Drawing Lines

On page 48 of February's Vogue is a full-color ad

of a kneeling, bare-shouldered beauty applying fire-

engine red lipstick. Her lips are slightly parted and

her wide-open green eyes look directly at the camera

with a caught-in-the-act expression.


On page 49 of this two-page ad is a knees-to navel

shot of a blue-jeaned man wearing a distressed leather

belt whose concave metal buckle gauzely reflects the

face of the woman. The camera angle is centered

directly on the man's crotch. The woman is so close

that her brown hair touches the man from navel

to knees. Her red lips are inches away from the man's

jeans zipper.


The ad served its purpose, I stopped leafing and

paused on it. The photos are such close-ups that

it takes a split-second to sink in. I laughed, it was

so direct.


The ad was not for lipstick, nor for men's jeans, but

for Belvedere vodka. I laughed again. I have written

here previously of the the ever-diminishing line between

fashion and sex photography. I like both a lot but am

jarred when I see the latter so prominent in the former.

If I'm reading a fashion magazine it is not for sexual

stimulation. When I'm looking at porn I'm not interested

in what the women are wearing, or could be wearing.

There, I'm looking for crotch shots.


In Washington I attended the Annie Liebovitz exhibition

at the Corcoran Gallery. She is a good photographer

and her work often appears in Vogue. At the entrance to

the exhibition, at the top of a staircase, was a full-length,

full-color nude of Cindy Crawford from her super-model

days. My girlfriend thought that she was stunningly

beautiful. I did too, but not in the same way I think an

Ansel Adams photo beautiful (there was an Adams

exhibition at the Corcoran too). The photo of Crawford

was sexually stimulating. I was too embarrassed to

look at it closely, as one would a piece of "art."


At least the subject matter of the Crawford photo was

beautiful. Not so of the--many--nude photographs of

a near-death Susan Sontag in the Liebovitz exhibit. I

didn't enjoy the Liebovitz exhibit at all.


This morning I was again leafing, through the January

28 issue of The New Yorker. The "Talk of the Town"

article is on the romance and impending marriage of

French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian actress/

bombshell Carla Bruni. France, of course, has always

had very...tolerant...attitudes toward sex and infidelity,

even among its political leaders. The Sarkozy-Bruni

affair however has not played well. Part, because

Bruni is tacky, and the French are not tolerant of the

tacky. The New Yorker article is written by Adam

Gopnik and it is so well-written that it deserves to be

quoted directly:

"The Italian model and singer, who has been

around several blocks, many of them touristique,

in her career--Mick Jagger and Donald Trump

have both been mentioned--took up with the new

President last fall, and was photographed with

him at Disneyland Paris and Luxor, among other

places."


Donald Trump and Disneyland Paris. Those are

two strikes of tackiness right there, and the French

smell a rat, the rat of infuriating American tackiness,

in the whole thing. The French press,

"has struggled, with subtle semiotic hints, to place

[the affair] linguistically in the right geography:

L'Express, in its cover story on the pair, called

Sarkozy 'Le President "People" (with the word

'people' in English, so that nobody would miss the

point)..."


In a reversal that further exasperates the French, the

American press has covered the story as one typically

French. "Zey are a funny race," is how Gopnik sums

up the American reaction.


The lines between Fashion and Art (sophisticated) and

pornography (tacky) are blurred, but real, and at the

intersection is Sex (enjoyed, celebrated, but sometimes

tacky). Each of us draws these lines in different places,


and where we draw them depends on our attitudes


towards sex. I enjoy porn but only in private; it's

like going to the bathroom. Both involve natural,

inescapable bodily needs, but I close the door when

doing both because I am embarrassed by both. When

I'm in the mood I don't see anything tacky about porn;

I feel only the incredible sexual high of seeing the

women. But when I see a porn when I'm not in the

mood I see only its tackiness, and turn away.


Having sex has always, of course, thrilled me, but

also depressed me. "Third base is best," I read a

woman write recently. "The best sex organ is

the mind," someone else has written. Imagining

sex with a woman who has caught my eye is

breathtakingly exciting. Getting aroused by

the sight of desirable women several times a

day becomes tedious for me and distracting.

I've got other things that I want to do and my

sex drive interferes. Then there's shame again.

I feel puerile, I feel guilty at reacting to a woman,

often a colleague or friend, so one-dimensionally.

Having sex (on the few occasions I have) with

a woman my mind has lusted after, has usually

been anti-climactic, both figuratively and literally (I

usually don't climax). Having the woman's body

has seldom been as good as imagining her body.


For many people, wonderful though sex can be,

it can become dull quickly. My girlfriend, a

(young, beautiful, blond) marathon runner,

summed up this conundrum with this priceless

statement to a married friend of ours, about sex

with her ex-husband (and undoubtedly me

too):


"Sex for me is like running a marathon. I dread it

happening, enjoy it when I'm in it, and never

want to do it again after it's over."


I, and, as my girlfriend's statement indicates,

others, struggle with where to draw these lines.



Drawing these lines is the ambitious work of the

(American) painter John Currin. Calvin Tomkins

writes about Currin and his angst in the same issue

of The New Yorker as does Gopnik on Sarkozy-Bruni.


For some time now, Currin has used pornographic

images taken from Internet sites as the subject matter

for his paintings. He does not seem to know clearly

why he does this. He says that he was motivated by

the furor of Muslim reaction to the Danish cartoons

of Mohammad last year, of the shock of the Western

world's reaction to that reaction, but particularly by

The New York Times refusal to reprint the cartoons

and its defense of Muslim defensiveness. So using

pornographic images as subjects for his painting

became an act of defiance. The reader is not alone

if he fails to see the exact connection. Tomkins, a

Currin admirer, writes,

"When I asked how [the cartoon controversy]

tied into his making pornographic paintings,

Currin talked about low birth rates in Europe,

and people having sex without having babies,

and pornography as a kind of elegy to liberal

culture, at which point I lost the thread."


I don't get the sense that this is yet another shallow

artist attempting profundity where there is none, of

muddying the waters to make them look deep. Currin

is struggling to understand what he does and what

motivates him. He's unclear because drawing the lines

between art and pornography is so difficult, and

because the difficulty has to do with his attitudes

toward sex.


Currin experiences the guilt over the women in his

pornographic paintings and other equally prosaic

emotions. He has painted his wife's face into other

traditional portraiture. Tomkins, for one, seems eager

to see Rachel in some porno paintings with her "wide-

set hazel eyes, pearly skin, heart-shaped face...long

bare legs." Easy for Tomkins to say about someone

else's wife, but Currin won't do it. "At one point,

I thought of using Rachel's face there, but I decided

against it. The humiliation of the narrative is not

something I want to put her face into." Like one

who enjoys viewing porn, Currin feels guilty about

the women, but also embarrassment at his own

pleasure, "I'll keep myself as the only person

humiliated by this painting."


Currin experiences the difficulties in drawing lines

in every way. He is mesmerized by Woman:

"He sees women as different beings, some kind

of embodiment of creativity, of life and beauty,

all these strange emotions," says Rachel. "The

male-female issue is a constant battle for John

and me." Rachel has never experienced the

unnerving sensation of seeing a beautiful girl

or woman, and being stopped in one's tracks.

It's a guy thing, Rachel you wouldn't understand.

It is not only a constant battle between Currin

and his wife, it's a constant battle within Currin.

That is what he is trying to work out in his art.


Like many modern women, Rachel Feinstein asked

John Currin out on a date first. Like many modern

men in that position, Currin refused. "He was sort of

taken aback." For Currin, this disconcerting reversal

of traditional male-female roles reoccurred when they

finally did go out.

"I went to see him in his studio first. He had placed

two chairs so we could look at his paintings, but I

turned mine around so it was facing his. 'I'm not

interested in the paintings,' I said, 'I'm interested

in you.' " So how to think of Woman, or women,

if you're a guy today? Currin won't paint his

wife's face into one of his porno paintings, but

maybe his wife wants him to, but won't say

because she feels guilty.


The couple struggle over whether to hang one of

his porno paintings in their apartment. They have

two young boys. "What's that?," their three-year old

asked. "That's a vagina," said Rachel. "Ewww," said

boy.


Currin is mortified at what his parents reaction will

be to the paintings. "Is it really bad?," Currin's mother

asked Rachel. When told the painting showed pene-

tration Currin's mother responded, "Oh, good grief."


Both mother and father attended the Gagosian

gallery's opening of their son's work. Tomkins

writes, "Anita steered a quick course around the

room, avoiding the worst examples. Jim headed

for the gallery's terrace..."


The commonness of these feelings do not

render common Currin's attempt to deal

with them. Commonness is another word

for universal and Currin is struggling with

that universal, and if that is not a worthy

goal for an artist then nothing is. This is

Public Occurrences.

True Crime Stories: Confident Murderer

Dear Murderer,

You killed one person, got away with it, and

then killed again. You are probably going to

get away with this murder too. You know that,

I know that, and you know that I know that.


You were cocky in court today. If you are

acquitted, don't bother killing witnesses as

you have in the past. I have kept you in jail

for almost five years. Come after me, punk.


You think murdering a drug dealer and getting

away with it shows how smart you are. Kill a

prosecutor and try to get away with that. Come

after me. I will even keep the dome light on in

my car when I drive home at night to give you a

better shot. You know who I am, I am Benjamin

Harris.

Islam in its Own Words: The Koran, Part One-Unbelievers

This is the first sentence in The Koran:

"This book is not to be doubted."
This establishment of infallibility is then followed, all on the first page, by these statements against unbelievers.

"As for the unbelievers...grievous punishment awaits them."

"There is a sickness in their hearts which God has aggravated: they shall be sternly punished for the lies they tell."
"And when they are told: 'believe as others believe,' they reply: 'are we to believe as fools believe?' It is they who are the fools, if they but knew it!"

"When they meet the faithful, they declare: 'we, too, are believers.' But when alone with their devils they say to them: 'we follow none but you: we were only mocking. ' God will mock them..."

On practically every page that follows in the entire book is similar castigation of everything and everything that is non-Muslim:

"Give us victory over the unbelievers." 3:148

"Believers, if you yield to the infidels they will drag you back to unbelief and you will return headlong to perdition." 3:148

"They follow nothing but idle fancies and preach nothing but falsehoods." 6:110 

"...Who is more wicked than the man who denies the revelations of god and turns away from them?" 6:157


"Who is more wicked than the man who invents a falsehood about god or denies his revelations?" 7:34

"Their prayers at the sacred house are nothing but whistling and clapping of hands. 'Taste then the scourge, because you disbelieved.' " 8:31


"The basest creatures in the sight of God are the faithless who will not believe..." 8:51


"God and his apostle are under no obligation to the idolaters." 9:1


"How can you trust them? If they prevail against you, they will respect neither agreements nor ties of kindred. They flatter you with their tongues, but their hearts reject you. most of them are evil-doers." 9:6


"Believers, know that the idolaters are unclean." 9:27

"Be they men or women, the hypocritesare all alike. They enjoin what is evil, forbid what is just, and tighten their fists." 9:64


"Have you not seen those who repay the grace of God with unbelief...in hell shall they burn." 14:29

"The day will surely come when those who disbelieve will wish that they were Muslims." 14:3

(first published here May 14, 2003)

True Crime Stories: 90% Boredom, 10% Horror

On routine patrol, a uniformed officer noticed a

blood- stained, naked man carrying something in

his hand,walking alongside I-70, in broad day-

light. Reasonable suspicion established, the officer

pulled over and stopped the man. As the officer

opened his driver's door, the man threw a

severed human head at him and into his police

cruiser.


Later, the man's headless girlfriend was

discovered in their apartment, wearing a tee-shirt

with the lettering, "Sticks and Stones may break

my bones but Whips and Chains excite me."



The man was adjudged legally insane. The

officer went on temporary leave and received

psychiatric counseling. This is Public

Occurrences

American Civil War Anecdotes

"GET DOWN, YOU DAMN FOOL, BEFORE YOU

GET SHOT!"

-A Union 6th Corps captain to an insouciant civilian who kept exposing his head to get a look at the action at Fort Stevens, July 12, 1864. The captain was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., later Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The unrecognized target of his injunction was Holmes' commander-in-chief, Abraham Lincoln. (James G. Randall and Richard N. Current, Lincoln the President: Last Full Measure, cited in McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom.)

Fatigue Makes Cowards of Us All

For two months in late Spring 1862, General Thomas J.

"Stonewall" Jackson repeatedly out-thought, out-

maneuvered, and out-generaled the Union army

in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Jackson's

performance there is still studied in military

colleges.



Shenandoah "created an aura of invincibility"(1)

around Jackson and his troops, and General Robert

E. Lee aimed to capitalize on that aura immediately.

He intended to surprise Union troops in the area of

the Chickahominy River "and he knew whom he

wanted to lead the attack: Jackson." (2)



Lee's plan called for coordinated action by his

generals. Jackson was to attack early in the

morning of June 26. Early morning came and

went and even at noon Jackson was

nowhere to be found. Finally, in late afternoon

General A.P. Hill acted for Jackson, and took

tremendous casualties. "Jackson's three

divisions were only a few miles to the north,

but their commander made no effort to hasten to

Hill's aid." (3)



Lee planned another coordinated attack the next

day "but once more Jackson was slow getting to

position and lethargic in attacking." Again, A.P.

Hill's troops had to step into the breach.


On June 29, Lee planned an assault on paranoid

Union General George B. McClellan's flank, but

"yet again--Jackson's slowness frustrated Lee's

efforts." (4) Lee had ordered Jackson to cross a river

and attack McClellan "but Jackson dawdled all day

rebuilding a bridge instead of fording the river." (5)



"Next day another of Lee's complicated plans for...

an assault...near the village of Glendale came to

grief." (6) Only General James B. Longstreet--and

A.P. Hill--were able to get their troops moving.

Not Jackson. When Union soldiers prevented his

men from completing a bridge over a river "Jackson

lay down and took A NAP." (7) "Seemingly in a trance,

[Jackson] did nothing while Longstreet's and Hill's

men bled and died two miles to the south." (8)



Jackson, of course, has been savaged by historians for

all of this, which occurred during what has become

known as "The Seven Days Battles," but what was the

cause of this strange behavior? Jackson was one of

the most audacious, battle-hungry generals in the

Civil War. He is rightly celebrated as one of military

history's great generals.



James McPherson, from whose book Battle Cry of

Freedom all of the above quotes come, believes

in this prosaic explanation: Stonewall was tired.

McPherson writes that Jackson generally

"seemed to need more than an average amount

of sleep" (9) and had gotten much less than

his required allotment during the Shenandoah

Valley Campaign.



We often discount that great people are first, people.

They have the same needs as we all do. Robert E. Lee

said that "under ordinary circumstances the Federal

Army should have been destroyed" during "The

Seven Days Battles." It wasn't, because Stonewall

Jackson needed his rest. This is Public Occurrences.


1. Battle Cry of Freedom. James McPherson, p.460.

2.Ibid, 464.

3. Ibid, 465-466.

4.Ibid, 468.

5. Ibid, 468.

6. Ibid, 469.

7. Ibid, 469. Emphasis added.

8.Ibid, 469.

9. Ibid, 466.

China's Great Wall of Silence: Letters from China

to: publocc@gmail.com

date: Jan 9, 2008 6:33 PM

subject: thanks

mailed-by xu3331@hotmail.com


Hi Mr. Harris, thanks for your hard working on China's

culture revelotion. Xu

.....

The emails that I receive on this subject

mean a great deal to me.


-Benjamin Harris, J.D.

China's Great Wall of Silence: A Letter from China

Entitled A Few Words from the Heart, below are

excerpts:

Mr. Harris:

I got your response and I read it again and again;

so you are a prosecutor...

Belated justice, if achieved at all by political means

as per nature of government in China,can't really

compensate I guess the emotional anguish and suf-

fering of yesteryears...Yes, I am proud to take a

stand on this matter because the hollowing experience

did help to form an important part of my life's journey.

Actually, I think the reach of what we are talking

about is very deep and universal indeed.

...

I shy from communication [because] the fear of real

terror in the environment, in the world around me is

still real - or real in my head, fully qualifying the

existence of terror struck so deeply so many years

ago by a government that seemed mad.

Feel free to email: publocc@gmail.com

American Civil War Anecdotes

"Look at them Yankee sons of bitches, loading

their guns under water! What sort of critters

be they, anyhow?"

-One Confederate soldier to another, as Union troops swam across the Chattahoochee River. During their swim the Union soldiers realized that they could load their waterproof metal cartridges underwater, then pop up, empty the water out of their carbines and fire. (A. Hoehling, ed. Last Train from Atlanta cited in James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom.)

China's Great Wall of Silence: Song Yaowu Plays Hard to Get.

Song, you tease.


About three weeks ago, I called you twice at your U.S. phone

number, and both times you had your phone connected to

your fax machine. PROBABLY OUT WITH ANOTHER MAN!


Today, after I got home from work, FOR PROSECUTING

CRIMINALS FOR MURDER, I noticed that I had two missed

calls from you. My heart skipped a beat. Then, about forty-

five minutes later you called again. With quavering voice,

I answered, "Benjamin Harris." You didn't hang

up immediately, because you were unsure what to do, but

after about two seconds, I heard, "click." I called you back but,

coquettishly, you had put your phone on fax mode again.



Song, don't you see, it's inevitable? We were meant to be.

Jilted suitors everywhere feel my pain and, like all of them

who are successful, I will never give up.


Love,

Ben

China's Great Wall of Silence: Song Yaowu and Liu Jin Back Together Again!

Ahh, the warmth of the holiday season.

These party girls include Song Yaowu

(second from left), and Liu Jin (third

from left). That dynamic duo were

lead singers of that red-hot chick band

of 1966, The Red Guards!



Song and Liu made their first hit in an

impromtu afternoon jam session at

their all-girls school on August 5. They

left their audience screaming and crying.

One witness to their performance, Bian

Zhongyun, even died of high blood pres-

sure brought on by the excitement! That

night Song and Liu got to meet the

deputy mayor of all of Beijing in person

to tell him first-hand of the day's events.



The next morning Liu crooned over the

school loudspeaker so movingly that her

audience was left dumbstruck.



But the highlight for the band came less than

two weeks later. Their first public concert was

held on August 18 in Tienanmen Square. Over

one million fans gathered. It was China's equiv-

alent of Woodstock.


Mao Zedong, the astute politician, seized the

opportunity to capitalize on the popularity

of the group. Just before dawn, The Big

Bopper appeared at the concert. Mounting

the gates of Tienanmen, Mao endorsed The

Red Guards new music. Mao and Song even

performed a duet together!


That photo of them, representing China's

past and future, became one of the iconic

photos in Chinese rock-and-roll history.



Mao went on to become a favorite of the

artistic avant guard, such as Andy Warhol.

As for Song, she proved to be no one-hit

wonder! She took her act to the countryside,

before eventually escaping fame to the U.S.

and settling down to become wife, mother,

and geology Ph.D. From rock star to rock

scientist!

But who can forget those halcyon days of

the summer of '66, when The Red Guards lit

up all of China? A few years ago, Song Yaowu

appeared in a feel-good film of that time,

Morning Sun, by friend and rock historian,

Carma Hinton. Ever modest, Song would

not allow herself to be pictured in

Morning Sun. We here at People's

Occurrences, however, are proud to

show Song and Liu again to their
adoring fans.


We love you Song and Liu!


To join the official Song & Liu fan club,

email us at publocc@gmail.com

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PUBLIC OCCURRENCES

This is a photograph of Dr. Lisa Randall from the August, 2007 issue of Vogue. She is one of the most accomplished scientists in the world. She is also the author of the acclaimed book Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions.

Dr. Randall is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Harvard, the first woman ever tenured in

that department. Before that she was the first woman tenured in the Physics department at

Princeton and the first tenured woman in Theoretical Physics at M.I.T. She is one of the world's leading experts in particle physics and cosmology and her work is among the most-cited in all of science.