I was told by my super-educated very snobby art curator friend not to do this post, so of course I will. Recently I went to see the Societe Anonyme exhibit at the Phillips Collection here in DC. It was great! Modernism is very cool for a lot of reasons, not just because it’s neat to look at. This Wiki entry is a veritable who’s who of great thinkers of the last few centuries, and we’re still enjoying the result of their thought and activism. Some of what Modernism wrought was truly evil, and some of it brought us closer to the goals all good liberals strive to accomplish. I’ll let you all discuss the specifics, but I did have a thought or two about art and politics and technology today.  Read more 

I’ve got a guest in town, so light blogging for a couple of days. But I wanted to tell everyone to go to the National Galleries when you have the chance. To my shame, every time I came to DC before moving here, I was always too busy with protests and parties to take in any culture.  Read more 

So I had a nice afternoon with an area blogger who went with me and a friend to see the Josephine Baker exhibit at the Smithsonian. I had a couple of thoughts while there.

Inky Oceans have been spilled on the woman, and I’m no expert by any stretch of the imagination. But I came away from the experience feeling very much “la plus ca change…” First off: so did she enjoy some gay sex or not? You wouldn’t really be too clear on that from the exhibit, which made little sense to me in this very gay town and with all the gay people who were there (like, 70%). They mentioned how she was a “groundbreaker” in terms of race, gender and sexuality, but left out the details for the last part. Um, why?  Read more