record of an artist trying to become art. I actually found Fried's presentation rather convincing, and it was also full of all those great art history lecturer extras, i.e. the vigorous slide-lit gesticulations, anecdotes about privileged behind-the-scenes museum visits, etc. So much for Fried.

Woman next to me: Much applause. "WOOOO!!! Michael!!!"

Question and answer session: First came (of course) not a question but a statement from clearly distraught member of the NYC art-scene. In a beautifully thick accent she announced:

"I have to state that it is a shame Michael for your generous eye to have to be on the defensive like this."

Later, after Kimball said something else about excessive interpretations getting in the way of art, the same woman spontaneously exclaimed,

"Next they'll be shutting down the museums!"

I suppose by "they" she meant the, and yes it did come up, "N" word (that convenient way of both inciting ire and avoiding having to deal with an argument). But through it all Kimball reasserted that he simply doesn't see Fried's interpretation. It's just not there. Boos and hisses ensued from much of the room.

Last question: To close, the moderator kindly asks if the two can find something about Courbet that they agree on. Roger offered the peace pipe and said he liked Courbet's Allegory, but before he could continue was cut off by Michael Fried saying, and I quote,

"There is absolutely nothing Roger thinks, likes or believes that I could agree with."

As I suggested above, and as I'm sure Michael Fried is aware of, similarly nasty things were said about Courbet.

Reconciliation?
But there was something said, I think, that the two men could agree on. At one point in the evening Fried responded to a questioner by saying that wave after wave of interpretive responses to art were permissible,

"granted they are not mere subjective fantasies but get closer [with each successive interpretation] to the truth about the object."

Yes, I imagine both men, in a calmer setting, would be able to sign onto that statement. In fact, such a confessionally un-postmodern utterance sounds like it could have come straight from a Neo-con quarterly. What makes it interesting is that it was said by Michael Fried. It was, I believe, the most conciliatory thing said all evening. There are many in the academy who wouldn't say that, and Kimball's beef should be, primarily I think, with them.

I think Kimball could have conceeded that Fried, at least in what he presented last night, made a rather convincing case. The phase of Western art history that began with Courbet does fast become about painting, and this painting turning in on itself is what ultimately spelled the doom of Western art. Fried then may be right, and if acknowledged, this ingenious indication of Courbet's wrong turn could ultimately serve Kimball's agenda to get back to art as "a source of delectation and spiritual refreshment," rather than just a mirror of itself.

On the other hand, can't Fried see that all is not well in the academy? Doesn't the very thing that Fried sees Courbet doing in his art happen in academic writing, that is, the academician regurgitating her or himself in prose? In an age where in order to critique the scholarly establishment, a detractor is forced to use a pseudonym as in this recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, something is disconcertingly entrenched. And could Fried perhaps admit that there are places where in his writings he went a bit too far (i.e. the deer anus bit) and even a bit contra Courbet? In a statement that surely should give anyone trying to read something into Courbet at least a moment's pause, Courbet announced in 1851,

"I am not only a socialist... but above all a Realist... for 'Realist' means a sincere love of the honest truth" (206).

Perhaps last night was a case of Kimball calling Fried to task, and Fried, without admitting it, shaving off some interpretive excesses and getting back to actually illuminating Courbet, which he did quite well.

And if you'll indulge my M.Div. for a moment, here's a final comment: Fried at one point in the evening made the observation that the attempt for the artist to become part of his art was Courbet's goal, and it was of course a "fundamentally unrealizable" one. Well, it was realized at least once. Might so pitting Courbet against the Incarnation be considered yet another wave of interpretation that "gets closer to the truth about the object" itself?

Merry Twelfth day of Christmas everybody.

Ryan Adams

Happy 2006. But because I'm working my way through the Ryan Adams corpus backwards, here's a 2004 music-related statement:

As much as I like Beth Orton (which is a lot), the greatest contribution she made to music may have been her having dumped Ryan Adams, whose consequent misery made for one hell of an album.

Said Kierkegaard:

"What is a poet? An unhappy man who in his heart harbors a deep anguish, but whose lips are so fashioned that the moans and cries which pass over them are transformed into ravishing music. His fate is like that of the unfortunate victims whom the tyrant Phalaris imprisoned in a brazen bull, and slowly tortured over a steady fire; their cries could not reach the tyrant's ears so as to strike terror into his heart; when they reached his ears they sounded like sweet music [because a reed was fixed to the ventilation hole]. And men crowd around the poet and say to him, 'Sing for us soon again' - which is as much as to say, 'May new sufferings torment your soul, but may your lips be fashioned as before; for the cries would only distress us, but the music, the music, is delightful'" (from Either/Or).

I suppose that means I wish Ryan Adams much suffering and torment in 2006 - and some long overdue acclaim would be nice as well.

And thanks tomtastic for the Christmas present... urr... Denise's Christmas present.