Among the many reasons why a regime would wish to eliminate all knowledge of antiquity and the insights ancient writers offer is the desire to shield the subject masses from anything that might make them uneasy. We might view it as a kindness on the part of the ruling class.
In the off chance that this screed might be read by people who do not already know the score, I ask such imaginary readers to imagine a visit from Jefferson or Twain or Mencken or even some reasonable politician like Robert Taft or Sam Ervin, who asks us to take him on a guided tour of these United States. We might begin their tour by taking them to see New York or San Francisco or Chicago or Portland, in fact to any major city in to witness the complete breakdown of law and order, sanitation, and public decency.
We are honored to be able to publish this fine essay by Randall Ivey, well-known novelist and essayist, on the once-famous Texas writer, William Goyen.
These two poems of Lionel Johnson, included by his friend William Butler Yeats in a little volume of 20 Poems of Lionel Johnson, attest to Johnson’s deep sense of the sacred.
Of the first generation of top Hollywood directors—Griffith, DeMille, Stroheim, Walsh, Curtiz, Chaplin, Dwan, Fleming, Brown, Lubitsch, Sternberg, Ford, Borzage, Vidor, Keaton, Hawks, Wellman, Capra, McCarey… W(oodbridge) S(trong) Van Dyke II (1889-1943) is the most unjustly forgotten and underrated.
“So,” Charley said after a pause, “the purpose of art—at least in the sense that you are using the word—is not simply to have an effect on the audience or reader, even if the effect is good?”
I brought up movies only because many of my favorites have a fair amount of violence in them, and you seem to be lumping violence with pornography.
“You’re getting a little carried away. Next you’ll be telling us there are wrong flavors of ice cream or saying “no meatballs with spaghetti.” Yeah, I saw the movie.”
How could we possibly talk about movies as art, if we don’t agree on what art is. It would be the same as talking about movies without knowing what a movie is. And, if everything depends on how we feel or on what gives us pleasure, then there is no basis for discussion.
