I wrote something about this at http://www.mansizedtarget.com.  This does beg a question that should be fairly important to conservatives:  What is the purpose of art?  How did it (and so much else) go wrong?  How, being where we are in time and place, restore a normal art and a normal, viable, strong, and stable society?

Mr. Roach:

Much more can be said, but my short answer to your important question is that the best way to restore normal art and a normal, viable, stable, and strong society is by returning to the Christian beliefs that gave birth to our civilization and animated the greatest art the world has known.

Sam Francis put the Piss Christ’s in perspective.

http://www.samfrancis.net/pdf/all1994.pdf
Go to April 94 or Page 31,

The less said about Miss Shvarts by me the better, save that Ivy League art has finally reaached the level of Ivy League theology and football. “Piss Christ” is as flat, banal and inspid as any WPA Post Office mural--and I can’t remember anyone ever saying so in print.  Mapplethorpe was a talented photographer.  At least, his photos document the life of tricks and trades, is anything but gay.

The important point about this incident is that it is an outgrowth of a worldview that permeates our elite institutions.

As shocking as this behavior might be, it is the perfectly predictable, logical outcome of lefty abortophilia.

Ideas do have consequences. Some ideas it turns out lead to beautiful truly human art and some, it turns out, lead to young girls giing themselves abortions in their bathtubs.

The blood frys in my veins when I read of such behavior. Am I a real man or do I
need sensitivity training ?

“...the best way to restore normal art and a normal, viable, stable, and strong society is by returning to the Christian beliefs that gave birth to our civilization...”

Wow! Finally, a solution. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Really, Tom, we’re far past the point where repeating fifty year old truisms is helpful. Here’s what we really need (and I challenge the writers at this website to provide it, although I suspect none are capable): actual, viable, on-the-ground directions for implementing this prescription. We all know Christian principles need to be restored, both in our laws and in the popular mind, but HOW EXACTLY do you propose we do that?

The reason we don’t have a movement is that we don’t have a message. (The knight-in-shining-armor-is-coming-any-day-now message died with Ronald Reagan.) Come up with practical, workable solutions and we’ll have the message to fuel our movement. Short of that, this is all mere pud pulling and hand wringing.

Mr. Newland:

If you think my comments are “pud pulling,” that’s fine.  When you come up with a “actual, viable, on the ground directions” for what we should do, please let us know.  I know we will all be eagerly awaiting your directives.

Here’s what we really need (and I challenge the writers at this website to provide it, although I suspect none are capable):

Mr. Newland. I am capable. Pay attention.

If you are a Christian, find, court, and marry a Christian woman. Have children and raise them as Christians and send them out into the world to do the same.

It really ain’t complicated.

I think your problem is thinking some program is necessary. A program is not necessary. A person is necessary.

A Divine Person. Jesus. He is The Way. He is The Truth. He is The Life.

“normal art” is an oxymoron.

Tom:  Thanks for the informative, yet saddening, post.  For the past 100 years or more our arts have degenerated into the sad state of affairs that we have today.  It used to be that the arts had a secondary function, other than “art for art’s sake,” such as beautifying churches or homes, glorifying God or religious stories, and depicting historical narratives and European heroes.  In America’s consumer-driven culture, however, the arts are relegated to tax-payer funded foundations run by the post-Marxist left.  It is no surprise that they produce such offensive drivel.  But anyone COULD engage in artistic projects.  Religious leaders today build massive churches (seating 5,000 - 10,000 people), which resemble a cross between an arena and sports bar.  Why not build aesthetically pleasing structures and hire artists to beautify them?  Have we become so crass?

I read the article and there is no mention of this persons political ideology.

There is no verbal response to such behavior. What that woman needs and deserves is to be burned at the STAKE. In any decent society, that is precisely what would happen.

In fact, find this in the article: But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts’ project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock.

Lousy biased journalism Tom.

Who did Jesus burn at the stake Zirmak? Dont you become just as bad as this person when you do such a thing? She obviously needs mental help and is a very confused person.

RE: Mr. Maruska,
I agree that not enough Right-thinking people are willing to make the sacrifices needed to succeed in the arts. I don’t know whether my own minor privations count, but I’ve lived for almost a decade on less than $1,000 a month pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in English, honing my fiction, screenwriting, verse and creative non-fiction. If I’d been more talented, no doubt it wouldn’t have taken as long to hone my craft as a creative writer. But I wouldn’t trade what I learned in those years for an additional $100,000 in my 401k. On the other hand, I’m still single. I don’t know whether those skills were worth missing out on fathering a large family....

Jet:

If you seriously doubt that a Yale art student whose “art” project consists of having herself artificially inseminated ‘as often as possible’ and then inducing miscarriages is a leftist, I know of a bridge in Brooklyn that is for sale.

She obviously needs mental help and is a very confused person.

Obviously? According to whom?

Yes, in any sane society, this woman would at least be incarcerated.

Of possible interest is this piece in Slate:  http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/04/17/adventures-in-the-yale-art-department.aspx

While admitting that Shvarts’ project is “weird and gross” and speculating that it is a hoax, the author admits that Shvarts’ project “treads some familiar Karen Finley, Robert Mapplethorpe-esque ground.” The author also places Shvarts’ project in the context of a Yale Art Department that encourages “young aritsts, particularly young female artists” to “take themselves, and their work, very, very seriously,” and states, “I’m glad Yale inculcates that kind of earnestness.”

Just makes me glad I didn’t go to Yale.

Well, I’m glad I went through the belly of the Beast, and gave it a good case of heartburn--emerging with a degree that helps me fight against it and all its works.

But Jet is right that I got a bit carried away, trying to “immanentize” the eschaton. I’m not in favor of EITHER open borders or burning witches (two doctrines frequently drawn from the same section of Deuteronomy). Better to leave the judgment to the end, when:

“...the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, they shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Apoc. 21:8.)

John:

As a Yale alum, you should let your alma mater know what you think of Ms. Shvarts and her art.  And you are proof that good people do go to Yale.

But I am reminded of something I read about the difference between Pat Buchanan and William Buckley, with the author saying Buckley wanted to reform Yale and Buchanan wanted to bulldoze it.  I’ve always been with Buchanan on this one.

Hoax.

Yale Students Art Project Only Creative Fiction: http://www.nysun.com/news/national/yale-students-art-project-only-creative-fiction

Sorry, try this:

http://nysun.com/news/national/yale-students-art-project-creative-fiction

Dear Tom,
I could never bulldoze such lovely Gothic buildings. Indeed, the best thing about the place (apart from the odd professor such as Jaroslav Pelikan) was the architecture, which itself taught me a love for the Middle Ages and its civilization that I never would have picked up from the hideous modern buildings of a place like the (otherwise admirable) Ave Maria University. Beauty has consequences.

Dear John,

Point taken.  And Jaroslav Pelikan was a great man.

There’s only one place for, and one thing to do to, this woman:

immediately institutionalize her.

James:

Thanks for the update.  One wonders what “ethical standards” the Yale spokesman thinks Ms. Shvarts would have violated if she had been telling the truth about what she did.  If one believes that abortion is a woman’s choice, it is hard to see a principled basis for objecting to the sort of thing Ms. Shvarts told the world she had done.

Thank God it’s a hoax. As it stands, even a sick joke of this kind is on the same order as the appalling sub-genre (which I read about in The Village Voice) of “Holocaust Porn.” I won’t give any details, but they’re along the lines of what the disturbed Mr. Mosely (of Formula One fame) is alleged to have engaged in. Abortion porn is only the next logical step. And that’s what this “art” project amounts to. This sick witch should be expelled, if Yale is to be worth pissing on should it catch fire.

John:

Yes, I hardly see how Shvarts’ current claim that she was lying before exonerates Yale.  The Yale spokesman piously declared that Shvarts had a “right” to engage in “performance art.” In what possible sense does what Shvarts did constitute “art?” And from whence does this mysterious “right” come?

Yale was founded as a semuinary because Harvard became too Heterodox. Now look at it.
Not that I should make fun of them, having gone to Patrice Lumumba on the Hudson, otherwise known as Columbia.

She mocks what can be a horrific, terrifying, heartbreaking, and life-threatening experience and this is considered art at Yale?

Also, I am missing the need to “draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.” Has not nature defined the function of the human body?

With resident George Bush as an example of a Yalie won wonders why anyone would want to be associated with the place. On the other hand Jaroslav Pelikan does offset a lot of sins.

It was the MBA program that Bush brings discredit to.

Yale gave JFK an honorary degree and as I recall he said he had the best of both worlds, a Harvard education and a Yale degree.

And the plot thickens and sickens:

http://yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24528

“...But Shvarts reiterated Thursday that she repeatedly use a needleless syringe to insert semen into herself. At the end of her menstrual cycle, she took abortifacient herbs to induce bleeding, she said. She said she does not know whether or not she was ever pregnant.

“No one can say with 100-percent certainty that anything in the piece did or did not happen,” Shvarts said, “because the nature of the piece is that it did not consist of certainties.”

This afternoon, Shvarts showed the News footage from tapes she plans to play at the exhibit. The tapes depict Shvarts — sometimes naked, sometimes clothed — alone in a shower stall bleeding into a cup.

Pia Lindman, Shvarts’s thesis adviser, and Davenport College Dean Craig Harwood could not be reached for comment Thursday. Art Director of Undergraduate Studies Henk van Assen deferred comment to the Yale Office of Public Affairs. “

Well, ya’ll got punked!  Mr. Piatak, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Yale and do-gooding “christian” anti-aborts. Six of one, half a dozen of another.

I’ve never understood how someone can claim to be a libertarian and be opposed to abortion. But then I don’t understand how anyone can be a libertarian and a “christian” or any other religionist either.  You either bow down to no one, or you grovel before the sky god.  You can’t have it both ways.

If you believe in self-ownership, you cannot promote state ownership of the body. But as an anarchist, not a libertarian, I’ll let you guys fool with that one.

I love Taki, but oh you boys!

James:

Thanks, again, for the update.  The plot “thickens and sickens” indeed.

A Yale student’s bizarre art project in which she claimed to have repeatedly impregnated and induced abortions in herself is a work of “creative fiction,” the university said in a statement this afternoon.

Poor Tom…

Jet:

If you had bothered to read the useful updates helpfully provided by James, Ms. Shvarts is saying that she did repeatedly inseminate herself and that she did take abortifacients, but that she does not know if she was ever pregnant.

Appears to be a hoax

http://www.nysun.com/news/national/yale-students-art-project-creative-fiction

Tom, what part of “Sokaled” don’t to understand ?

As the epatered party you may now challenged Ms Shvarts to a pie fight, but along with a barely passing grade in conceptual art, she gets an A for successfully transgressing the boundaries of credulity. Mencken would love it.

Mr. Seitz:

Shvarts doesn’t deserve an “A” for anything.  She either attempted the serial murder of her own children, or is a publicity-seeking liar.  What she did is not “art” in any reasonable definition of the term.  Indeed, the only thing she “transgressed”
are the standards any civilized institution would uphold.  I agree with Yale alum John Zmirak:  she ought to be expelled.

Actually what Shvarts did was make a cultural critique.  She got just the reaction she wanted:  both sides squicked, for which she deserves an A.  You really need to lighten up.  As I earlier wrote, you either believe in state ownership of the body or you don’t.  Or maybe it’s just the female body that needs to be owned.

As I earlier wrote, you either believe in state ownership of the body or you don’t

Yes, you wrote it. And you were wrong each time you wrote it.

1st Corinth 6.. For know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body.

M. Greiner:

I agree with Dietrich Bonhoeffer on abortion:  “Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.”

And murder is not something about which we should “lighten up.”

Some of us are not Christians and do not subscribe to 1 Corninth. 6 or the great Sky God. Should we just shut up and breed for your God and “His” country? 

Are you arguing that the State is bound by Christian principles to coerce pregnancy in the unwilling? Forced breeding, of course, is not limited to so-called Christian states.  It’s one of the hallmarks of the totalitarian state. Nazi Germany, the FSU (especially under Stalin), Romania, and fascist Italy all demanded breeding for the Homeland.

Is the US a secular state or the great Sky God’s possession? Can the state intervene in the private affairs of its citizens in God’s name? Is one’s fertility the business of the state?  If the state can stick it’s nose in such personal issue what else can it stick its nose in?

“Some of us are not Christians and do not subscribe to 1 Corninth. 6 or the great Sky God. Should we just shut up and breed for your God and “His” country?  “

If you are going to stay the way you are 1) yes, you should keep your stupidity to yourself, and 2) you aren’t likely to breed anyway.

Thank you, Mr. Seitz, for revealing where you stand on the culture wars.  You have validated the generally negative impression I got of you from your articles supposedly about science.

First part of the last post was to Marley Greiner.

M. Greiner:

One need not be a Christian to be opposed to abortion.  The basic reasons to oppose abortion are a mixture of simple biology (a new and unique human life begins at conception) and elementary morality (killing another human being is wrong).  And yes, of course, the state may intervene to defend life, which is why every state outlawed at least some abortions before the Supreme Court’s twisted misreading of the Constitution in Roe v Wade.

Of course, we now know why you have no problem with Ms. Shvarts’ “art.”

Strict constructionist (in the Constitutional sense-I hope he shares my dim view of Bolshevist Cubism as well) that I esteem Mr. Piatak to be, I look to him to see that document amended before he invokes its aegis on behalf of any faith’s agenda.

If ‘Caper’ wishes to assign me to Mencken’s side in the culture wars, it is his First Amendment prerogative to so presume, though I think he gives me too much credit.

Mr. Seitz:

There is no need to amend the Constitution each time the Supreme Court misinterprets it.  Under Article III, Section 2, Congress has the power to restrict the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court (and to abolish all inferior courts).  Congress also has the power to impeach justices and judges, and issuing an unconstitutional decision, as Roe v Wade was and is, is a proper grounds for impeachment.  Republicans in Congress have not used these powers with respect to abortion because the GOP finds it convenient to hide behind Roe v Wade, as I’ve argued here:  http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/is_john_mccain_really_pro_life/

I don’t quite understand your comment about religion, either.  The fact that my views on abortion are informed by my religious beliefs do not make them illegitimate, nor would they make illegetimate any properly enacted legislation inspired by those beliefs.  The ACLU’s interpretation of the First Amendment has more in common with the French and Bolshevik Revolutions than the American Revolution. 

This is how Chief Justice Story, the chief constitutional theorist of his day, explained the purpose of the First Amendment:  “The real object of the amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance, Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.”

I agree with Chief Justice Story, and not with the leftists who have perverted the First Amendment to advance what Story termed “infidelity.”

Mr. Piatak:

“Of course, we now know why you have no problem with Ms. Shvarts’ “art.”

Actually, I believe that Shvart’s
“art” (in itself) is stupid. Personally I prefer Titian, Bruegal, or even Holman Hunt--something that looks like something and is aesthetically pleasing.  That Shvart succeeded in her attempted cultural critique is evident, though, since you, along NARAL neer-do-wells and other Big Government hacks got so upset. You got punked. It happens to us all.

To carry your every sperm is sacred argument to its logical conclusion, all those embryos currently stored in infertility clinics, for instance, should be kept on ice indefinitely, They are “life”, according to you, but they do nothing useful; only set in their little containers and wait for Godot. One might even consider them a sort of preborn welfare cheat since they just take up space demanding rent. Their chief purpose is to heft up the checkbooks of the infert industry.  Do you argue that all these little lifers should be implanted in willing (or unwilling) American wombs or in the future, in artifical wombs to enable them to come to God’s fruition? Where do you stand on forced breeding?  Is it the state’s right, Christian or otherwise,, to force it’s citizens to reproduce.

“State interest” is a weak liberal argument.  It should not override personal ownership. If you disagree with that, then you should also promote the draft, collective farms, forced community service, and eminent domain.

Mr Caper:

“If you are going to stay the way you are 1) yes, you should keep your stupidity to yourself, and 2) you aren’t likely to breed anyway.”

(1) so much for freedom of thought

(2) But under your scheme, I’d be forced to breed if I were unfortunate enough to oops.

M. Greiner— You would be restrained from forcibly murdering the life within you.  If someone left a child in a basket on my doorstep, I would be legally required to see to its
wellbeing until such time as someone could take it away safely.  It takes nine months in the case of an
unborn child before the child can be removed from the body without it dying.  The life of someone else trumps
your personal autonomy.  Especially when it’s your own child. 

How does it violate the First Amendment to ask (as a private citizen) that someone else who persists in
obnoxious views keep them to himself or herself?  I didn’t say the law should oppress your speech (though
the First Amendment does in fact admit obscenity laws, and pro-abortion speech is obscenity).

Mr. Seitz, it seems that you’re the one who has been fooled.  As noted above, the woman really did do the
project she described.  She simply does not know whether she was pregnant or not.  So horror and disgust are
fully called for.

M Greiner:

No one is being forced to reproduce.  A person engaging in sexual intercourse is engaging in an act the natural consequence of which may be pregnancy.  If a person chooses to engage in intercourse, he is also choosing to accept the consequences of that action.  Once another human being comes into existence as a natural consequence of the sexual act, no one has the right to destroy that other human being.

Mr. Piatak:

You seem very hung up on the “sacredness” of sex.  Is this some sort of carry-over from ancient fertility rites.

If you maintain that women be forced to carry an embryo to term, then you are arguing in favor of coerced breeding backed by the force of the state. If the state can own your fertility it can own anything.

If someone wants to procreate, fine.  Let them do it Don’t expect others to follow suit--or to pay for their lifestyle choice.

Where did I say anything about the 1st Amendment?  Does does “freedom of thought” only pertain to legalisms?

Abortion is an ancient practice and will not go away despite the best efforts of you, Flip Benham, Troy Newman, Rusty Thomas, Joe Scheidler, Patrick Johnston, Mark Harrington, Frank Pavone FRC and their ilk on the so-called other side:  NARAL and Planned Parenthood. They all want the same thing: control. 

Abortion can be performed with a Bic pen.  It can be done through various herbal concoctions--even parsley.  Do you propose to ban pens and herbs?

M Greiner:

I am not hung up on anything.  Simple biology teaches that human life begins at conception, and elementary morality teaches that killing other humans is wrong.  It’s really that simple. 

As for coercion, there is no coercion if two people voluntarily engage in sexual intercourse and one of them becomes pregnant. If you don’t want to be “forced” to breed, use contraception.  Of course, contraception sometimes does fail, so if you want to be absolutely sure you’re not “forced” to breed, don’t have sex.  Your quarrel is with nature, not me.

M. Greiner:

These will be my last words on the subject.  Please consider to what irrationality your
views have led you.

“Abortion is an ancient practice and will not go away despite the best efforts of you, Flip Benham, Troy Newman, Rusty Thomas, Joe Scheidler, Patrick Johnston, Mark Harrington, Frank Pavone FRC and their ilk on the so-called other side:  NARAL and Planned Parenthood. They all want the same thing: control.”

Abortion is ancient and nothing will end it completely.  Agreed.  Rape has also happened from
time immemorial and nothing will completely end it.  Oppression by tyranny has gone on since
antiquity and nothing will fully end it.  Lots of things have gone on from time immemorial
and can never be totally eradicated and yet it is the job of decent, moral people to oppose
them as they can.  You say you are an anarchist—haven’t states existed from antiquity?
And nothing will ever end them.  The appeal to antiquity and to inevitable recurrence do not
prove that abortion should be tolerated, anymore than the antiquity and inevitable recurrence
of other forms of murder, of rape, of tyranny prove that those evils should be tolerated.

“Abortion can be performed with a Bic pen.  It can be done through various herbal concoctions--even parsley.  Do you propose to ban pens and herbs?”

Also a stupid argument.  Murder can be committed with knives, with household cleaners, with
guns, with automobiles, and I wouldn’t ban those things.  But I still would prosecute people
who commit murder with such things.  And I would prosecute people who perform the murder of
abortion using a Bic pen or with herbs. 

“Does does “freedom of thought” only pertain to legalisms? “

No one has a moral right to spout idiocy.  We should moderate what we say.  If you use your
discourse with others to better yourself and others, you should do so.  If you mis-use that
right, then you should (morally) remain quiet.  That is why I stipulated, IF someone persists
in obnoxious views THEN they should shut up.  IF they use discourse to advance toward the
truth, THEN they should continue.  This moral imperative to use speech correctly (not to abuse
the legal right) is what I appealed to.  It is indeed over and above legalism.  But even at the legal
level, obscenity may be banned under the First Amendment.  So even the law admits the moral
requirements of how to use speech.  If you think that people ought to use freedom of speech to
say vile, hideous things and encourage vile, hideous practices (I mean in general, without saying
abortion necessarily falls in this category) then you are simply amoral.  In which case, I ask you either
to reconsider.  And if you refuse, please do not bring it up again. 

Please reflect on how irrational your argument is.  That shows how irrational your
fundamental position is.  God be with you.

Caper:

Just what vile and hideous statements have I made? I’ve been polite and civil. You’re the one who is going off. I dare say in other forums such as Usenet you might be chopped up into bite-sized cubes.

One question:  how would you prosecute someone who used a Bic or herb to abort Chances are you’d never even know about it since these are done in the privacy of one’s’ own home. Or do you propose to monitor the purchases of all women of reproductive age

Mr. Paitak:

Again, does the state own the body?  I’m not looking for a Biblical response.  I’m looking for a legal secular response.  If the state does own our bodies, I hope you enjoy your tenure in some future middle east foray, because you won’t have a thing to say about it when you get your marching orders. As for me, I’ve got my escape hatch ready.

M. Greiner:

The state may proscribe abortion, and the state may enjoin conscription.

Mr. Patiak:

But the state still has the power. What needs to be destroyed is state power over liberty.

If you want to sign up voluntarily, fine. But if the state enjoins conscription you have no alternative but to be shipped off to serve. Are you willing to do that?  Conversely, abortion is a voluntary matter.

What needs to be destroyed is state power over liberty

Particular State power is what has secured liberty in America.

Free men electing representatives who legislate against abortion is an example of political liberty exercised and is an action perfectly consistent with the 9th and 10th Ammendments.

Your personal ideas about liberty are neither normative nor likely to find a sympathetic ear at this site.

Of course, those facts will not dissuade you.

The Declaration of Independence must be a constant thorn in your side.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

I Am Not Sparticus:

(1) No, people secured liberty,not the state.

(2) I love the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but remember that the Declaration holds no legal weight. It’ trotted out on the 4th of July. BTW, one of my ancestors signed it.  Do you actually believe that “free people” elect legislators? That we are governed by consent?  I sat through 2 1/2 hours of a painfully boring committee hearing the other day at the Ohio Statehouse.  All but one of the witnesses for 6 bills were business/industry or professional lobbyists representing power and money.  The one person who testified on her own was greeted by amusement. Why might that be? 

There are quite a number of comments at TakiMag with whom I generally agree on lots of issues--even you. The reason I started to come here was because of my great admiration for Taki and Justin Raimondo.  Hey, I even like Paul Gottfried much of the time.  This is not a forum limited to evangelical and Catholic Christians. Or Randians for that matter.

“Tom, what part of ‘Sokaled’ don’t to understand ?
As the epatered party you may now challenged Ms Shvarts
to a pie fight, but along with a barely passing grade in
conceptual art, she gets an A for successfully transgressing
the boundaries of credulity. Mencken would love it.”

Ha ha ha, another fabulous bit of wit from Mr. Seitz, that
scourge of pious Neanderthals.

I especially enjoyed the word “epatered”.

Now if that don’t signal a scientifically-literate man with a
dry, wry sophisticated sense of aristocratic humor, I don’t know
what does.